The Overrunning Recording Session
A Year 12 student has composed a 3-minute 40-second work for the mandatory Composition core. The submitted score is a clean Sibelius printout for flute, violin and piano. The recording was made in one afternoon: the flautist was a friend who had played the piece twice, the violinist read from the score on the day, and the student played the piano part. In the recording, bars 34–41 (a tempo change from crotchet = 72 to crotchet = 96) sound unsettled: the flute enters a quaver late, the piano left hand and violin disagree on beat 3, and the ritardando at bar 60 is not observed. The student argues the score is correct and the recording is 'just a demo'. The teacher must decide what to submit and whether to flag anything.
1. Identify the two distinct assessment issues raised by this scenario and explain why they are separate judgements.
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The two issues are (1) the quality and accuracy of the score as a representation of the composition, and (2) the quality of the performance captured in the recording. They are separate because a composition can be well notated but poorly realised, and a performance can be polished while the notation is ambiguous or incomplete.
Here the score appears internally consistent - the tempo markings and ritardando are written - so the notation issue is minor. The performance issue is more serious: the late flute entry, the beat-3 disagreement in bars 34–41, and the unobserved ritardando are audible errors that a marker will hear. The student's claim that the recording is 'just a demo' does not remove the problem, because the recording is part of the submitted package and will be assessed as evidence of the work. The teacher must therefore treat score accuracy and performance accuracy as two separate lines of feedback, not one.
2. The teacher has one week and a small budget. Recommend what should be done, justifying each action against the likely impact on the mark.
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Recommended actions, in priority order:
- Re-record bars 30–45 and bars 55–65 with the same players if possible. These are the passages with audible errors, and patching is cheaper than a full re-record. Impact: removes the most damaging evidence against the student.
- Rehearse the tempo change explicitly - count the flute in at bar 34 and rehearse the ritardando with a metronome slowing from 72. Impact: the tempo change is a compositional feature the student presumably intended; if it is not heard, the marker cannot credit it.
- Do not attempt to fix errors by editing the audio beyond joining clean takes. Splicing that hides ensemble problems misrepresents the performance and is not defensible if questioned.
- Add a short written note (if the school's submission rules allow) clarifying that the recording is a reading of the score, not a definitive performance. Impact: modest, but it frames the marker's listening.
- Check the score against the recording for any marking that was never realised - if the ritardando is not performed, either perform it or remove it, so score and recording agree.
A full re-record is not necessary if the patch is clean; the marginal gain from re-recording the accurate sections is small.
3. The student insists the composition should be judged on the score alone. Evaluate this position.
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The position is understandable but not sustainable under the syllabus. Composition is assessed on the submitted work, and the recording is part of that work: it is the primary evidence of how the piece sounds, and markers are instructed to consider the relationship between score and recording. If the recording contradicts the score, the marker cannot know whether the discrepancy is a performance error or a notation that is unclear or unplayable.
The stronger argument the student could make is that the notation is the authoritative text and the recording is a guide. Even then, the student should ensure the guide does not actively mislead - a late entry at a tempo change reads as an ensemble problem, and an ignored ritardando reads as either a notation the performers could not follow or a marking the composer did not mean. Either reading costs marks.
Best resolution: keep the score as the authority, but make the recording faithful enough that a listener can hear the intended shape. That protects the composition mark without pretending the performance is irrelevant.