Playing Keyboard

Music Program

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1. Students will attain basic music literacy.

  • In direct measures, more than 65% of our students attained “excellent” ratings in the areas of rhythm and pitch.  100% of our students attained the rating of “excellent” in Tempo and Dynamics. 

2. Students will have foundational knowledge in the cultural contexts of music.

  • Using a rubric with four categories of analysis in relation to cultural contexts of music, our students scored very well in three areas, including an improvement from previous years in the area of identifying key composers and performers from different cultures. In the arena of understanding cultural context of music, 48% of our students demonstrated higher understandings and 52% reached a benchmark standard. 

3. Students will demonstrate musicianship through their ability to interpret and perform a wide range of musical genres.

  • For instrumental music performance:
    • This year 100% of our students received a rating of “excellent” in the area of performance.  This student group and instructor should be applauded for the continued progress of performance.
    • 100% of our students attained the rating of “good” in rhythm and intonation which has been an increase from past years. 
    • Areas of fingering, musicianship saw ratings of 80% achieving “good” and 20% received a rating of “excellent.”
    • 20% of our students rated in the “meets expectations” in the categories of pitch, expression, posture, and musicianship.
    • In the overall development, we see a 60% rating of “excellent” and a 40% rating of “good.”
  • In the area of vocal music performance:
    • A consistent rating of 22%-33% of our students rated “excellent” in the categories of pitch, rhythm, musicality, performance, posture, tone, diction, and overall development; 56%-89% of students received the rating of “good” for the same categories.
    • 45% of our students scored “meets expectations” in the area of musicality, which should be addressed. 

4. Students will demonstrate commitment to community by participating in performances in support of many organizations.

  • Marist College Band and Marist College Singers are not only academic offerings but also club activities for Marist College. Both instrumental and vocal students participating in these large ensembles are required to perform with the large ensemble. All smaller groups or subsidiary groups of vocal and instrumental stem out of these two larger groups. Not every student takes these courses for credit, so there is no statistical rubric that applies. Our students performed on campus 240 times in 2019 (88 instrumental/152 vocal) and 44 times outside the Marist campus (19 instrumental/25 vocal). We have been supportive of multiple organizations on the campus and continue to strive to bring the Marist name with pride and dedication to the communities outside of our immediate area.