When the field of music history pedagogy began to coalesce in the early 2000s, there were relatively few sustained discussions about the purposes of undergraduate music history courses. Many assumed that music majors should know the Western canon, while others argued that music history improves performance, though those who made such claims rarely offered supporting evidence. Scholarly and conference discourse during this period tended to focus on local pedagogical concerns—assignments, textbooks, technologies, and classroom techniques—rather than on larger questions of curricular purpose and design.
As the field matured, broader conversations began to emerge, and Sara Haefeli became a prominent voice urging instructors to think more deeply about why and how music history is taught. To support her conviction that the music history curriculum needs to move beyond content coverage toward more inquiry-driven and ethically engaged forms of learning, she began exploring case-study pedagogy and implementing it in her courses. Drawing from her own teaching experience, Teaching Music History with Cases: A Teacher’s Guide is a practical guide that aims to help instructors rethink learning goals, redesign courses, make their courses more relevant, and alter classroom practices. It is also an intervention for instructors who are reluctant to move away from traditional practices. Furthermore, many chapters directly address instructor anxiety and department politics.
Haefeli opens the book by reflecting on her own teaching trajectory and the limits of traditional curricular approaches. When she realized that problems of student disengagement and exclusion could not be addressed simply by expanding repertory coverage, but that “the problem was embedded [in] curricular design” (p. 2), she began to rethink both her learning goals and her pedagogy. While she continues to value students’ familiarity with style periods, her primary aim became teaching students how to do musicology: “to be able to ask a musicological question, examine the question from multiple perspectives, find and evaluate sources to answer the question, and communicate about the process” (p. 3). Haefeli also articulates a broader ethical ambition, emphasizing that music history courses should help students “create new ways of relating the past to our current and future lives” and contribute to healing historical injustices (p. 7). Although these aims do not appear explicitly in her courses’ stated learning goals, they inform the book as a whole and shape her approach to curricular design.
To realize these intertwined intellectual and ethical aims, Haefeli turns to a pedagogical framework more commonly associated with the professional fields of business, law, and medicine: the case study. She argues that case studies “help students learn how to think, plan, and reason” (p. 3), and explains how they can be adapted to the needs of musicological inquiry. To address the fact that musicology rarely results in plans of action such as legal strategies, marketing campaigns, and medical treatments, however, she distinguishes among three types of cases that can be used in the music history classroom: descriptive cases, which aim to help students understand a historical event or context while building musicological skills; interpretive cases, in which students apply theoretical frameworks to historical materials; and evaluative cases, which integrate analysis, ethical criteria, and creative judgment. Her examples of evaluative cases—for instance, whether and how to navigate the ethics of staging Don Giovanni, or whether Danger Mouse’s derivative The Grey Album mashup constitutes a creative work—illustrate how case studies can be used to teach students how to analyze, synthesize, and create in humanities contexts. Haefeli frames this approach as a way to foster engagement, higher-order learning, accessibility, and alignment with the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Much of the book is devoted to the practical and institutional conditions that shape what instructors can do and determine how inquiry unfolds in real classrooms. In her discussion of course design (chapter 2), Haefeli emphasizes that her recommended approach need not be adopted wholesale. She implemented case-study pedagogy incrementally, starting with a few lessons within a course. Eventually, her department as a whole adopted the approach and redesigned the curriculum, with particular attention to moving away from strict chronology. As she argues, chronological narratives can reinforce linear models of musical progress and risk tokenizing musics that fall outside that framework. As an alternative, she shares her strategy of organizing courses around musical functions in six contexts: the academy, temple, palace, stage, home, and marketplace. Importantly, she presents this structure not as a template to be replicated, but as an example, urging instructors to “create a solution that follows the mission of your own institution, the needs of your own student body, and the nature and breadth of your own interests” (p. 24). These curricular choices are framed alongside a candid acknowledgement of instructional labor: Haefeli notes that “it’s a lot of work to create a new case-based course or to change a lecture-based course to one that uses case studies” (p. 19), and she pairs this realism with guidance on backward design, the pedagogical role of the syllabus, and the likelihood of collegial resistance when departing from familiar models.
