ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the specific criteria used to assess a diverse range of learning outcomes across an undergraduate music program. It discusses the evaluation of the assessment rubric in music performance beyond its effectiveness as a tool for learning and teaching and describes it as a reflection of the unique matrix that defines “the musical” within a specific institutional context. The discourse embedded in these rubrics can provide insight into the musical conceptions of both their authors and of their sub-disciplinary areas of performance, composition, music technology and musicology. Assessment rubrics are a very concrete element within the institutional discourse that defines a particular academic disciplinary program. Performances include improvisation, original compositions, set repertoire and student devised programs. Written institutional discourse in the form of subject documentation provides an insight into the ways that the musical imaginary is transformed into concrete measures of attainment communicated to student performers.
