Definition:

A rubric is a guideline for rating student performance.  Most band, choir, or orchestra festivals have such guides for adjudicators when they rate ensemble performance.  The guidelines specify what a performance is like at various levels (superior, excellent, good, poor) and, usually, on various musical attributes (tone, intonation, balance, technique, etc.).  The key elements of a rubric are the descriptors for what a performance is like within the full range of possible performance levels.

Benefits:

• The rubric provides those doing the assessment with exactly the characteristics for each level of performance on which they should base their judgement.

 
• The rubric provides those who have been assessed with clear information about how well they performed.

 
• The rubric also provides those who have been assessed with a clear indication of what they need to accomplish in the future to better their performance.

History:

The term rubric is derived from the Latin term rubrica that means, "red earth."  It came to refer to indications written in red ink within manuscripts of various forms during the middle ages.  Red markings within liturgical documents could indicate how a hymn was to be sung or a religious service was to be conducted.  In legal documents, text in red often indicated a heading in a code of law that led to rubric coming to mean any brief, authoritative rule.

Types:

There are a number of different types of rubrics depending upon the rubric's function.  The labels for these types of rubrics provides a convenient way of categorizing the possible uses of rubrics in assessing students' musical behaviors.

When a single rubric can be used to provide a general assessment of a performance, this form of rubric is said to be holistic.  When a number of rubrics are used to assess a performance, say ones that assess intonation, technique, and musicality of a student's performance, such rubrics are said to be multiple rubrics.  In multiple rubrics, the various attributes being measured should be independent aspects of performance that can stand on their own.

Rubrics can also be defined in terms of the breadth of their application. Task specific rubrics can only be applied to a single task, such as the analysis of a snare drummer's paraddidle. Generic rubrics can be applied to a broad spectrum of performances.  For instance, musicality would be a rubric that could be applied across most musical tasks.