The book then turns to how instructors can find or create cases that can successfully teach musicological inquiry (chapter 3). Haefeli emphasizes that cases can be drawn from a wide range of sources, including scholarly articles, blogs, podcasts, and long-form journalism. For interpretive and evaluative cases, such materials almost always require adaptation. Assigning published scholarship alone, she argues, limits students’ opportunities to develop analytical skills: “Most scholarship includes an analysis and interpretation of data. . . . Such work is an excellent model for students to emulate. The disadvantage to assigning such work to students, however, is that they do not give students ample opportunity to develop the musicological skills of analysis and interpretation on their own” (p. 40). To address this, she advocates constructing cases that present core facts within compelling contexts, supported by guiding questions that scaffold interpretation and evaluation. These cases are paired with preclass discussion posts, and in the book Haefeli provides concrete examples—including sets of guiding questions, a discussion-post template, and a strong student response—that model how instructors might structure inquiry without predetermining outcomes.
Attention then shifts from preparation to classroom practice, where discussion becomes the primary site of collective meaning making (chapter 4). Haefeli addresses instructor anxiety directly in this section, arguing that the central obstacle to mitigating anxiety is not inadequate preparation but excessive control: “It’s easy to feel prepared when lecturing because everything is under your own control, but the instructor’s sense of control over the classroom comes at the expense of the students who are passive in such an environment” (p. 55). To support productive discussion, she recommends instruction in academic literacy and close listening early on, clear expectations articulated in the syllabus, careful attention to classroom setup, and structured preclass writing. Moreover, she emphasizes the importance of opening questions and reflects candidly on discussion sessions that in her experience did and did not succeed, underscoring how much hinges on facilitation rather than content delivery. The section concludes with a brief discussion of whiteboard/blackboard work as a tool for synthesis, highlighting the role of visual organization in helping students make connections among ideas as discussions unfold.
Collaboration becomes even more crucial in the book’s treatment of group work (chapter 5), which Haefeli frames as a key mechanism for deepening inquiry. Drawing on research showing the pedagogical and social benefits of small-group learning, she notes that “group work is an effective strategy that can increase student engagement and retention . . . [and that the] social benefits are also important as students build self-esteem, camaraderie, and leadership skills” (pp. 66–67). Productive group work, she argues, requires careful planning, including instructor-formed groups of three to four students designed to balance diverse experiences and skills. Because her aim is to teach inquiry rather than to prescribe outcomes, her group assignments usually remain open ended, with research questions and final products developed collaboratively through workshops. To prepare students for these assignments, Haefeli completes in-class exercises that introduce students to different types of musicological questions and creates “intermediary research projects” that allow students to practice how they can choose appropriate methodologies for their research questions. She also addresses group dynamics, interpersonal mediation, and the importance of observing group work closely, including as a way of identifying students who may need additional support.
The book concludes by addressing the question of how to assess students in a case-studies classroom (chapter 6). Haefeli devotes the first half of this section to “ungrading,” which she adopts in place of traditional assessment tools by emphasizing group work and writing or creative assignments evaluated through self- and peer assessment. Her aim is to have students working “not for me or for my approval, but for themselves and each other” (p. 87). She reports that this shift results in lower student stress and anxiety, improved attendance, and more creative, risk-taking work. The second half addresses instructors who cannot adopt ungrading, outlining alternative assessment strategies based on participation and case-based exams. Read together, these approaches reinforce the book’s broader commitment to aligning assessment with inquiry, collaboration, and ethical engagement—raising, implicitly, larger questions about what such forms of learning are ultimately meant to prepare students to do beyond the classroom.
Teaching Music History with Cases is one of the most effective and practically useful pedagogical guides currently available to music history instructors, not only because it models how inquiry can be taught, but because it presses instructors to reconsider what music history courses are ultimately for. Haefeli succeeds in translating a complex pedagogical philosophy into concrete classroom practices, offering detailed examples of case studies, discussion prompts, student writing, and assessment tools. The volume is part of Routledge’s excellent “Modern Musicology and the College Classroom” series, which limits authors to approximately fifty thousand words. The amount of information Haefeli includes within this limit is impressive. However, I wish that she had been able to expand some sections, particularly in chapters 4 and 5.
