M.E201

Instrumental Performance

Students will perform a piece of music that is approximately eight measures in length on either an Orff instrument or a recorder. This piece of music will be an accompaniment part to a vocal piece. Students should have learned both the vocal part and the instrumental part(s) in previous lessons. Though examples of sample pieces are provided in the Teacher Booklet, the piece used is up to the teacher.

Students will perform the instrumental part in groups of three to six (the size of the groups will vary based on the number of students and the materials available in the classroom). The rest of the class will be singing the song while the instrumentalists accompany them. The students playing the instruments the first time through will return to the rest of the class for the second time through, while a new group of students moves to the instruments. Repeat this procedure until each student has played the instrumental part.

There are three levels of difficulty for this performance event. Choose the one that most closely resembles the level of repertoire of your students as well as your expectations for your specific students. The three levels are as follows:
Level 1 (suggested for Grade 3)—Students play an instrument part that is the same as the part being sung by the class. They are not asked to play a contrasting part.
o Level 2 (suggested for Grade 4)—Students play a contrasting instrument part different from the part being sung by the class.
o Level 3 (suggested for Grade 5)—Each student is responsible for playing an independent instrument part different from other instrumental parts and different from the part being sung by the class.

These performances will be video-recorded as artifacts to be evaluated using the Teacher Scoring Rubric on page 4 of the Teacher Booklet. This assessment may be more successful if someone other than the teacher supervises the video recording of the performances. If this is not possible, the teacher should be careful to ensure that students who are performing stay in the video frame during the recording process.

This item has been voluntarily field-tested by Michigan teachers with a non-representative sample of students.

Teacher Booklet

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Student Booklet

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This is an analytic rubric. The column on the left shows the dimension that is being measured in the student’s performance. The levels across the top row indicate the performance level in the dimensions. Occasionally all dimensions and performance levels are exemplified by multiple students in a single recording.

TEACHER SCORING RUBRIC

  • Dimension

  • Pitch Accuracy

  • Rhythm Accuracy

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

  • Student seldom plays the correct notes.

    Approx. 0–20%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student sometimes plays the correct notes.

    Approx. 20–50%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student mostly plays the correct notes.

    Approx. 50–90%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student consistently plays the correct notes.

    Approx. 90–100%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student seldom plays correct rhythms and may alter the tempo to accommodate difficult parts.

    Approx. 0–20%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student sometimes plays correct rhythms and may alter the tempo to accommodate difficult parts.

    Approx. 20–50%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student mostly plays correct rhythms. Student does not alter the tempo to accommodate difficult parts.

    Approx. 50–90%

    N/A at this time.

  • Student consistently plays correct rhythms with precision and accuracy. Student does not alter the tempo to accommodate difficult parts.

    Approx. 90–100%

    N/A at this time.
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