Lecture music

October 8, 2015 • 6:27 am

by Matthew Cobb

I was reading the Times Higher Education this morning, and my attention was drawn to a set of articles about how to deal with sullen students. One suggestion, from Tara Brabazon, caught my eye as I had a 10 o’clock lecture this morning. I tw**ted:

Colleagues from around the world goaded me into accepting the challenge, so after much thought I decided to project this tw**et, to the sound of Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust for Life’ (1977), which seemed appropriate for a lecture about speciation and natural selection.

The students seemed amused, though the effect was not as dramatic as Professor Brabazon seems to have found:

One of my students replied, quite understandably:

https://twitter.com/SaraRyding/status/652045438560956417

Whether the students were really oriented into a learning experience as a result, only time will tell.

I invite readers to comment below with a) examples of lecturers exciting and awakening students with music or *shudder* mime, and b) suitably amusing/interesting music that could be used to preface a lecture on a particular topic. So, for example, my next lecture in this series is on Fitness. What should I play before it? Non-biological lecture topics are welcome in the comments, too!

108 thoughts on “Lecture music”

  1. More important, don’t your students know the difference between “its” and “it’s”???

    🙂

    My own anecdote: we used to try to de-stress the students on Final Exam Day by doing a humorous skit accompanied by music before the exam began. The best one in terms of elevating the mood was the “Blues Brothers Theme”, which we played as I, dressed in sunglasses, a fedora, and a lab coat, walked down the aisle accompanied by two large teaching assistants. I had a briefcase strapped to my wrist with handcuffs, a la Jake and Elwood, and in that briefcase were the final exams. With the burly t.a.s, arms folded (also wearing shades, lab coats, and fedoras) flanking the lectern, I opened the briefcase with a key and removed the pile of blank exams.

    The room went wild, and I swear that it made the students far less nervous than they otherwise would have been!

      1. “its”- either never learned proper grammar or is too lazy to text the apostrophe

        “sorry man”- again, no comma and also has a lack of respect for the teacher (“man?”)

        “its 10 am”- lazy; shows he was either up too late playing or thinks he doesn’t have to be, “at his best” this time of the morning: those attitudes will help a lot in the workaday world!

          1. … which was obvious from the name in the tw**t. (That he was a she, that is).

            I think Jeffery is being excessively nit-picky about a tweet, which was probably composed on a phone.

            (I punctuate correctly, typos excepted, when I have a keyboard, but when im sending txts on a phone i find the keypad so fiddly and laborious i just let punctuation go hang)

            cr

    2. I play something up-tempo, from any musical genre (and it is good to mix things up) in the five minutes before lecture, as students are filing in. Some students like fast 50s rock and roll – it is so foreign to them.
      If I am feeling mischievous, I might play the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath!) from Mozart’s or Verdi’s Requiem before the last lecture before an exam. Some students get it, and find it amusing.
      More than once, I have elicited a few smiles (and less stress?) by playing Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World right before an exam: “Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology … Now, I don’t claim to be an A student, but I’m trying to be, for maybe by being an A student, baby, I could win your love for me …”

    4. Wow!! And your students only grade you average as a teacher? What do you have to do to get a good rating: evolve into some mythical creature?

        1. That telle me that you were a much better teacher than those who do give out lots of high marks.

          There’re two ways to give out high marks.

          One is to give assignments easy enough that everybody can perform them well. In an art class, make the assignment be to use a compass to draw a circle. Do that, and you get full credit. But, obviously, this fails to challenge the students in such a way that they learn anything new.

          The other is to push the students, but to reward failure as well as success. But how are the students themselves to know whether they’ve failed or succeeded?

          When I was teaching at a community college, I told the students that I was going to teach the class the same way I would were it at an Ivy League school, and I’d demand the same performance from them. But, I also told them that I recognized that it wasn’t, in fact, an Ivy League school; as such, I wouldn’t grade them on those sorts of standards — though I still critiqued them that way. (And not in a “You’re totally worthless!” manner! I’d always start with everything they got right, try to explain everything they didn’t, and finish by reminding them of everything they got right.)

