Curriculum Overview

Appraisal Assessment: • Assessment: Exam style questions x 2 sets.

Composition Assessment: 8 Bar melody and bass line

Performance Assessment: • Performance of the set work

• Other classical and baroque examples

• One solo each

• Don’t look back in Anger: Oasis

Baroque
Relating to or denoting a style of European architecture, music, and art of the 17th and 18th centuries that followed Mannerism and is characterized by ornate detail. In architecture the period is exemplified by the palace of Versailles and by the work of

Harpsichord
A keyboard instrument with horizontal strings which run perpendicular to the keyboard in a long tapering case, and are plucked by points of quill, leather, or plastic operated by depressing the keys. It is used chiefly in European classical music of the 1

Bass Continuo
Basso continuo is a form of musical accompaniment used in the Baroque period. It means "continuous bass". Basso continuo, sometimes just called "continuo", was played by a keyboard instrument and another bass instrument such as cello, violone (an old form

Chamber Orchestra
A small orchestra

Contrapuntal
Anything contrapuntal has to do with counterpoint, which is a type of music that has two melodic lines played at the same time. Many kinds of music (such as rock and country) are very simple, but others are more complex: such as contrapuntal tunes.

Figured Bass
A bass line with the intended harmonies indicated by figures rather than written out as chords, typical of continuo parts in baroque music.

Violin
A stringed musical instrument of treble pitch, played with a horsehair bow. The classical European violin was developed in the 16th century. It has four strings and a body of characteristic rounded shape, narrowed at the middle and with two f-shaped sound

Viola
An instrument of the violin family, larger than the violin and tuned a fifth lower.

Cello
A bass instrument of the violin family, held upright on the floor between the legs of the seated player.

Double Bass
The largest and lowest-pitched instrument of the violin family, providing the bass line of the orchestral string section and also used in jazz and some country music.

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Appraisal Assessment: 2 sets of exam style questions.

Composition Assessment: Harmonise 8 bar melody composition. work to be completed using Muse Score.

No performance assessment this term.

Melody
A sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying; a tune.

Middle Eight or Bridge
The bridge is basically the part that contrasts and sounds different from the rest of the song, and can also be used to connect two parts of a song together.

Harmony
The combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce a pleasing effect.

Accompaniment
A musical part that provides support for another sound or voice.

Primary Chord
In music, a primary triad is one of the three triads, or three-note chords built from major or minor thirds, most important in tonal and diatonic music, as opposed to an auxiliary triad or secondary triad. Each triad found in a diatonic key corresponds to

Secondary Chord
A secondary chord is a dominant function chord that is not the dominant chord in the key of the piece, but is the dominant of one of the other major or minor triads in that key.

Major
Music in a major key (music whose scale contains a major third upward from its "tonic," the starting note, so that the basic tonic chord is major).

Minor
Music in a major key (music whose scale contains a major third upward from its "tonic," the starting note, so that the basic tonic chord is major).

Melismatic
Melisma in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession.

Juke Box
A machine that automatically plays a selected musical recording when a coin is inserted.

Musical
Relating to music, having a pleasant sound, melodious or tuneful, a play or film in which singing and dancing play an essential part. Musicals developed from light opera in the early 20th century.

Vaudeville
A type of entertainment popular chiefly in the US in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of speciality acts such as burlesque comedy and song and dance.

Glam
Glam rock (also known as glitter rock) is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled b

Multi track
Relating to or made by the mixing of several separately recorded tracks of sound.

Anthem
A rousing or uplifting song identified with a particular group, body, or cause, a musical setting of a religious text to be sung by a choir during a church service, especially in Anglican or Protestant Churches.

Outro
The concluding section of a piece of music or a radio or television programme.

Scalic
Of or related to a musical scale - scalic patterns.

Extended Chord
In music, extended chords are tertian chords (built from thirds) or triads with notes extended, or added, beyond the seventh. Ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords are extended chords.

Overdubbing
Record (additional sounds) on an existing recording.

Syncopation
Displace the beats or accents in (music or a rhythm) so that strong beats become weak and vice versa.

