IB Diploma Programme Music HL (first assessment 2022; 2020 guide). This topic equips PRESENTING MUSIC, the externally assessed collection of finished works (40% SL, 30% HL): programme notes, presenting as a creator (composition and/or improvisation) and presenting as a performer (solo and/or ensemble), demonstrating engagement with diverse material from the four areas of inquiry. This handout teaches the finished work, the two presenting strands and the programme notes. All worked examples are original.

Must-know for presenting music:

The creator's strand submits finished composition 作曲 and/or improvisation 即兴演奏: a piece brought to a state the student would sign. The discipline: the material's sources are diverse (drawn from the four inquiries), the choices are audible (a listener can hear the decision without being told), and an improvisation is presented as a rehearsed practice with its limits named, not as a lucky take.

Worked example. “Signal”, a ninety-second piano piece: a call motif borrowed from the analysed work song (the inquiry of expression), answered in the same part; the texture thins to one voice at the close, reversing the song's build; one improvised answer phrase in the final return, marked, rehearsed and freely timed.

The performer's strand submits finished solo 独奏 and/or ensemble 合奏 performing: the choice serves the music (a close that needs one player's control of time argues solo; a piece built on dialogue argues ensemble), the interpretation is a decision (tempo, voicing, where the accent falls) evidenced against the score or source recording, and the standard is the student's best finished work, not the hardest attempt.

Worked example, continued. “Signal” is presented solo: the single-voice close needs one player's time, and the call-and-response is handled inside one part; the interpretation holds the response line slightly late, reading the call as insistent.

The programme notes 节目说明 serve the audience's listening: what to hear (the texture thinning to one voice at the close), where the material came from (the work-song motif, named as source and study), and what the performer chose (the response held late). The failure modes: the biography essay (about the composer, not this listening) and the analysis dump (technical inventory with no guidance for the ear).

Worked example, concluded. The notes open inside the sound (“the piece begins with a call you will hear four times, each answer closer”), name the source in one sentence, and close with the listening instruction (“let the last answer arrive alone”).

• Creator: composition and/or improvisation finished and signable (creator).

• Performer: solo and/or ensemble, the choice serving the music (performer).

• Notes for the listener: what to hear, the source, the choice (notes).

• The works engaging all four inquiries' material (diversity).

• The worked “Signal” presentation understood (worked). 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.