Thank you Marc and Keith for the excellent concrete ideas. I’ll think on these a bit more and I’m certain I’ll use one of them in this exam.

To respond to some more of your side discussion Keith—I’ve done this discussion with the associate director, the grad director, and the jazz studies director. My understanding is that we have standard r…[Read more]

Sure, thanks Megan.
I have a similar philosophy for constructing comps—but we do not have a DMA
program for jazz. To a considerable extent, I’m just hoping our doctoral
students can make interesting/informed claims and support them with
relatively cogent arguments. My other hope is that the comp leaves the
testee with the sense that there’s a…[Read more]

A couple of quick thoughts (between marking finals):

You could…

• present a complete ensemble transcription of a representative performance from the 1940s/50s (from the back of Berliner’s Thinking in Jazz, for example), and ask them to comment on solos, ensemble roles, and/or interaction.

• ask for an analysis of transcription of  impr…[Read more]

Hi Keith, it’s meant to test their ability to think on their feet, analytically. I want to see them closely analyze a piece of music in some way that is well-informed and intelligent. The point is that they can’t do a lot of background research first, but what can they come up with anyway, just based on their experience as an educated musician?…[Read more]

Please reply here so that we can contribute!

Feel free to just email me, btw: ksalley@su.edu.

Hi Megan

I also make the grad diagnostics for my school, and have a substantial
background in jazz theory. Am about to attend a webinar, so will be
unavailable for a couple hours, but I might be able to offer help. My first
question would be: what are you diagnosing? That is, what is it that you’re
trying to determine from each student’s…[Read more]

Garrett,

Thanks for responding to this! I’m working on hierarchy within cyclical chord progressions (I do think at least some aspects are hierarchical) but certainly don’t want to be chasing windmills.

Ben

Ben:

Sorry for the extremely slow reply! I don’t think that one can give a generic answer. The concept of a chord relating more to ones that come before or after seems to me to be wrapped up in so much additional context that making such a determination on the basis of chord changes alone doesn’t make sense. Think of Gershwin’s original: in this…[Read more]

To clarify (because of the font change): that progression is I-V-I-V, with one chord per bar.

Garrett,

This is a great idea, and I like the game plan. Thanks for organizing this!

Sincerely,

Ben Geyer