Through focus group interviews with five music teachers in schools located around Østfold and 19 music teachers’ free text responses through a survey, we take a closer look at how different parts of the music subject are assessed and judged in school. We wanted to uncover the experiences and challenges music teachers face in relation to their assessment practice, and to what extent qualitative assessment and musical judgment can be combined with analytical assessment and objective criteria without compromising the assessment’s validity. A central question we pose, is: How to ensure transparency and a sufficient degree of reliability in the assessment practice in a complex subject where different forms of assessment are combined? This research question is discussed and seen in the light of the national curriculum (LK20), incoming data from the teachers and current literature in the field.