The book is clearly organized, logically sequenced, and consistently grounded in classroom realities. Particularly valuable is Haefeli’s willingness to address instructor anxiety and collegial resistance, as well as her openness about teaching moments that did not go as planned. This candor strengthens the book’s credibility and makes it especially useful for instructors contemplating significant pedagogical change.
At the same time, Teaching Music History with Cases invites a broader conversation about the role of disciplinary inquiry in undergraduate music history courses. Haefeli’s central learning goal—teaching students how to do musicology—is articulated with clarity and conviction, and the book demonstrates convincingly that students can acquire these skills through carefully designed case studies. Throughout the volume, students are shown engaging productively with historical evidence, theoretical frameworks, and ethical questions. In this sense, Haefeli’s approach represents a clear departure from coverage-based models of music history instruction and offers an effective alternative.
My own teaching trajectory, however, leads me to approach disciplinary mastery as an undergraduate goal with some skepticism. After spending nearly two decades teaching in music departments, I now work in a College of Information where collaboration across disciplines is the norm rather than the exception. Faculty in this environment come from diverse intellectual backgrounds, and shared assumptions about disciplinary methods cannot be taken for granted. I have found this to be intellectually generative, and it has prompted me to question whether deep disciplinary specialization should serve as the primary organizing principle for undergraduate curricula, particularly in music history, where relatively few students will go on to become professional musicologists.
This tension becomes especially clear in one of the book’s most compelling example case studies, which centers on the history of San Juan Hill in New York City and the construction of Lincoln Center. Haefeli brings it up twice, first in the chapter on how to lead class discussions. With the case study, students debate the meaning of “culture,” and consider whether building top-notch infrastructure that primarily serves an elite population can ever justify the destruction of a neighborhood that is full of marginalized peoples. In the next chapter, Haefeli shares how a small group working on a guided archival research exercise encountered publicity photographs for West Side Story taken on the streets of the soon-to-be-demolished San Juan Hill neighborhood, prompting a series of questions about displacement, musical representation, and institutional power. As the project developed, students explored why Bernstein and Sondheim chose this setting, what role Bernstein played in the planning of Lincoln Center as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, how Puerto Rican musical styles and jazz were appropriated, and how nostalgia operates in a work set in a place that no longer exists. In both the class discussion and the small-group exercise, students exhibited an ability to analyze the long-term cultural, social, and institutional consequences of historical decisions with considerable sophistication. There is no question that Haefeli’s pedagogy succeeds in teaching students how to undertake musicological inquiry grounded in archival evidence and contextual analysis. The question that remains is whether greater emphasis might be placed on actions that might follow the analyses. For example, what do the current administrations of Lincoln Center and the resident companies owe those who were displaced and their descendants? Are reparations in order? And what does an ethical acknowledgement of this history involve? In short, how can we train our students to move beyond inquiry and to claim agency in their chosen profession?
Although Haefeli clearly demonstrates the benefits that case studies can offer, there are times when she puts too much weight on the pedagogy. While Haefeli argues persuasively that carefully chosen case studies can address issues affecting diverse communities without lapsing into tokenism, the method itself does not guarantee such outcomes. Inclusion ultimately depends on both the cases instructors select and the frameworks they use to guide discussion. A separate concern pertains to instructional labor. Although Haefeli suggests that instructional effort may feel lighter once instructors move away from content delivery, my own experience with discussion-based teaching has been the opposite. Facilitating sustained inquiry, managing group dynamics, and responding to student contributions in real time often demand greater preparation and concentration than lecturing. These moments of friction do not undermine Haefeli’s project, but they do point to the importance of institutional support, shared pedagogical resources, and realistic expectations about instructional labor.
Despite these few issues, Teaching Music History with Cases makes an important and timely contribution to music history pedagogy. It provides instructors with a flexible framework rather than a prescriptive model, encourages experimentation rather than replication, and foregrounds ethical engagement as a core concern of historical study. Perhaps most importantly, the book challenges instructors to reconsider what music history courses are for—not simply what content they transmit, but what kinds of thinking, questioning, and responsibility they cultivate.