Exploring Music in Context

Exploring is one of the processes of studying and investigating music. Exploring music involves aural, kinaesthetic and scholarly research. By exploring music in diverse contexts, students will develop their ability to:

• analyse musical material (through critical listening and by reading scores) referring to conventions and practices

• explore unfamiliar media, stimuli and techniques

• extract musical information from the music examples studied in order to identify the purpose and use of musical structures, creating conventions, performing practices and techniques.

• investigate how music is made and performed in different contexts

• listen and respond to a wide variety of music, developing aural awareness of musical devices and musical elements, such as melody, harmony, texture, tonality, structure, articulation and dynamics.

When exploring music in context, students will be introduced to diverse musical material that will broaden their musical horizons and provide stimuli to expand their own music-making. Students will demonstrate diversity and breadth in their exploration by engaging with music from the areas of inquiry in personal, local and global contexts. In doing so, students will learn to use musical, as well as extra-musical, findings to make sense of music in its context, and to understand musical conventions and practices.

Extra-musical findings relate to when and where music was created or performed. This may, for example, include relevant social, cultural and political information about the chosen music in context, ideas about music in society, and knowledge of how music is communicated and transmitted in its context.

Extra-musical findings are generated from materials about musical works, including, but not limited to, journal articles, interviews or documentaries in order to extract relevant musical information and to contextualize musical findings.

Musical findings relate to what, how and why music is created and performed. This includes musical practices and conventions, the use of musical elements and compositional devices, interpretations and forms of expression.

Musical findings are generated from scores, audio/video recordings and live experiences of music, which students will analyse to extract musical findings.

In addition to studying musical materials in the classroom, students should, whenever possible, explore music by visiting concerts or places where they can encounter live music.

Exploring as a researcher

As a researcher, students learn to investigate the contexts and origin of the music as they explore the creating and performing conventions and practices of diverse musical contexts. Students also learn to analyse music in order to understand how music is constructed using musical elements and compositional devices, and how music is performed through the use of stylistic and production techniques, interpretations and forms of expression.

Students will develop their ability to name and explain musical and extra-musical findings within their context using accurate terminology. They will also discover how music is notated and communicated in different musical cultures, genres and styles. At the same time, they will become accustomed to accurately locating their musical findings in notated scores and recordings.

As students engage with conventions and performing practices, they will develop understanding through practical exercises. Therefore, students will learn to connect their findings with practical work, and clearly and effectively explain the implications of their research findings on these practical exercises in the form of written commentaries. Written commentaries are not anecdotal writing but are technical in nature.

When exploring music as a researcher, students will learn to:

• analyse music to identify musical findings

• specify the exact location of musical findings in the audio excerpts (using minutes and seconds)

• specify the exact location of musical findings in scores (using bars/measures, beats, instruments/voices or other markers, as appropriate)

• identify extra-musical findings that are relevant to contextualize musical findings

• explain musical and extra-musical findings using accurate terminology

• explain the implications of findings on practical exercises.

Teachers are advised to provide regular opportunities for students to improve their writing as researchers. This could include the explanation of research findings, the use of accurate terminology, the verbalization of the understanding of musical conventions and practices, and a detailed description of practical work. Regular exercises and assignments, paired with effective teacher and peer feedback, will allow students to develop their skills and collect a range of materials in their music journals.

Musical analysis

Musical analysis helps students understand how musical elements and compositional devices relate to a given context, genre or style. Clearly communicating these relationships makes musical analysis a powerful tool for any musician.

Musical analysis, for the purpose of this course, requires students to ask some fundamental questions about any piece of studied music.

• When and where? When students ask when and where, they identify the contextual background of the piece.

• What? When students ask what, they deconstruct music to explain musical elements and compositional devices.

• How and why? When students ask how, they consider musical choices and structures in relation to conventions and practices.

• When students ask why, they explore a musician’s intentions or the purpose of a piece of music.

These questions are important to engaging with music in a meaningful way that encourages students to apply their findings to practical work successfully.

Exploring as a creator

Exploring music as a creator means to engage with creating conventions in practical ways. For creators, musical findings can be gained through arranging, improvising, notating or creating music according to specific stylistic conventions.

In exploring, students will engage regularly in exercises to gain practical musical knowledge and enhance their understanding of creating music. These exercises serve as technical studies that engage students practically with musical material from different contexts. Such exercises are not considered full-scale, refined musical or completed works. Instead, they are useful for the creator to sketch and demonstrate the understanding of musical styles and conventions.

Students should develop their ability to convey musical intentions effectively through notation according to musical conventions. The style of notation is not limited to staff/stave notation. Creating exercises should always be presented using a form of notation that is appropriate to the chosen style. The notation should support the creating exercise. Notation may be handwritten (for example, score, graphic, and so on) or digital (for example, screenshots, graphic notation, and so on). Where staff/stave notation is not used, students should keep records of audio or video tracks linked to their music journals for reference .

Students will learn to effectively explain the implications of their research findings on creating exercises through clear and concise writing that addresses:

• the stylistic creating conventions or practices that are demonstrated

• specific points of interest within the exercise, for example, places where conventions have been specifically realized or demonstrated

• challenges of the exercise (if applicable).

Regular practice and feedback from teachers will help students to improve their musical skills and practical understanding of conventions relating to creating music. It is recommended that students collect these exercises in their music journals.

Exploring as a performer

Exploring music as a performer means to access and engage with music in practical ways through playing and practising music from unfamiliar contexts. In this course, students gain musical findings as performers by adapting and playing music from local and global contexts on their own instruments, voiced or chosen medium. This will help students to know and better understand conventions and practices of musical styles, and how these relate to their own practice.

Through practical exercises, students will explore the performing conventions and practices of stimulus music, and will adapt these to their own instruments, voices or chosen medium. The adaptations will be:

• based on the findings of performing conventions and practices

• based on stimulus music from local or global contexts

• adapted for the students’ own instruments, voices or chosen medium

• performed by the student.

The exercises are not intended to accurately reproduce music, but to enhance learning and understanding. Though the student will aim to represent music as closely and accurately as possible, these are not considered full-scale, fully refined or perfectly authentic representations or performances of this music. The exercises serve rather as a tool to unlock and personalize practices that are unfamiliar to the student, to better understand the implications of the conventions and practices and to understand these in relation to their own instruments, voices or chosen medium. They allow students to explore music from a global context kinaesthetically and aurally. In the process of exploration, students will also discover more about their own music, their level of musicianship, as well as the limitations or possibilities of their own instruments, voices or chosen medium as they practice and play music as part of these exercises.

Students will learn to effectively explain the implications of their research findings on performed adaptations through clear and concise writing that addresses:

• the performing conventions or practices that are demonstrated

• specific points of interest in the adaptation of the excerpt, for example, places where conventions have been particularly well realized

• challenges of the exercise and how these were resolved, for example, where adapting a stylistic element for their own instrument has caused challenges.

Regular practice and feedback from teachers will help students to improve their musical skills and practical understanding of conventions relating to adapting and performing music. It is recommended that students collect these exercises in their music journals.