Hello Year 9 and thank you for taking the time to look at the music options available at KS4 at Swanmore College. I’m really pleased that you are interested in finding out a little bit more about what is on offer for music at Key Stage 4. There are two music courses that we offer, and this video is going to look at the GCSE music course, so if you are interested in Level 1 and 2 Award in Performing Arts which is the vocational course we offer, then head over to the other video, or watch both. Your teacher can help you to decide whether which course is the best option for you, so talk to them if you are not sure on which course you would like to do.

 If you already play an instrument to a reasonable level, and you want to be able to complete in depth analysis of a range of different styles and have a go at composing, and you are prepared to have a go at a subject that is slightly more academic and detailed in content and don’t mind having a written exam at the end of the course then you are in the right place, so listen on as I’m now going to take you through the components that are involved in a little more detail.

30% of the course is performance. You will need to be able to play and record between 4 and 6 minutes worth of performance content in total on your chosen instrument or voice. Most pupils record a solo performance, and an ensemble performance for this. It is just worth noting that in order to be able to achieve full marks in performance by the time you reach Year 11 you would need to ideally be grade 4.

Another part of the course is composition, which is also coursework. It involves a free composition which is a composition of your choice done in Year 10 and a composition completed in Year 11 which is set to a brief by the exam board. These make up 30% of the course, so you would have 60% which is coursework. We are lucky enough at Swanmore to have two MAC suites in the music department. We have logic and Garageband on all our Macs as well as Sibelius and Musescore. Students can choose which software they use, although most students use our notation software, Sibelius and Musescore, can be downloaded for free at home so you can continue composing at home as well which is also very helpful.

The remaining 40% of the GCSE qualification is the exam. You sit this at the end of Year 11 and it is a listening exam which covers 4 areas of study.

Area of Study 1 covers musical forms and devices and this is predominantly music from the Western Classical tradition, such as baroque, classical and romantic music. You will also study a set work by Bach.

Area of Study 2 covers chamber music and small ensembles such as string quartets or trios. You will also study jazz and blues as well as musical theatre.

Area of study 3 covers film music, how music describes an emotion and how music tells a story, and Area of Study 4 covers pop, rock bhangra and fusion and there is also another set work to study which is ‘Africa’ by Toto. So you can see that the course covers a wide variety of music so there is something that everybody will enjoy and be interested in.

You study the elements of music as part of the course looking at melody, tempo, rhythm and metre, texture, sonority and how the instruments sound, structure, harmony and tonality, as well as instrumentation. Now I know this sounds quite daunting, but a lot of this we’ve covered in some detail in Year 9, but there will be some new keywords for you to learn too and you will analyse the music in a more detail.

So what to do after music, maybe you want to be a professional musician or a composer or record producer there are so many careers on offer in the music industry, here are just a few of them.

Or maybe you just want to study music for KS4 which is also fine and lots of different careers and further education providers look for a wide range of subjects, and music GCSE offers a range of transferable skills even if you are not looking at doing music at A level.

Or you might really enjoy it and go on to do A level music, both Peter Symonds college and Barton Peveril run A level music, and they expect GCSE if you want to study A level. The benefits of GCSE is you can also go on to study vocational courses too such as at Fareham College and Havant and South Downs, and a more extensive list of the vocational courses available can be found on the vocational course video if you are interested in these. Each year we have a number of pupils who go on to study A level and vocational music courses at the above colleges. Lots of universities also offer degrees in music, with specialisms in a variety of areas including performance, production, composition and analysis. This includes many of the Russell group universities, as well as specialist music colleges such as Guildhall and Royal Northern College of Music.

If you have any questions, please do ask your teacher and discuss it with them. We can help advise on the suitability of both GCSE and the vocational courses and will be more than happy to answer any further questions you may have. Feel free to have a watch of the vocational video too, as watching both may help you make an informed decision on which one may be better suited to you and that you will enjoy more.