1997 Arts Assessment Strategies ReportGrade 8
A Music Performing Task

Scoring Guide

4 - DEVELOPED

• Has several relatively more advanced pitch or rhythmic patterns, uses a variety of simple patterns effectively, or manipulates patterns effectively.
• Matches the style of the music throughout, with slight deviations.
• Fits the structure (form) of the music throughout, with slight deviations.
• Is very appealing.
• Has a strong sense of originality/creativity

[Sample Response]

Notes: Scorers should consider the length of the student's improvisation when scoring for interest/appeal. Students who play very short improvisations that fail to show any variety or development should be penalized accordingly. Students who play less than half of the improvisation generally will score no higher than a two.

3 - ADEQUATE

• Has relatively more advanced pitch or rhythmic patterns, or uses simple patterns effectively.
• Generally matches the style of the music on the tape, with some deviations.
• Generally fits the structure (form) of the music, with some deviations.
• Is generally appealing (consider the overall proportions of what the student played).
• Has some sense of originality/creativity.
• May use elements such as skips, syncopation, pick-up notes.
• May have more than two good ideas.
• May have a variety of subdivisions.
• Performs for most of the improvisation time.

[Sample Response]

2 - LIMITED

• Has some successful rudimentary or repetitive pitch or rhythmic patterns, such as all quarter notes.
• Matches the style of the music on the tape in some places.
• Fits the structure (form) of the music in some places. For example:
• starting or ending with four-bar phrases.
• Has some, but not many, appealing elements or characteristics.
• May have one or two brief, good ideas, but fails to do anything with them (such as creating variants, or manipulating elements of the music).
• Generally fails to sustain listener interest, may have somewhat distracting elements.

Limited Level Notes:

Limited improvisations include those with such characteristics as

• a (clearly defined) good idea played completely out of sync (must be stylistically appropriate)
• constant eighth notes (such as a drumbeat) on one or two notes throughout, played in syncopation
• all quarter notes in rhythm going up and down the pentatonic scale without any substantial pitch patterns or other rhythmic motives present

[Sample Response]

1 - INADEQUATE

• Almost no organized rhythmic or tonal patterning.
• Does not match the style of the music.
• Does not fit the structure (form) of the music.
For example:
• does not play in four-bar phrases.
• does not know when beat one is in individual measures.
• Is not appealing
• May have a sense of randomness throughout.
• May be too simple.
• May be too complex.
• Rhythm problems (without any good ideas) may severely detract from the overall impression.
• Pitch problems may severely detract from the overall impression.
For example:
• the student may play the same note over and over.
• Student may play in very few measures.
• Student may randomly perform patterns that contain merely inadvertent motives.
• Student may play a familiar (not original) song or melody.

GUIDE NOTES

Musical Interest and Appeal

Acceptable improvisations may have contained several of the following elements:

• short or extended rhythmic or melodic motives repeated at several pitch levels or occurring between different notes.
• alternate versions (variations) of a small idea.
• a sense of directionality (movement towards a goal--can be achieved either by selection of rhythms or pitches, or in combination).
• pitches performed in small group units comprising perceivable melodies or fragments.
• individual melodies contained in relatively restricted ranges.
• a sense of tension and release within parts of the improvisation (created by building expectations in the listener's mind, establishing question/answer phrases, creating complexity in the use of an element of music and then contrasting it with simplicity, or vice versa).
• appropriate variety in several musical elements, including:
• articulations (use of staccato, legato, accents, sforzandos).
• dynamics (forte-piano, crescendos, decrescendos).
• melodic contours (upward-downward motion, stepwise-skips within a line).
• texture (several notes played at one time, contrasted with a single line).
• rhythm (use of triplets; eighth, sixteenth, quarter, and dotted notes; and rests).

Unacceptable improvisations may contain several of the following elements:

• too few notes
• too much repetition of the same pitch
• too much repetition of the same idea (rhythmically or melodically)
• random selection of seemingly isolated notes that are not joined together in any perceivable pattern
• no unity of rhythmic or melodic ideas or restriction of the use of tones to a manageable range
• inappropriate variety within the improvisation (includes use of melodic contour, texture, dynamics, articulations)
• no sense of form, either with regard to the four-beat harmonic rhythm of the chord progression, the four-measure length of the chord progression, or the length of the background music as a whole