Megan Non Brevis
@theorymeg.bsky.social
Music theorist, early music specialist, mezzo soprano, feminist, yogi, hiker. Into equitable pedagogy. Author of Hearing Homophony (OUP 2020: http://bit.ly/341RhmB). She/her/hers.
This times 1000
One is that teaching university students *well* requires much more work (and frankly, compassion) now than it did when I started nine years ago. 2/
November 29, 2025 at 6:38 PM
This times 1000
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
And I don't know if the answer is: everyone is too traumatized to do work and we need to reinvent society. Or if it's more like: generations are losing their cognitive abilities and willpower due to destructive technologies. Or: we all have post-viral brain damage. Or: all of the above.
November 28, 2025 at 11:34 PM
And I don't know if the answer is: everyone is too traumatized to do work and we need to reinvent society. Or if it's more like: generations are losing their cognitive abilities and willpower due to destructive technologies. Or: we all have post-viral brain damage. Or: all of the above.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
I had a great conversation with a librarian last year where she said the instability and general inability to reliably trace bots as a reference source are sort of a perfect storm. Students "research" w the tool, but repeating the search doesn't yield a stable output.
November 28, 2025 at 2:28 PM
I had a great conversation with a librarian last year where she said the instability and general inability to reliably trace bots as a reference source are sort of a perfect storm. Students "research" w the tool, but repeating the search doesn't yield a stable output.
Check out not one but TWO great SMT-V articles about this project! www.smt-v.org/archives/vol...
November 26, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Check out not one but TWO great SMT-V articles about this project! www.smt-v.org/archives/vol...
What a beautiful description of the magic of studying the humanities.
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
Even God Is Worried About ChatGPT
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
www.vulture.com
November 26, 2025 at 6:37 PM
What a beautiful description of the magic of studying the humanities.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
Music is already accessible and democratized. You can sing acapella. You can play spoons or acrylic nails as percussion instruments (check out Dolly Parton doing the latter). The long 20th c has shown us basically anything can be a musical instrument.
All AI music does is devalue the work done by human artists. It’s not accessibility, it’s exploitation. We need real protections for artists against AI!
BTW — even if you had access to this AI startup as a child, you still wouldn’t know how to make music.
BTW — even if you had access to this AI startup as a child, you still wouldn’t know how to make music.
November 26, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Music is already accessible and democratized. You can sing acapella. You can play spoons or acrylic nails as percussion instruments (check out Dolly Parton doing the latter). The long 20th c has shown us basically anything can be a musical instrument.
It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, which can only mean one thing: time to write all those letters of recommendation due 12/1.
November 26, 2025 at 3:55 PM
It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, which can only mean one thing: time to write all those letters of recommendation due 12/1.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
November 25, 2025 at 3:34 PM
SMH iMessage auto-corrected "monochord" to "mooched."
November 24, 2025 at 8:03 PM
SMH iMessage auto-corrected "monochord" to "mooched."
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
For years I’ve been talking about the idea that content (“documents,” articles, posts, messages, whatev) is defined by the intentional message present in the artifact; it is a way of transmitting something that embodies a perspective to an audience. LLMs do not have perspective, only context
October 21, 2025 at 5:00 PM
For years I’ve been talking about the idea that content (“documents,” articles, posts, messages, whatev) is defined by the intentional message present in the artifact; it is a way of transmitting something that embodies a perspective to an audience. LLMs do not have perspective, only context
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
Most of the freshman in my courses don’t know the difference between a song and a symphony. If they’re majors, they might know a little more—but they’ll take 2-3 courses in my field, max.
If you want me to also teach them to parse AI slop music criticism, change the degree requirements.
If you want me to also teach them to parse AI slop music criticism, change the degree requirements.
I will add the following: our students lack the research skills required to audit an LLM essay for errors. They don’t arrive on campus with these skills; we teach it to them over four long years. So throwing freshmen in the deep end and saying “swim your way to a shore of rectitude” is folly.
November 24, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Most of the freshman in my courses don’t know the difference between a song and a symphony. If they’re majors, they might know a little more—but they’ll take 2-3 courses in my field, max.
If you want me to also teach them to parse AI slop music criticism, change the degree requirements.
If you want me to also teach them to parse AI slop music criticism, change the degree requirements.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...
November 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
"The humanities really are a resource — a confidence for living in our times.” Dean Sara Guyer on the modern utility of humanities degrees
This interview originally appeared on the Division of Arts
bit.ly
November 23, 2025 at 3:38 PM
"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe
I keep making this point to our admin but I fear it’s falling on deaf ears. If SLACs can’t embrace the basic values of liberal education. — which are antithetical to AI — who can?
Who invests in critical thinking and who invests in an AI chatbot to help you think will be really telling.
