Marking many, many first-year exams in twentieth-century musics... but, for the first time ever, with the help of two postgraduates, which makes life vastly easier.
There are the usual glitches and amusing misstatements... although it's a pretty solid class (only one fail thus far!) and most of the exams are pretty coherent.
However, at least two amusing and inadvertent pictures so far: one was John Cage as a major exponent of dance music (we later figured out that they had written "chance" music, but with the c and h very close together). Which suggests... a high falsetto singing 'Everybody Dance Now!', with the drum part played on a prepared piano....
Okay, the other one's better. Several students got confused about the Second Viennese School, and the Darmstadt School, thinking they were actual... schools. As in: "Webern studied under Schoenberg, who taught at the Second Viennese School"... I suppose if Webern's kindergarten attendance had been better he might have gotten into the First Viennese School.
Which suggests Webern's school report: "Works hard on coursework. Something of a loner – needs to pay more attention to extracurricular activities."
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