          I was very proud of the work most of my students put forth. Turns out that, if you demand the best from students, many of them will step up to the challenge.

          b&

          1. “That tells me that you were a much better teacher than those who do give out lots of high marks.”

            That was my suspicion too!

    6. Jerry,

      My respect for you has reached new heights. A Blues Brother’s skit to kick off finals? Awesome!

  2. Sorry, Matthew, there’s nothing you can do. Lecturing is inherently yawn-inducing.

    One of the profs on my doctoral committee used to say, “We don’t teach the way we are taught to teach, we teach the way we were taught.” His point was that modeling is a lot more powerful than lecturing, but it takes more creativity and time, and is therefore usually discarded in favor of lecturing.

    When I became the prof, I tried really hard to minimize the lecture time and maximize the activity and discussion time. That is probably easier to do in the social science realm than in your area, but I found it to be well worth it. L

    1. Speaking as a recent graduate myself, I don’t enjoy the emphasis on “class participation.” I’ve found most professors indulging discussion from the students for 15-20 minutes at a time and it’s irritating.

      Why? Because I paid money to hear the professor, an expert on the topic. I can find plenty of free venues to listen to college students rant and opine. The best professors I had–and the most popular with the students–were ones who were gripping to listen to; passionate, funny, knowledgeable, and engaged with the material.

      I’m not saying students should just sit in mute silence and not ask questions, but taking up valuable class time with 20-minute group discussions… ugh. As much as there’s this classroom culture of “let’s all share our opinions,” there’s something to be said for listening attentively to someone who knows what they’re talking about.

      In my experience, all this class participation has had an odd side effect on some students: they speak up even when they don’t have anything substantial to say.

      1. Any prof worth his or her salt can LEAD a discussion in such a way that it doesn’t turn into what you’re describing.

        In my experience, having a prof who can ask good questions is at least as valuable as having a prof who just lectures.

        It probably also depends on the number of students in the section, the topic at hand, and the level of the class.

        I most valued the ones who helped me think. L

    2. “Sorry, Matthew, there’s nothing you can do. Lecturing is inherently yawn-inducing.”

      You’re right about that. I hate being lectured.

      1. This is a great illustration of differences in learning style.

        John B., above, prefers lecture. You and I, OTOH, are more hands-on.

        It’s hard to accommodate both styles at the same time, but it can be done. L

        1. “but it can be done.”

          Probably. Most teachers just teach the book to me; I don’t need that, because I have the book and can read.

          When I teach a class, I like to approach something controversial or focus on applicability to real life in order to immediately engage the audience. This also helps me, because I can be passionate about that.

  4. I should point out that ALL my lectures have a 2-minute break half way through, which the students appreciate. We all doze off after 25 mins or so, and this allows them to wake up. Interestingly, I have never dared to this when giving a research talk, even though academic audiences are at least as likely to doze off as students… – MC

  5. Makes sense to me. You go to a concert and they’ll play (someone else’s) music before the act starts. Then just before the act starts, the room goes quiet, and that signals everyone to pay attention.
    So whether the music itself is helping them concentrate, I bet playing music and then turning it off when you’re ready to start is a pretty good “time for business” signal.

  6. The End by the DOORS. But I may be getting confused with appropriate music for my wedding ceremony. How bout PEACE FROG by the DOORS!! If the students do not get up and dance during this song, there is no hope for humanity. Or how bout the LOONEY TUNES theme song. Now I am getting warmer. Speaking of which, has Professor Ceiling Cat ever used this? No prize for which character most exemplifies the good professor and which exemplifies d*g!!

