Teaching

I work as a Lecturer in Musicology at Royal Holloway, University of London, where I teach on a variety of music theory and history courses. I have also taught at Goldsmiths, Manchester, and Buckinghamshire New University. This page contains a few reflections on my teaching philosophy, lists of the courses I have taught, and a few videos related to my teaching.

Teaching Philosophy

I am passionately committed to pursuing equality, diversity, and inclusion for all, and I see my work teaching music as a vital aspect of this, along with promoting a welcoming workplace culture.

In my teaching, I insist on a varied amount of music examples to be studied on courses, with examples from women composers, and composers from Black and global-majority backgrounds. There is still far more to be done, however: I am determined that my courses should feature an equal representation of different backgrounds, and that includes the theorists and authors studied.

I am passionate about promoting access to music education, particularly in light of how much I benefitted from council-run schemes that have since been withdrawn in the UK. In my teaching, I centre questions of accessibility and gatekeeping, and how numerous structures exist in the academic and musical worlds to reinforce existing structures and prejudices.

Feedback Survey Highlights

“[Dan is] an incredible teacher who is always inspiring students. I am always engaged in his lectures and feel that the assignments are exciting and challenge my previous thoughts on music in a positive and creative way. Dan is such a passionate, caring, and supportive lecturer and deserves recognition.”

“Dan is fantastic – kind, helpful, extremely knowledgeable, understanding.”

“Dan is clearly a very passionate lecturer. He makes lectures enjoyable and his course is always one I look forward to. He is great at helping you in his free time too. Such an engaging professor. The best lecturer I’ve ever had.”

“Dan is a credit to the department, give him a raise. He has such passion about theory and analysis, it carries over into the rest of us. He makes the subject interesting, is kind and patient, and though the module was incredibly difficult, he never made us feel stupid for not understanding, and would explain to us until we did understand.”

[Q: Highlight any aspects of the module that were particularly good] “Dan. He made the module for me to be honest. If it were anyone else teaching this module my feedback would take a very different tone, but he taught in such a way that it was engaging and fun to learn, even if I do not plan on continuing down this path.”

Teaching Experience

Royal Holloway, University of London

I have taught on a wide variety of modules during my work as a Teaching Fellow at RHUL. These include:

PG level

MU5515 Historical Musicology

MU5530 Techniques in Music Performance

MU5520 Techniques of Theory & Analysis

MU5541 Music since 1900

UG level

Theory Grade 7 course (to help students from non-standard theory backgrounds attain their ABRSM Grade 7)

MU1110 Theory & Analysis

MU1111 Practical Musicianship (2017-2020); Fundamentals of Music Theory (2020-present)

MU1114 A Very Short History of Music

MU1115 Introduction to Historical Musicology

MU1117 Contemporary Debates in Music

MU2002 Studies in Music History (2017-2020, block on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; 2020-2022 block on ‘Music & the Holocaust’)

MU2339 Popular Music and Musicians in Post-War Britain and North America

MU2269 Polish Music since 1945

MU2298 The String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich

MU3203 Music and the Holocaust

MU3260 Russian Music, Literature, and Film

MU2651 – ‘Rhythm is gonna get you’: Postwar Popular Music & Performance

MU3391 Dissertation (I have supervised dissertations on a variety of subjects including Russian music, folk music, popular music, music psychology, the politics of music education, and more)

MU3392 Analysis Dissertation (I have supervised analysis dissertations on a variety of subjects including sonata theory, analysing Shostakovich, analysing minimalism, and more)

Goldsmiths, University of London

Maternity cover, teaching course MU53012 Soviet Music & Politics, 2018-2019

University of Manchester

Maternity cover, teaching course MUSC20012 Analysis, Spring Term 2019

Buckinghamshire New University

Maternity cover, teaching course AP404 Audio Cultures, Spring Term 2016