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Appraisal Assessment: Exam styles questions x 2

Composition Assessment: Binary/Ternary composition in progress.

Performance Assessment: Ensemble Performance

Solo
In music, a solo (from the Italian: solo, meaning alone) is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer. Performing a solo is "to solo", and the performer is known as a soloist. The plural is soli or the anglicised form solos.

Glissando
In music, a glissando [ɡlisˈsando] (plural: glissandi, abbreviated gliss.) is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamen

Crescendo
The use of the term 'crescendo' comes from its Italian definition, which is to grow, or become louder, and at its most basic, a crescendo, is a gradual increase in the volume of a passage of music, over time.

Tempo
The word tempo came into English by way of Italian, tracing all the way back to the Latin word tempus, meaning time. It was originally used to describe the timing ofmusic, or the speed at which a piece of music is played. For example, a soothing song woul

Rubato
Tempo rubato [ˈtɛmpo ruˈbaːto] (free in the presentation, Italian for: stolen time) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or th

Time signature
An indication of rhythm following a clef, generally expressed as a fraction with the denominator defining the beat as a division of a semibreve and the numerator giving the number of beats in each bar.

Climax
When something — like a movie or piece of music — reaches its most important or exciting part, that's the climax. A climax is a high point. When you're on a roller coaster and you reach the highest point, that's the climax of the ride. This word is also u

Cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin cadentia, "a falling") is "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of (at least) two chords that concludes a phrase, secti

Leitmotif
A leitmotif or leitmotiv /ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/ is a "short, constantly recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of idée fixe or motto-theme.

Motif
In music, a motif (pronunciation) (help. · info) or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition: "The motive is the smallest

Augmented chord
In music, an augmented triad is a triad, or chord, consisting of two major thirds (an augmented fifth). The term augmented triad arises from an augmented triad being considered a major chord whose top note (fifth) is raised, or augmented.

tremolando
In music, tremolo (Italian pronunciation: [ˈtrɛːmolo]), or tremolando ([tremoˈlando]), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo.

Colla Voice
An indication to an accompanist carefully to take his tempos and rhythm from the soloist.

Bare fifth
Examples of perfect fifth intervals. In music theory, a perfect fifth is the musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so. In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is the interval from the fi

Polytonal chords
The musical use of more than one key simultaneously.

Vocalisation
A musical composition consisting of the singing of melody with vowel sounds or nonsense syllables rather than text, as for special effect in classical compositions, in polyphonic jazz singing by special groups, or in virtuoso vocal exercises OR any such s

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• Assessment: Exam Questions and either solo Ensemble Performance

• Assessment: Ternary Composition

Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States during the mid-to-late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music was in 1988.

Groove
In music, groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or sense of "swing". In jazz, it can be felt as a persistently repeated pattern. It can be created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section (e.g. drums, electric bass or

Fusion
Fusion is where types of music are combined together. Jazz fusion (also known as jazz-rock) is a musical genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined aspects of jazz harmony and improvisation with styles such as funk, rock, rhythm and bl

Pad
Something that is used to fill in the space of a piece usually with chords.

Drone
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece.

Metre
Meter can be categorized as simple, compound, or complex. These three categories can explain all rhythmic patterns in Western music. Each of the categories of meter is defined by the subdivision of beats. The number of beats per measure determine the term

Sample
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a sound recording in a different song or piece.

Loop
In electroacoustic music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections of material can be repeated to create ostinato patterns.

Coda
Coda [ˈkoːda] (Italian for "tail", plural code) is a term used in music primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece (or a movement) to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence. It may be as simple as a few measures, or as complex as an enti

Static Harmony
A static harmony is a term you're concerned with, when you're analysing a songs "syntactic structure". It is a harmony made from roughly one chord (most often the tonic of the dominant), and the prolongation of this chord. A dynamic harmony, on the other

Riff
The definition of a riff is a short rhythm phrase used in music, that is often played when a soloist is performing or when chords and harmonies are changing. An example of a riff is a repeated phrase that is used to lead up to an improvisational solo or u

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• Assessment: Exam Questions including 10-mark essay and either solo Ensemble Performance

(Composition is a work in progress at this stage)

Romanticism
Romantic music is a term that denotes an era of Western classical music that began in the late 18th or early 19th century.

