Understanding Through Performance and the Standards

The Wisconsin Experience

I shall define understanding straightforwardly as the capacity to apply knowledge, facts, concepts, and skills in new situations where they are appropriate.             Howard Gardner

Understanding in music consists of both knowing about (declarative, or factual, knowledge) and knowing how-to-do (procedural knowledge). This column will discuss how efforts in Wisconsin and on the national level have combined to promote "Performance with Understanding" in performing ensembles.

The Way We Were

Prior to the mid-70's almost all school music programs across the country were based solely on performance, and the mode of teaching was direct teacher instruction. Understandings were gained through such programs but were usually quite narrowly focused on performance technique. In fact, a graduate of one such program stated that he had heard a composition he had performed while a student, yet didn't recognize it at first because he couldn't hear his individual part, which is what he had really learned. And, while many adult graduates of such programs recall their experiences with fondness, most students, even those from outstanding performance groups, stopped their active involvement with music after graduation. Besides a narrow range of understandings, such programs in general offered little to nurture lifelong learning or involvement in music.

Three Change Factors

Three developments in music education in Wisconsin and across the nation are broadening the scope of performance groups:

• First, an increasing number of music educators have been developing strategies that expand students' musical understandings. Often these strategies focus mainly on helping students expand their knowledge about music (its structure, the composer, its aesthetic properties, the historical/cultural milieu, etc.). In 1977 Mike George, then State Music Consultant at The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI); Richard Gaarder, Executive Director of the Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA); and a committee of Wisconsin music educators developed an instructional model, Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance (CMP), designed expressly to promote "Performing with Understanding," using the rehearsal as a learning lab and the music being performed as an instructional vehicle. It was a landmark achievement and has been highly successful over the succeeding years, helping students achieve not only greater musical understandings but also enhanced performance levels.
• A second development was the work in the late '80's of Harvard Project Zero, Educational Testing Service, and the arts faculty of Pittsburgh (PA) schools in developing Arts PROPEL, an instructional/assessment model that focuses mainly on the procedural knowledge necessary to do the arts - produce (perform, create) and respond (perceive, reflect). It uses projects over time to address the central issues in music, and students use portfolios both as a learning tool and as assessment. These two models are complementary, helping students develop both declarative and procedural understandings through authentic musical activities.
• Finally, the standards initiative, both at the national level and in Wisconsin, has emphasized, deepened, and affirmed the "Performance with Understanding" movement. Besides the more factual understandings in the areas of history, culture, the musical forms and strategies used by the composer, the commonalties with other disciplines and other arts, etc., (Standards H & I), the standards also focus directly on the procedural understandings necessary for performing, creating, music literacy, and responding (Standards A-G).

The "Tool" Standards

Standards F and G are rightly regarded as the "tool standards" and are identical to the "responding (describing)" learning mode of the Wisconsin Music Guide or the "perception and reflection" processes of Arts PROPEL. Mastering the ways of knowing described in these standards empowers students to make musical judgments and enhance their own musical development in the same manner as adult professionals. Often students are denied this opportunity by the direct instructional approach, in which all musical decisions are made by the teacher. However, when students are asked to analyze and evaluate their work in the absence of threat (What worked? What didn't? What should I change next time?) on an ongoing basis (and when their opinions are taken seriously!), they are motivated to become self-initiated learners. The SCASS-Arts*** music performance assessment tasks promote this instructional approach.

The Problem of Depth

A caution is needed in adapting curriculum, instruction, and assessment to the standards. In appraising our programs in light of the standards, we may be tempted to think, "We do all this. We perform. We read music, of course. I occasionally ask the students to critique their performance. I tell them about the composer and/or the composition, etc." Such involvement, if that is as far as it goes, is too shallow, too fleeting. For instance, asking students to listen to and critique one of their performances or compose a simple eight-bar melody are indeed important first steps but obviously are only a beginning. Mastery of any of the central issues of a discipline will require focused effort over time, not a short, one-shot activity.

