The purpose of this dissertation is to provide a comprehensive study of the significant advantages that could be realized in a bassoon master class on the college level.

Part One, The Master Class Approach, is divided into five chapters and explores the principles of assembling all the bassoon majors of a college music department into a weekly master class under the direction of an artist/teacher. The first chapter summarizes some past and present practices of applied group instruction both in Europe and in the United States, and demonstrates that class instruction on the college level today is more common than many would have thought. Chapter Two explores some of the recently developed concepts of Mastery Learning and how it offers a versatile learning strategy for the utilization of the master class approach and implementation of the present writer's work. Chapter Three examines a part of the nomenclature currently being used by educators. The main thrust of this chapter is that of probing into the meanings of such terms as accountability, behavioral objectives, and competency-based teacher education and the application of these trends to the master class approach. Chapter Four focuses on grouping and the roles required of a group teacher. Some of the problems of implementing a master class on the college level are dealt with in the last chapter.

Part Two, A Systematic Study of the Bassoon, presents major areas of bassoon playing in twenty-four structured units that should be taught in a lecture/performance situation. These units have three levels of mastery beyond the Methods Class level and would be presented each year in a cyclical sequence, creating a "spiral curriculum" effect. Flexibility is carefully built into the design of this method to allow a wide range of application. Among the considerations are:

1. divergent grouping,
2. individualized instruction,
3. the opportunity for each student to progress at his or her own rate,
4. pre-student teaching experiences,
5. use of instructional technological aids,
6. exposure to much of the standard solo bassoon literature,
7. assignments on many aspects of the bassoon covered in the classified bibliography, and
8. evaluation and testing.

The classified bibliography exceeds the limits of the usual selective bibliography in that it includes numerous references under each of the ten topical categories.

Order No. 76-3691, 248 pages.

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