November 23, 2025 at 6:39 PM
I keep making this point to our admin but I fear it’s falling on deaf ears. If SLACs can’t embrace the basic values of liberal education. — which are antithetical to AI — who can?
At the start of every semester I change the batteries in the wall clocks in my classrooms because I can't bear to show up and have a non-working clock on the first day.
My most dad-coded way of coping with this stuff is borrowing the hex wrenches from the band office and fixing wobbly chairs in my lecture hall. I can’t fix most things on campus but I can fix those.
Love when what promised to be a quiet Friday suddenly fills up with an extra department meeting and an emergency “what are you people thinking!?” meeting in the provost’s office
November 21, 2025 at 5:59 PM
At the start of every semester I change the batteries in the wall clocks in my classrooms because I can't bear to show up and have a non-working clock on the first day.
I've always felt that the "problem" we face as instructors is grades -- if we could just eliminate grades and their surrounding incentive structure teaching would be so much more effective. But ... even if you ungrade 'til the cows come home you can't undo the decade of grade emphasis in K-12.
It strikes me that a lot of educational conversations around AI and cheating have to do with the uncomfortable coexistence of our institutions of learning as both hierarchical merit systems and spaces of knowledge acquisition/production
November 21, 2025 at 4:41 PM
I've always felt that the "problem" we face as instructors is grades -- if we could just eliminate grades and their surrounding incentive structure teaching would be so much more effective. But ... even if you ungrade 'til the cows come home you can't undo the decade of grade emphasis in K-12.
Find yourself a friend whose love language is giving gifts and ask them what to get for your entire extended family.
Hint I am that friend.
Hint I am that friend.
making a thread of fancy treats or gifts to pamper a friend, loved one or yourself and hoping someone might respond with other ideas
November 21, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Find yourself a friend whose love language is giving gifts and ask them what to get for your entire extended family.
Hint I am that friend.
Hint I am that friend.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
Thinking a lot lately about the simple fact that college allows people to spend about 15 weeks immersed in a disciplinary conversation with an expert in that field. And what a special thing that is.
November 21, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Thinking a lot lately about the simple fact that college allows people to spend about 15 weeks immersed in a disciplinary conversation with an expert in that field. And what a special thing that is.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
Come work with us! Indiana University's Jacob School of Music has an opening for a VAP in music theory. Best consideration date is Dec 17. Details are here: indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/31358
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music seeks candidates for a one-year full-time visiting position in music theory for the 2026-27 academic year. Expected start date: 08/01/2026.Responsibilitie...
indiana.peopleadmin.com
November 21, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Come work with us! Indiana University's Jacob School of Music has an opening for a VAP in music theory. Best consideration date is Dec 17. Details are here: indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/31358
This is a great thread, and I'm struck by the pressure that classroom educators have to teach more like YouTubers -- to remove friction from the learning process and make it fun, at the cost of the labor and repetition and effort that actually facilitate learning.
This is one of the most difficult puzzles of educational YouTube: repetition and effort are the two biggest tools for information retention, but without extrinsic motivation they also drive viewers away, so we make things smooth and most of the details don't stick with audiences long-term.
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
November 21, 2025 at 4:09 PM
This is a great thread, and I'm struck by the pressure that classroom educators have to teach more like YouTubers -- to remove friction from the learning process and make it fun, at the cost of the labor and repetition and effort that actually facilitate learning.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
"Also, don't let women fish. They'll ruin the fishing workplace."
November 14, 2025 at 11:11 AM
"Also, don't let women fish. They'll ruin the fishing workplace."
This has been my strategy and I recommend it wholeheartedly. When LLMs write about music everything is vague and could be applied to /any/ piece -- my rubric now says "observations that are not specific to this piece are not awarded any credit" and I can give these the Fs they usually deserve.
It is literally not your job to mount defensive maneuvers against LLM vomited essays. Give those papers the grades the words deserve (generally it's a 'C'). Take a deep breath and decompress after the sense of disappointment. Move on.
November 14, 2025 at 5:27 PM
This has been my strategy and I recommend it wholeheartedly. When LLMs write about music everything is vague and could be applied to /any/ piece -- my rubric now says "observations that are not specific to this piece are not awarded any credit" and I can give these the Fs they usually deserve.
It happened to me: I assigned a project and now I have to grade it.
November 12, 2025 at 8:22 PM
It happened to me: I assigned a project and now I have to grade it.
Reposted by Megan Non Brevis
Congratulations to author James O’Leary (and editor @normhirschy.bsky.social) on the publication of The Middle Brow Musical @oupacademic.bsky.social!
November 9, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Congratulations to author James O’Leary (and editor @normhirschy.bsky.social) on the publication of The Middle Brow Musical @oupacademic.bsky.social!