SOME THOUGHTS ON MUSIC DEPARTMENT ASSESSMENT (GOT ANY GRADUS ON YOUR PARNASSUM?) by Dr. Huw Lewis Fall 2000

Any department whose curriculum involves the teaching of both 'theoretical' and 'practical' elements of a discipline finds itself using a wide variety of pedagogical methods. This necessity for variety in methodology in turn suggests (demands?) an equally diverse array of tools for assessment. The Music Department's teaching activities run the gamut from solo and ensemble performance through composition and analytic theory to musicology. As a result, we've developed an assessment program that, in order to drive student learning effectively, is naturally very rich and diverse in its totality. Simply put, we don't use the same measurements to evaluate a student's free and original musical composition as we do to evaluate her fugue composed with eighteenth-century manners, even though both are relatively similar activities. An altogether different set of measurements is used to judge a paper dealing with nineteenth-century opera, and yet again quite another distinct set of criteria is used to evaluate musical performance.

Because it should be clear that a comprehensive description of every part of our assessment program is out of the question, I'll describe but one part-our assessment of student musical performance. It is one thing (among many!) that I believe my department does superbly well.

But before I do that, I'd like to share part of the results of a very energetic and valuable period of self-study pertaining to assessment that we engaged in during 1995. From both practical and philosophical standpoints, many truly valuable and helpful things resulted from this study. But the result I'd like to share with you is the set of statements that describe the department's mission, goals, and objectives. They tell what we're about, and they helped us to see more clearly how our curriculum was serving our mission, and how we might make it better.

In accordance with the wisdom of the day, we developed a mission statement that was deliberately discipline specific, concise, and of a more conceptual than 'practical' nature. Then we articulated two Goals that reflected how we might best accomplish our mission; then we developed four Objectives which dealt with how we would set about achieving especially Goal #1; and, finally, we constructed the Means which showed how the curriculum served our objectives.

Here they are:

Departmental Mission Statement

The Mission of the Hope College Department of Music is to affirm and promote the understanding that musical experience enriches and ennobles the human spirit.

Departmental Goals

1. To enable music majors to become expert in the areas of teaching, performing, composing, and research; to assist them in becoming professionally successful in their chosen fields.
   
2. To cultivate, within the College community and beyond, an enduring appreciation for musical art, and a recognition of its positive impact on the human condition.

Departmental Objectives

Hope College music students will demonstrate

1. a mastery of style, technique, and expressive capacity in performance;
   
2. essential musicianship skills and an understanding of the process of music composition;
   
3. an ability to write and speak about, and listen to, music of different periods, styles and cultures with understanding, clarity, and critical insight;
   
4. skills in pedagogy, and research methodology.

The Means

While it is often the case than one course contributes to the achievement of several objectives, the following is a summary of how the objectives are generally connected to courses in our curriculum:

Objective 1:
Applied Lessons, Recitals, and participation in Ensembles.

Objective 2:
Courses in Theory, Aural Skills, Keyboard Skills, Composition, etc.

Objective 3:
Courses in Music History, and the Senior Seminar in Music.

Objective 4:
Courses in Literature, Pedagogy, and Methodology.

Now for the description of how assessment works in student musical performance.

All music majors have private weekly lessons with an applied music teacher. In a typical lesson, we regularly address several important issues. First, there are the matters that pertain at a very fundamental level to successful performance: technical security (accuracy of rhythm, notes/pitch), the management of dynamics, and the production of good tone. Second, we address the less tangible aspects of performance: style, affect, rhythmic nuance, color, atmosphere, all of which go to make up that rather elusive quality-and most important one-expressivity. Together, student and teacher discuss these complex and interrelated facets, and agree on areas that need improvement or cultivation. Together, student and teacher establish quite specific goals for the coming week (being specific is very important!). At the next lesson, progress towards these goals is evaluated, and immediate and detailed feedback is offered. The process is repeated week by week.

Nearly all studio teachers offer weekly studio classes, in which their own students perform for each other. Usually, after a student has performed, discussion takes place in which the performance is evaluated by the teacher, with the performer and student peers contributing their own insights and reactions.

Three or four times each semester, the three performance areas (keyboard, voice, instrumental) assemble separately for performance classes where students from different studios perform for each other. Additionally, there are at least four formal departmental recitals in which students from every area participate. All departmental recitals are recorded, and tapes are placed in the Music Library. These recordings provide students an invaluable opportunity to evaluate their own performances objectively. Between them, these two rather formal venues give excellent opportunities for invaluable stage experience, and provide much for the teacher and student to discuss in subsequent lessons.

At the end of each semester, all students enrolled in private lessons take a 'jury'. (This is our jargon for performance examination.) The jury consists of at least two and frequently up to four or five faculty members. In at least one area, there is always an external examiner. The jury evaluates a student's performance in writing, and each examiner independently assigns a grade for the performance. After the juries are finished, teachers usually meet individually with their students to discuss the written comments. At this meeting, goals for the next semester are usually set. The sheets are subsequently placed in the student's file in the Music Office where they become part of that student's permanent record.

We encourage all music majors to give senior solo recitals, and require performance majors to give two, one in each of their junior and senior years. We are really excited that this year we will make high quality video recordings of all junior recitals. Such recordings will be very helpful to the student in the self-evaluation process. These major public performances are especially effective in helping students to focus, and are a crucial part of the assessment program.

As I indicated earlier, we are very happy with assessment of student musical performance. It is designed to stimulate our students' individual growth and development; it requires (and usually gets) tremendous participation and cooperation from them; and it develops within our students a high level of personal responsibility. With the ever repeating cycle of 'goal-performance-evaluation-new goal' it is as good a 'closed loop' assessment procedure as we can think of.

Editor's note -For those of you not familiar with Dr.Lewis' use of (GOT ANY GRADUS ON YOUR PARNASSUM?) in his title, Huw notes that 'Gradus' is Latin for step; 'ad' is the preposition meaning towards; 'Parnassum' is the accusative case of Parnassus -the mountain where Apollo plays with the Muses. Hence the phrase is a metaphor for a structured path (pedagocical system) that will lead you to god-like perfection of your art (discipline) - or at least bring you to the point where you are in the same league as the 'gods'. It's a familiar phrase to musicians because a few important composers wrote books that use the phrase in the title.