Assessing undergraduate jazz and rock group music-making : adding to the classic(al) recipe

As the teaching of a broad range of musics has entered the academy over recent decades, default settings inherited from classical music are increasingly questioned. In particular, approaches to music performance - in a classical context focused on the individual, on technical facility, and on performance outcome - are often inappropriate for the assessment of popular music styles. Undergraduate music performance teaching at the University of Western Sydney has long included a consideration of the quality of collaboration, not only in the performance event, but the rehearsal process. An experiment with students choosing parameters for self and peer assessment of group music-making has underlined the importance of 'non-musical' (personal, interpersonal, and organizational) skills. Rather than suggest that modes of assessment inherited from classical models have no place in the assessment of rock and jazz groups, this paper argues that a synthesis of traditional (technique and expression oriented) and new approaches will best prepare young musicians for "real world" contexts, while also reflecting the process musicians partake in to bring any collaborative project to fruition.