This task explored improvisation, creation, and evaluation activities in music using rock-style background music as stimulus material. Four tasks were included in this session as follows:

• improvising at the keyboard with a background tape to create an original melody;
• performing the original melody on the keyboard unaccompanied;
• singing a vocal improvisation with the background tape; and
• completing written self-evaluation questions about the performances.

A general outline of the key activities in the session included the following steps:

• Test administrators informed students that they would be exploring several creative activities beginning with improvisation (defined as making up music as one goes along). Students were told they would be using only the black keys of the keyboard for the first task. Administrators instructed students to take 30 seconds to try the various notes of the MIDI keyboard to see how they sounded.
• Students listened to the background music and were instructed to think about the general style of the music and to consider what kinds of melodies would sound good with the music.
• Students then listened to a sample improvisation of a saxophonist improvising to the background music. Students were told this was just one way someone chose to improvise and that they were free to improvise in their own way.
• Students were then told to use the black keys of the keyboard to improvise and to develop an original melody that sounded good with the music. Students were told to make their melody short enough so that they could remember it and play it back after the background music concluded. (Because the music was pitched in E-flat, all black notes of the keyboard fit the chord progression used.)
• After the background music concluded, students were given 30 seconds to practice by themselves and then were asked to play their melody twice through, unaccompanied.
• In the next part of the session, students were asked to sing vocal improvisations. Test administrators played a sample of someone singing a vocal improvisation as an example. Administrators told students that a shortened version of the background music would be played again and that they would be asked to sing an improvisation along with the music. Students were told to create melodies that were interesting and that went with the style of the music.
• At the end of the session, students were asked to answer two written self-evaluation questions about their performances.

For student performances select one of the following tasks...

Note: The following student performances contain audio. See the Help section for assistance.

Explore a variety of exercises and student responses from the music, theatre, and visual arts assessments in the 1997 NAEP Arts Report Card.

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Last updated 16 December 2003 (CC)