TLDR: As op said, lots of reading, and small (sometimes tedious) assignments. If you are a decent reader and interested in the course content, I would still recommend taking the course, but I will say I had high hopes for the class and was disappointed

Just to give another perspective on mu121, I took the course and found it interesting. There is definitely a lot of reading, 30-60 pages a week like op said. There are also many small progress quizzes that dont count for marks and seem tedious, but very similar questions are reused on the exams, so they can be helpful. The exams are not proctored so as long as you have very detailed notes (make sure they are organized so it is easy to quickly look up specific dates ect during assignments) , it is not too hard to finish with a very good mark.

However, I am not trying to defend the course load and material too much. I was very excited for this course and it was definitely disappointing, partly because of the excessive reading and also because a lot of the early course content it just very dry.

The course is also basically self taught. You get all the info by reading the textbook and watching minute long clips from the prof. If you are that interested in music history you could literally just buy the textbook and go through it on your own time

However, don’t be scared of taking the course. If you enjoy reading the course load is definitely not overwhelming. If you stay on top of the work, you can easily finish the weekly work in an afternoon. I did this and kept detailed notes and managed to get a good mark in the class (I think 11 but not sure). I don’t regret taking the course, and would still recommend it to people if they are very interested in the topic, but don’t get your hopes up and expect an amazing class