As an example, for a student to develop the ability to "compose short pieces within specific guidelines, demonstrating the use of the elements of music" in a consistent manner, a good teaching strategy would be to engage the students in a project, which the students help devise, aimed at taking them from their present understanding to an appropriate level of mastery. Depending on the students, it might begin with a short melody within closely specified guidelines ("Compose a new four bar ending to a familiar folk tune") and proceed to a longer piece with fewer guidelines, perhaps an ABA form using compositional techniques (unity/variety, tension/release, etc.) found in a work being rehearsed. (Note: Selecting music for performance that can serve as a learning text is an important aspect of the CMP model.) Again, the students should analyze each completed assignment and, at the beginning, reflect in an open response on what works, what doesn't, and what changes would make it better. And the teacher should examine and comment on the students' analysis and reflection in order to help them achieve mastery of these important "tool standards."

At an appropriate point in the project, when the students develop a certain comfort level of understanding, a more focused response would give teacher and students a better grasp on where the students are in relation to the selected level of mastery. Teacher and students should discuss and decide on the three to five most important points to aim for in the task (such as melodic contour and phrasing; unity and variety; rhythmic accuracy; cohesive tonality; expressive qualities; etc.); then decide what those points might sound like in a composition at the advanced, proficient, partially proficient, and minimal achievement levels; and, finally, what a critique (Standards F & G) of such a composition would look like at those levels. This would help the students focus their efforts on these points. Through such involvement the students internalize and take ownership of the goals of the project.

Reality Check

How would using these models to implement the standards work in the real world that music educators and students inhabit? Both models could be combined quite appropriately to enhance declarative and procedural understandings through the normal activity of performing groups - preparing for a performance. Students could gain understandings about the compositions and/or composers, their history, possible relationships to other arts, etc. by researching these aspects for program notes, displays in the lobby prior to the concert performance, and/or demonstrations of the structure of the compositions by students during the concert.

And, since improving performance is such an important (and legitimate) concern of the performing group, a very natural way to implement Standards A or B, F, and G is to engage the students in a project to improve performance. This would be especially appropriate during the rehearsals leading up to a concert. Each week the conductor could tape a few minutes of a rehearsal and ask the students to assess their individual performance, their section's performance, and the ensemble's performance during their study halls, in each case noting the good points, the problem areas, and how to improve each problem. The teacher would critique both the performance and the students' critiques and return them to the students. Such a project would both empower the students to become independent learners as well as enhance their immediate musical performance. At some point teachers should involve students in framing more focused responses as described above. And having them keep their critiques, recordings, and other work in a portfolio would provide important learning experiences - to see their progress over time; to revise earlier work, using self, peer, and teacher assessments as input; and to consider future directions in developing their musical understandings.

This is only one instance of ways that teachers in Wisconsin and in other states are enhancing student understanding through performance at the present time. Similar projects could focus on Standards C or D (improvising or composing) by having students compose or improvise, using as a model the music being rehearsed (e.g., call and response; theme and variations; etc.), and assessing their own and their peers' work (Standards F and G). Standard E (reading and notating) could be approached similarly, engaging students in self-assessment activities in each case.

Restructuring the way teachers, students, and schools interact is an important challenge for educators. Music educators using these instructional and assessment strategies have discovered an answer to this challenge that is invigorating to both themselves and their students. All report greater student engagement and achievement. And involving students in assessing their own performance tasks and portfolios empowers and motivates students to take an active role in their own learning! The future is fraught with possibilities!

Adapted from the December 1998 issue of the Wisconsin School Musician and used with permission.

Contact: Melvin Pontious, Music Consultant, or phone: (608) 267-5042 FAX: (608) 266-1965

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*CMP, Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance, is a model developed in Wisconsin in 1977 for teaching musical understandings in the performance class. For details contact WMEA, 4797 Hayes Rd., Madison, WI 53704, 608/249-4566.

**Arts PROPEL is an instructional/assessment model developed by Harvard Project Zero that stresses students' active engagement in their own learning. For details contact Project Zero Publications, 124 Mt. Auburn St., 5th floor, Cambridge, MA 02138, 617/495-4342.

***SCASS-Arts is a consortium of several states that is developing performance and selected assessment tasks in the four arts areas. For information contact Frank Philip, Council of Chief State School Officers, One Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001-1431.

For questions about this information, contact Melvin F. Pontious (608) 267-5042

Last updated on 2/25/2008 1:42:48 PM