The areas of inquiry are lenses onto any musical material, not a syllabus of set works: music for sociocultural and political expression (protest songs, work songs, anthems); music for listening and performance (the concert and its repertoires); music for dramatic impact, movement and entertainment (film scores, game soundtracks, dance); and music technology in the electronic and digital age (production, sampling, the DAW). One piece can sit under more than one lens, and the strongest explorations say WHY the lens fits.
Every encounter sits in a context: PERSONAL (the student's own musical world), LOCAL (the culture and community around them) and GLOBAL (previously unfamiliar music). The course asks students to move beyond the personal: breadth is shown by reaching local and global material. The three roles run through every encounter: the researcher analyses elements and context, the creator takes something into an exercise, the performer realizes it in sound.
One encounter, three roles: researcher, creator, performer
The exploration portfolio is the course's first submission: written work demonstrating engagement with, and understanding of, diverse musical material, plus practical exercises in creating and performing. The discipline: every claim about a piece is made through the elements (an audible or notated event named before any context or effect is claimed); diversity and breadth are shown across the inquiries and the contexts, not asserted; and the practical exercises grow out of the same encounters the written work analyses.
Written and practical work from the same encounters (portfolio).
Boundary notes: the examiner must see the music happening: engagement shown in the elements, the processes evidenced, the work finished. All worked examples are original.
