Vocabulary that you need to know...

Contexts

Students are required to engage with the diverse nature of music, looking beyond their own contexts to explore music with which they are unfamiliar, and which will broaden both their cultural and musical perspectives. This fosters international-mindedness and encourages the exploration of less familiar musical work to inspire student’s practical work. Three contexts will be used to guide the student’s choice of material:

Personal context

• This includes music that has significance to the student, and that they are most familiar with.

• Students consider their immediate cultural context and interests that contribute to their emerging musical identity.

Local context

• This includes music that has local significance, but that may be unfamiliar to the student.

• This can be music from within the student’s local, regional or cultural communities, and may include music that the student is not currently engaged with.

Global context

• This includes unfamiliar music from a variety of places, societies and cultures.

• This may include music that the student has not connected or engaged with. The music may be from a distant global region but may also include music in closer proximity that has not been previously accessible to the student.

Discussion and joint decision-making between teachers and students is strongly recommended when selecting diverse musical material to be studied.

Students’ engagement with diverse musical material will be evidenced in the work submitted for assessment.

“ME-ME-HA-ME-FO-STY-CO”

This mnemonic device is a simple way of remembering the elements, form and context when listening, analyzing or writing a piece of music. Often candidates forget to write about the context, and this little device is a great way to remind yourself that you have covered some of the significant analysis.

• Me – Melody

• Me – Meter (incl Rhythm)

• Ha – Harmony

• Me – Medium

• Fo – Form

• Sty – Style

• Co – Context

Also Add in:

• Tex - Texture

• Instruments - Instrumentation

• Dyna - Dynamics

• