Diana Blom

Peer assessment of tertiary music performance: opportunities for understanding performance assessment and performing through experience and self-reflection

This paper discusses a project in which third-year undergraduate Performance majors were asked to assess their second-year peers. The impetus for launching the project came from some stirrings of discontent amongst a few students. Instead of finding the assessment of their peers a manageable task, most students found the breadth of musical focus, across a diverse range of musical styles on a wide range of instruments, daunting and difficult. Despite this, students and staff believed the task had proved valuable for learning about the assessment process itself and for understanding the performance process.

How artists working in academia view artistic practice as research: Implications for tertiary music education

Artistic research output struggles for recognition as ‘legitimate’ research within the highly-competitive and often traditional university sector. Often recognition requires the underpinning processes and thinking to be documented in a traditional written format. This article discusses the views of eight arts practitioners working in academia by asking whether or not they view their arts practice as research and, if they do, how it is so. The findings illuminate ways in which artistic practice is understood as research and reveal how the process of analytical and reflective writing impacts artist academics, their artistic and academic identities and their environment. The findings suggest a frame within which to advocate the equivalence of artistic research with traditional scholarly research. They also suggest a rationale for arguing against this, focusing instead (or perhaps as well) on a wider understanding of what constitutes knowledge. This has implications for academics, for students and for universities in recognizing the research inherent within arts practice itself, and in recognizing the value of practice-led writing in understanding and communicating new knowledge, new methods, and new definitions of research.

Electronic portfolios and learner identity: an ePortfolio case study in music and writing

Although the employability of graduates is of concern across further and higher education it is particularly problematic in the arts disciplines, from which few students transition to a traditional, full-time position. Arts graduates shape their work to meet personal and professional needs, and the successful negotiation of this type of career requires a strong sense of identity and an awareness of diverse opportunities. The challenge for educators is how we might develop these capacities whilst being mindful of students’ dreams, which are often focused on artistic excellence and recognition. This paper reports findings from a collaborative study undertaken at four Australian universities. With a focus on developing an electronic portfolio (eP), the study involved students in classical and contemporary music, music education, music technology, creative writing and professional writing. The combination of music and writing provided points of comparison to identify issues specific to music, and those that might apply more generally. This paper reports findings related to learner identity, drawing evidence from survey and interview data. The study, which was driven by the learning process rather than the technological tool, revealed that students’ use of eP transitions from archive to self-portrait. Moreover, the eP emerged as a vehicle through which identity is negotiated and constructed. Indeed, the process of developing of an eP prompted students to adopt future-oriented thinking as they began to redefine their learning in relation to their future lives and careers. These findings were common to all students, regardless of discipline or technological platform.

The interface between arts practice and research: Attitudes and perceptions of Australian artist-academics

Whilst an academic working in the arts may have been appointed as a consequence of artistic accomplishment and a capacity to teach, the research that underpins such work is an intrinsic part of its production and also needs to be recognised. In Australia, the ability of the artist‐academic to translate research into a form that is respected and rewarded is an issue of contention. This paper gathers responses to this issue. Perceptions of and attitudes to creative work as research are canvassed alongside life decisions arising from those perceptions and attitudes. This research occurs in the context of a new Australian framework for the evaluation of research. This framework offers some recognition of the research that supports creative practice. Thus, the long‐standing experience of compromise reported by the Australian artist‐academics interviewed for this study are discussed alongside new policies that seek to construct methodologies for its amelioration.

Preparing stylistically challenging contemporary classical repertoire for performance: Interpreting Kumari

Research involving the learning processes of musicians seldom examines specific pieces of music, and limited attention has been devoted to the earliest stages of learning a stylistically challenging or new piece of 20th-/21st-century art music. This article describes the processes by which two pianists (the authors) learned Ross Edwards’s Kumari, for solo piano. In doing so, it outlines five “elements” in a model for understanding or replicating that process. A key finding is the concept that some modern repertoire may require a preparation stage that occurs earlier than learning stages documented in the literature, one that establishes an “interpretation platform” for learning music in an unfamiliar style. This article offers a guide to pianists learning or teaching Kumari, other works by Edwards, and other stylistically challenging contemporary piano music. More broadly, it may serve as a model for any individual engaged with less familiar repertoire, and may, therefore, be of benefit to music educators working with students in challenging repertoire for solo instruments, ensembles or choirs.

