Criteria and tools for assessing wind-instrument ensemble performance in Chinese higher music education: cross-cultural specificity

Abstract

The assessment of wind-instrument ensemble performance in Chinese higher music education rests upon two heterogeneous traditions: the European academic one, with its analytical, criterion-based logic, and the Chinese pedagogical culture, dominated by holistic mentor assessment oriented toward the collective result. Their combination produces a gap between the declared criteria and the tools actually applied, which becomes especially visible in the shift from solo to ensemble assessment. A criterion-instrumental model of wind-ensemble assessment is constructed, in which ensemble-specific criteria – intonational coordination of tuning, metrorhythmic synchronization, dynamic balance, articulatory coherence, agogic unity, timbral fusion, and non-verbal communicative coordination – are separated from the criteria of individual performance and correlated with diagnostic tools. A typology of cross-cultural adaptation points is proposed, where the European criterion-based scheme diverges from Chinese assessment practice. Ensemble assessment cannot be reduced to summing the participants' individual indicators: the quality of joint sound is set by the coordination of parameters and requires a distinct diagnostic apparatus. The cross-cultural specificity of assessment lies not in the set of criteria as such but in the manner of their presentation and in the relative weight of the collective and individual components, which shifts the emphasis from ranking participants to diagnosing the coherence of the ensemble.