Do Numbers Tell the Whole Story

Awhile back I was having a friendly argument with a colleague about the difference between teaching academic music classes and performing classes to non-music majors. This colleague (and good friend) lamented having to teach a non-performance based music class that was required for non-music majors on campus; essentially an academic music class required for another degree plan at our university. This colleague felt that teaching non-majors was harder, and that they were generally less happy than music majors would be with the course. I countered that my men’s choir has seventy non-music majors in it, and based on my student evaluations, they are quite happy. The colleague countered with something to the effect of “but it’s an ensemble, it’s different. It’s easier.”

 

So this got me going, obviously (Easier!?! Give me a break! …was what I screamed inside my head). But it did get me thinking. When I look at the course evaluations for my men’s choir, they are universally great. There is always one outlier in there, but by and large, my men’s choir’s course evaluations are the highest of all my classes. We do have fun in there. But I think the evaluations don’t tell the whole story, especially for an ensemble such as mine. I think the enrollment numbers are important. 

 

See, if a kid joins my non-auditioned men’s choir and doesn’t care for it, he doesn’t stay for the whole semester and then write a bad evaluation telling me all that I’ve done wrong. He just drops. Full stop. So in many ways, in a type of group like this, numbers tell a much bigger story than evaluations. I made that point that it is almost better to ignore my evaluations, or at least take them with a big grain of salt, and look at my numbers. In my case, I inherited this choir when it was about 22 members. It has grown slowly, but steadily, into a choir of about 70 guys over the past 6 years. Plus, we aren’t horrible. But I would argue till I’m blue in the face that doing a good job with a choir is absolutely not easier than teaching a regular class…even to non-music majors. It’s an apples and oranges situation. Oh, and there are plenty of music folks out there teaching required, non-major, academic courses who are getting great course evaluations.

 

Of course, I am ignoring the massively important, yet subjective measure of “do they sound good.” In an academic setting this is often best left to ACDA adjudicated convention performances for more objective measurement. Also, within different schools (including K-12 schools), there is a critical mass point where the structure of the university, the class schedule, the number of total students, etc., effectively puts a cap on enrollment. As a counterpoint, we all know one person who has a huge choir that is sort of not very good. So all these measures should be taken in combination for the most accurate picture of success.

 

I am also ignoring auditioned ensembles. My top choir has about 30% non-music majors in it. For the past six years, enrollment has stayed constant, or actually gone down slightly. But the important part for me is that my auditioning numbers have grown considerably. My first year, I took almost every guy with a pulse. Last year I turned away more than double the number of men I let in. Same for the women. And I could increase the size of my group by ten or even twenty people pretty easily. But that would mean including singers who really couldn’t read music well or could read but had marginal vocal technique. So I chose to require that every singer in my choir have good basic musicianship skills and be an above average singer. So my ensemble size in this case is a choice. Apples to oranges to pears, perhaps.

 

I guess this rant is to say: A) conducting a choir is not easier than an academic class (harumpf!), and B) course evaluations should be cross considered with things like enrollment and external recognition of success when evaluating job performance.

 

Feel free to shoot holes in what I’ve written here. It’s a ripe topic.