Experience

Quite recently a student took issue with several of the grades I had given her on a solfège test. It should surprise nobody to hear that grades in question were other than A or B. She was put out with me, miffed, offended even, that I would have given her an F on one performance or C- on several others. As I pointed out to her, these were exam assignments, given out several days in advance, and she had been obviously remiss in her preparation, either as to time spent or the quality of that time. But was I grading her too harshly? Not a chance.

I propose to consider what it means for a long-term solfège teacher to grade a performance of a sightsinging, rhythm, or sing & play assignment. My job is actually fairly simple: listen to the performance, evaluate it—and I’m talking conservatory-level performance, not the Ted Mack Amateur Hour—and then assign a letter grade. Obviously the more such grades one has assigned, the better one’s judgment. Experience is key. I got to wondering just how much experience I have along those lines. So I cranked up Microsoft Excel and I figured it out.

I took exceedingly conservative estimates. I have been teaching Musicianship for 32 years. Although nowadays I teach a single section per semester, I taught two sections for a good 15 some-odd years, if not dual undergraduate sections, then one undergrad and one grad-review class. There was a period during which I taught three sections. There was a period during which my grad-review class averaged 35 students per semester. Other times I have run about 10 – 15 students total per semester. I evened it out and came up with a very conservative average of 15 students per semester. That’s undoubtedly far too low but I’m fine with it as a working number. My goal is a reliable bare minimum.

Thus 15 students for 32 weeks a year. Then I figured out how many times per week I heard each student sing a solfege, rhythm, or sing & play example. It came out to about 3 times per week; I took a conservative cut down to 2 times. Thus it becomes 15 students x 2 assignments x 32 weeks. That’s 960. Then I added in the number of solfege exams, and the amount of material on the average exam. The average is 6 items per exam; 6 exams per year. Thus 6 items x 6 exams x 15 students. That’s 540.

So yearly: that’s 960 in-class examples + 540 exam examples. That’s 1500 times per year I have listened, evaluated, and graded. Multiply that by 32 years: 48,000.

Forty-eight thousand times I have heard a student perform an assignment, then evaluated that performance, then assigned a letter grade. Forty-eight thousand times.

My student may take whatever issue she wishes to take. Mostly she’s offended that I consider 2 plus 2 to equal 4. But it does, and I do. She fricaseed a piece by the French composer Lecocq; I gave her a zero. 2+2 = 4, and 48,000 = 0. Simple arithmetic.

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