Inside the collaborative inter-arts improvisatory process : tertiary music students' perspectives

While research has explored aspects of inter-arts collaboration at professional and primary level, there is little on inter-arts collaboration in the tertiary environment. This article explores aspects of the learning of tertiary music students undertaking a short-term collaborative inter-arts improvisation project with dance and theater peers, focusing on how and what learning occurs within the inter-arts collaborative improvisatory environment and the role of the individual in collaboration. Collaboration occurred most commonly through a homogeneous style within a complementary or co-equal approach. A rationale and structural elements, time, space and resources were important and learning occurred through different styles of dialogue – verbal, especially ‘cumulative’ in style, music and movement. The literature and the study’s findings noted several stages in the transformation of existing knowledge and of the individual through collaborative activities, and the majority of responses were in the first levels. This information could serve as a guide for teachers of tertiary collaborative inter-arts improvisation for the type of planning needed in relation to student levels, structure, time, project design, space and resources, and the learning likely to occur.

Engaging Students With a Contemporary Music - Minimalism - Through Composing Activities: Teachers' Approaches, Strategies and Roles

A study inviting teachers at primary, secondary and tertiary level to introduce their students to composing activities through a resource album of minimalist projects noted that some teachers led their students to write “pastiche” compositions while others enabled their student composers to move beyond pastiche to an expansion of the given compositional concepts. Results examined compositions of music as imitating the style of an existing work, or whether teachers enabled their students to move beyond pastiche composition to an expansion of the given compositional concepts. This paper discusses the approaches, strategies, and roles adopted by both groups of teachers.

Perceived Usefulness and Relevance of ePortfolios in the Creative Arts: Investigating Student Views

While research into ePortfolios in educational environments has increased in the past 15 years, the focus has been most strongly on the views of academics, those instigating use, and rarely on students (the users). This chapter intentionally draws out the views of three cohorts of undergraduate music students in two Australian universities, seeking their responses on use of a variety of ePortfolios approaches. These range from a proprietary ePortfolio platform chosen by one university, to self-selected systems leveraging cloud-based and social media platforms at another. In doing so, the study not only adds to a growing literature about ePortfolio use in the creative arts, it also offers student views across the self-selected/non-selected platform issue and longer term and short term use of the ePortfolio. The study sought responses on students’ perceived usefulness of the ePortfolio platform for their current and future career post-graduation needs. Shaping the discussion is a perceived usefulness of ePortfolios and technology acceptance model drawn from other new technologies in contexts beyond universities, but tailored by our findings, into a creative arts version of the model.

The Composer’s Program Note for Newly Written Classical Music: Content and Intentions

In concerts of western classical music the provision of a program note is a widespread practice dating back to the 18th century and still commonly in use. Program notes tend to inform listeners and performers about historical context, composer biographical details, and compositional thinking. However, the scant program note research conducted to date reveals that program notes may not foster understanding or enhance listener enjoyment as previously assumed. In the case of canonic works, performers and listeners may already be familiar with much of the program note information. This is not so in the case of newly composed works, which formed the basis of the exploratory study reported here. This article reports the views of 17 living contemporary composers on their writing of program notes for their own works. In particular, the study sought to understand the intended recipient, role and the content of composer-written program notes. Participating composers identified three main roles for their program notes: to shape a performer’s interpretation of the work; to guide, engage or direct the listener and/or performer; and as collaborative mode of communication between the composer, performer, and listener. For some composers, this collaboration was intended to result in “performative listening” in which listeners were actively engaged in bringing each composition to life. This was also described as a form of empathy that results in the co-construction of the musical experience. Overall, composers avoided giving too much personal information and they provided performers with more structural information. However, composers did not agree on whether the same information should be provided to both performers and listeners. Composers’ responses problematize the view of a program note as a simple statement from writer to recipient, indicating instead a more complex set of relations at play between composer, performer, listener, and the work itself. These relations are illustrated in a model. There are implications for program note writers and readers, and for educators. Future research might seek to enhance understanding of program notes, including whether the written program note is the most effective format for communications about music.

Assessing Music Performance Process and Outcome Through a Rubric: Ways and Means

The subject of this research is the assessment of music performance process and outcome. It asks questions about what the fairest methods might be, and compares various modes of thinking around this challenge. How can assessors go beyond subjective impressions of worth, allied to their own experience and training, and how can desired outcomes be made as clear as possible to students? One approach to making these judgements more objective is the adoption of descriptive rubrics of criteria and standards of performance. While this method is chosen for fairness and clarity it may or may not suit all disciplines in which it is applied. This chapter offers a survey of alternative approaches and a preliminary discussion of the assessment rubric as a model for assessing creative performative outcomes in three music performance and sound technology subjects. Discussion focuses on three academics (who designed and use the rubrics) in relation to: (i) our thinking behind the design of three assessment rubrics; and (ii) our experiences using these rubrics. We conclude by drawing together our experiences with findings from literature on the topic to list positive and negative aspects of the assessment rubric, including issues of pedagogy, assessment levels, justification of the result, marking, student learning and practicalities, plus thoughts for the future.