  7. In my first lecture of Modern Physics, I start with something soothing, like Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, and I have a picture of an idyllic landscape on the projector screen. I explain that this is physics c. 1899. Everyone thought that physics was “almost solved” and that there wasn’t much to learn. Then I switch the music to Schnittke, Concerto Grosso #3. It starts out innocently enough, almost baroque… but 55 seconds in the shoe drops, the music gets WEIRD and disturbing, and the slide changes to some bizarre Dali painting, maybe Soft Construction With Boiled Beans. I explain that this is now physics c. 1930, and that there’s no going back.

  9. For your talk on fitness, I recommend “YMCA” by the Village People. That should get them dancing, even at 10 am. Or maybe it’s just me.

    1. Play That Funky Music White Boy by Wild Cherry would make a 100 year old dead & buried old school baptist want to get up and move their feet. It is ubiquitous, but for good reason.

      1. Though since we’re probably talking about biological fitness, perhaps (yuck!) “You’re having my baby.”

  11. A lecture on fitness?? The only music that seems appropriate to me is Baby Workout by Jackie Wilson.

    On another note, (no pun intended), song choice can work against you. I find some of Phillip Glass’ music physically unsettling.

  13. Hmm, songs that my current class would probably think appropriate

    National Shite Day
    Girlfriend in a Coma
    Heaven knows I’m miserable now
    Depressed beyond tablets

    1. Oh man (tragic voice). I had a crush on ONJ for a while, prior to that album. But, sweet baby jesus, that song is awful. And when you add the video to it? Words are inadequate.

      Perhaps that would make it a good choice for this though.

    2. Forget ONJ and “Let’s get animal …” How about Bloodhound Gang’s The Bad Touch:

      You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals

      So let’s do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel

  15. Music majors at ASU were, of course, required to take lots and lots of music theory and related subjects. And the freshman classes met at 7:40 AM. And included sight-singing*.

    Yes, the scars are permanent.

    b&

    —
    * For those who don’t know, “sight-singing” is the practice of looking at a piece of music you’ve never heard nor seen before and singing it. Correctly. The very first time. b&

      1. In hindsight, I’m left wondering what Dr. Rodgers did to deserve to have to listen to a roomful of teenaged non-singers try to sing before 8:00 in the morning. I mean, it’s not like it was his fault he was the newest member of the faculty, was it?

        b&

  16. I used to have my 9th grade students act out scenes from one of the books that we were studying just to keep them engaged and (literally) awake. These students were much younger than college age, though.

  17. Way overplayed, but “Happy” by Pharrell Williams has a 24-hour music video that you can go to whenever students nod off. (google: 24 hours of happy)

    “Because I’m happy
    Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
    Because I’m happy
    Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
    Because I’m happy
    Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
    Because I’m happy
    Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do…”

  18. Last week in my Vertebrate Zoology class, the students asked me to sing the “Amphioxus Song“. I had not mentioned the song to them, so I asked how they knew about it, and a student answered that her sister had taken my course some years ago (when I had mentioned it), and had told her. (I hadn’t realized that the song was popular enough to leave an impression that was passed on to later cohorts!) I explained what the song was, and then sang the few lines I knew by heart. However, I was able to quickly locate a full version on Youtube, and played that for them. Since last week, I’ve discovered that Joe Felsenstein, the renowned evolutionary biologist and commenter here at WEIT, is also a famed interpreter of the song, with at least two videos on Youtube. Here’s one of them:

  20. The Patrician’s lectures in “Applied Interrogation” always started with a mime. Until there were no more mimes.
    The course was considered a success.

    1. 🙂

      Vetinari has to be my favourite character. After Death, of course.

      cr

      1. Vetinari vs Death ummmmm death match ?
        Probably a foregone conclusion. But in deference to the ONE man who has the ONE vote, that is only a “probably”.

  22. For a Fitness lecture, how about Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog

    “Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move/Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.”

