Course topics.

Try this with Music

1. Compare the topic list with the current course outline from your school.
2. Pick a topic you can partly explain and identify the exact part you want to work through.
3. Bring one example of the kind of question or task your school uses.

View Music resources on ATARMAXXING ↗

Topics in the resource inventory

• Duration: beat, metre, tempo, rhythm, accent and syncopation
• Melody: contour, range, register, motif and melodic patterns
• Harmony and tonality: progressions, cadences, dissonance, keys, modes and modulation
• Texture and timbre: density, voicing, layering, instrumentation and sound manipulation
• Expressive devices and structure: dynamics, articulation, contrast and form
• Compositional devices: accompaniment, development, theme, transition, unity and variation
• Innovations in pitch: extended harmony, chromaticism, atonality and new scale forms
• Innovations in duration and structure: polyrhythm, mixed metre, looping, phasing and additive form
• Innovations in timbre and technology: prepared and extended techniques, electronics, sampling and layering
• Innovation in context: how new practices in jazz, art, popular and Australian music create new meaning
• Narrative I: conveying setting in time and place
• Narrative II: characterisation, leitmotif and thematic transformation
• Narrative III: supporting drama and action — building and releasing tension
• Narrative IV: establishing and changing mood and atmosphere, and text setting
• Narrative genres: film, television and game music, musical theatre, opera, program music and art song
• Decoding the question: the concept, the contextual information and choosing your option
• Key moments: working inside bars and time codes, and hearing what the score does not show
• Deconstructing a key moment: breadth, depth and connecting elements to find meaning
• Evaluating and justifying: insightful judgments and credible, referenced examples
• Planning and writing the analytical essay in 20 + 120 minutes