Rubato
Tempo rubato [ˈtɛmpo ruˈbaːto] (free in the presentation, Italian for: stolen time) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or th

Exposition
In musical form and analysis, exposition is the initial presentation of the thematic material of a musical composition, movement, or section. The use of the term generally implies that the material will be developed or varied.

Development
In classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material. Development is often contrasted with musical variation, which

Recapitulation
In music theory, the recapitulation is one of the sections of a movement written in sonata form. There capitulation occurs after the movement's development section, and typically presents once more the musical themes from the movement's exposition.

Sonata Form
Definition of sonata form. : a musical form that consists basically of an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation and that is used especially for the first movement of a sonata.

Cadence
In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin cadentia, "a falling") is "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of (at least) two chords that concludes a phrase, secti

Chromatic
The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone above or below another. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the semitones have the same size (100 cents). In other words, the notes of an equal-tempered chro

Fortissimo
All musical sounds have a dynamic level, which refers to amplitude or volume. In western music, the standard practice is to use Italian words to indicate dynamics. Fortissimo is a dynamic marking that indicates a VERY LOUD volume. It is one step up from f

Pianissimo
A part of a composition played very softly or quietly.

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• Assessment: Exam Questions including 10-mark essay and either solo Ensemble Performance

Trio Sonata
The trio sonata is a musical form that was popular in the 17th and early 18th centuries. A trio sonata is written for two solo melodic instruments and basso continuo, making three parts in all, hence the name trio sonata. ... The melody instruments used a

Dance Suite
In the Baroque era the suite was an important musical form, also known as Suitede danses, Ordre (the term favoured by François Couperin), Partita or Ouverture (after the theatrical "overture" which often included a series of dances) as with the orchestral

Basso Continuo
Basso continuo is a form of musical accompaniment used in the Baroque period. It means "continuous bass". Basso continuo, sometimes just called "continuo", was played by a keyboard instrument and another bass instrument such as cello, violone (an old form

Figured Bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of musical notation in which numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing harpsichord, organ, lute (or other instruments capable of playing chords

Ornament
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody (or harmony), but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central

Mordent
In music, a mordent is an ornament indicating that the note is to be played with a single rapid alternation with the note above or below. Like trills, they can be chromatically modified by a small flat, sharp or natural accidental.

Appoggiatura
A grace note is a single note ornament such as the acciaccatura or appoggiatura. An acciaccatura is played as quickly as possible before the note that follows it. It is sometimes called a crush note.

Word Painting
Word painting (also known as tone painting or textpainting) is the musical technique of writing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song. For example, ascending scales would accompany lyrics about going up; slow, dark music would accompany lyrics

Syllabic Word setting
The term 'syllabic' refers to sung music. Music is syllabic when one pitch in the melody goes with one syllable in the words. When more than one pitch is assigned to a syllable, the term for the setting is melismatic.

Dissonant Intervals
Consonant intervals are usually described as pleasant and agreeable. Dissonant intervals are those that cause tension and desire to be resolved to consonant intervals. These descriptions relate to harmonious intervals.

Suspensions
Suspension, in music, a means of creating tension by prolonging a consonant note while the underlying harmony changes, normally on a strong beat. The resulting dissonance persists until the suspended note resolves by stepwise motion into a new consonant h

Tierce de Picardie
In music a Tierce de Picardie (meaning Picardy third) is a major chord at the end of a piece of music in a minor key. In the 16th to 17th centuries this was a very common way to end a piece in a minor key.

Da Capo Aria
The da capo aria (Italian pronunciation: [da kˈkaːpo]) is a musical form that was prevalent in the Baroque era. It is sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria is very common in the musical genres o

Obbligato
In classical music obbligato usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum.

Binary Form
Binary form is a musical form in two related sections, both of which are usually repeated. Binary is also a structure used to choreograph dance. In music this is usually performed as A-A-B-B

Cantata
A cantata [kanˈtaːta] (literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb cantare, "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.

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