  24. The professors I liked best were the ones who made me think! You always were free to put forth an opion/idea, but you had to defend it of course. That was true for the ideas of the professors too. To quote the best of them: “Now disagree with me already, I’m not always right just because I’m the professor!” And he really ment it and didn’t get angry. We did research about how to teach environmental awareness. All methods we developed had “Let them find out things for themselves” as the main theme. That was a great class! We even published a book for school teachers, with our own names attached to the part(s) we wrote, with the prof as editor: Ökologisches Gestalten im Ballungsraum (Ecologic Shaping/Action in Urban Areas)

    1. I agree. My favorites were the few who were as excited, sometimes more excited, about learning something from a student as they were by teaching.

  25. I was going to use Square One TV’s “Ghost of a Chance” in my lecture on induction and probability for the CFI logic workshop, but didn’t have the time.

    1. One of my colleagues used to sing The Elements Song to his students and sometimes regale the occupants of his work room with it…

        1. Yes, actually my friend could do it brillantly ( not that many of the students would know G&S from Adam…)

          1. Very difficult to memorise, I would think, because (unlike the word order in the lyrics of most songs), there’s no logical order of the elements in this one. They’re ordered in an arbitrary way.

            cr

          3. Well, in Mendeleev’s table, the order is dictated by atomic weight and chemical properties (and the names themselves are incidental). In Lehrer’s song, of course, the names were placed with reference to scansion and rhyme, but from a point of view of memorising them, they are effectively arbitrary.

            cr

          4. Of course I understand the beautiful order of Mendeleev’s table🐸. It’s Lehrer’s order that seems random.

          5. I guessed you would understand the periodic table (though your reply was a little ambiguous). Lehrer’s order, I assume, would have been dictated by scansion, rhyme and – extremely important in a ‘patter’ song – just how easy it is to say the names rapidly one after the other without getting tangled up in tongue-twister sequences. I don’t think there was any other order in the song (the video I linked to illustrates it visually)

            cr

  28. “I’m not sure what the juvenile in the photo was trying to accomplish”

    This takes me back 50 years. As an undergraduate at UWashington, I worked next to a graduate student who was hand-rearing loggerhead shrikes [about 40 birds over two seasons]. I did some of the feeding when she was in the field.. fun stuffing 20 open bird maws with strips of beef heart.

    Part of Susan’s work with captive birds was seeing if the impaling of prey was learned or instinctive. Around the time of fledging, naive birds would spend quite a bit of time wiping their bills, with or without food items, against branches. The bird in the photo reminds me a lot of the aviary shrikelets. I think the upshot of this study was that shrikes quickly learned how to use thorns [if available] or forked branches to hold prey while they dismembered it with their beak.

    All the birds, incidentally, were released in the Columbia Basin wildlife areas where they were captured.

    1. This comment was meant for the wildlife photo thread following this – too heavy on the scroll, sorry.

      [But the Loggerhead Shrikes were my favorite [leg]band that year!]

  29. For fitness, I recommend, “The Walker,” by Fitz and the Tantrums. They played at Calgary last night before the Flames’ home opener, and were their usual awesome selves at 99 MPH (although it probably should have been 159 KPH).

  30. Eat your biscuits and tea bathed in liquid nitrogen. They will appreciate the labor of having to lick your iced tea the remainder of the class. But the biscuit can be consumed while still cold…you will look like a breathing dragon and they may fear you greatly after this.

    1. Bloody hell, I had no idea the dangly bits could catch so many… things. 🙁

      cr

  32. Since you started them off with Iggy Stooge, why not go to Iggy’s own biggest proto-punk influence, MC5, maybe Kick Out the Jams. The opening lyric will grab their attention from the drop.

  34. Not sure it’s danceable enough, if that’s the key. But evolutionary Fitness as a topic makes me think of Carly Simon’s, “Nobody Does It Better (Baby, You’re The Best)”.

  35. I’d play them Jethro Tull’s ‘Locomotive Breath’. Starts out very soft and dreamy on a piano. Then the piano starts to get bluesy and insistent… then the main theme hammers in, and if that doesn’t wake them up, nothing will.

    cr

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