How Zach Earns a Living

In addition to being a tuba/euphonium teacher, Zach teaches a large lecture class called Introduction to Music. It's for non-music majors, mostly freshman getting their general ed. fine arts credit. He recently assigned a little project that involved students writing a short bio on a composer, then listening to a piece by that composer and writing a response. He has been grading these projects for the last few days. With over 100 students in the class, you can imagine that it gets a little tedious, but there are always some that are good for a few laughs.

Example #1 (about composer John Adams)

"This was considered his best piece ever. Out of all of the music he wrote prior to this, this song was the best of them all."

Good thing he explained that...I wasn't really sure what "best piece ever" meant.

Example #2 (about composer Franz Joseph Haydn)

"He was a very well-known composer in the classical period, although he did dapple in the late baroque and early 19th century romanticism periods.
...which is what makes him one of the most famous composers of the 20th century."

Who knew that Haydn lived for about 400 years? And "dappling" sounds fun, whatever it is.

You kind of hope these kids are also enrolled in a good English course, don't you?