Case Study No. 8 - Stylistic Studies, Middlesex University

Elements addressed by study

Special Features:

Assessment for the module takes full account of both the compositional and collaborative elements of jazz performance.  For their assessment, students take part in group performances which are partly improvised ‘in the moment’.  They are assessed for their collaborative working as well as their performance skills.

Description of Key Aspects:

Year 2 students are given a fixed repertoire of standard numbers to play, designed to reflect the range of styles and conventions they would be expected to encompass in professional work.  Students study this repertoire through aural analysis of recordings and individual and group practice and performance.

Weekly group or band rehearsals are supervised by tutors and students have the opportunity to work with various combinations of peers and staff.  They are also prepared for their assessment through weekly spot checks of repertoire and flexibility of response during the weekly workshops.  Formative feedback is built into these sessions, allowing for communication to and from tutors and peers.

For their assessment, students perform as a member of two groups.  In one they takes a leadership role (responsible for the general shaping of the piece) and in the other they take a supportive role, as a member of the band.  Each student receives an individual grade.

Students are told which pieces from the repertoire they will be performing a few minutes before the assessment.  The music must be performed from memory and the group can spend a maximum of 10 minutes discussing the feel, shape, and arrangement of the performance.

Analysis

This approach is unique in that the composition of the work does not happen prior to the performance but as part of it. Therefore, effective group collaborative is essential to produce a successful performance product.  

There is a constant emphasis on the need to be adaptable, responsive to the ideas and contributions of others while working from a thoroughly absorbed canon of styles and repertoire which are universally understood by the players.

Because the performance composition is largely improvised, and because students play in both leadership and supportive roles, the process demands a flexibility of approach whereby students must learn to adapt quickly to different line-ups, personalities, technical standards and styles of playing.  Different standards can effect the quality of the entire ensemble; but it also gives the assessed individual the opportunity to demonstate an ability to deal with such situations.  Those who can “pull others along” are marked accordingly.

Because the students are required to play from memory, this ensures the prepartory work is done.  If the student has not learnt work s/he cannot function in this context. However students are also encouraged, in workshops, to learn how to survive in unfamiliar musical terrain by figuring out what is happening in the music as quickly as possible and feeling their way around.

Evaluation:

The assessment process recognises that aspects of jazz performance cannot be prepared fully in advance and cannot be demonstrated outside group contexts; situations must be dealt with on the day and in collaborative circumstances.

In the assessment, students are faced with a practical performing situation which properly reflects the challenges of the profession.  They are placed in situations which demand an ability to be immediately flexible, adaptable and sensitive to the other players.

Students cannot prepare, in isolation, all of the skills which require constant adaptability within a variety of circumstances.  They cannot prepare specific responses but must have cultivated an approach adaptable enough to enable them to cope with the variety of musical situations which they may encounter, inside and outside the assessment room.

By this process, students learn in a context which encourages the development of transferable, interactive and interpersonal skills which can be applied outside the immediate context of the classroom equipping them for the wide range of challenges they are likely to meet in the future.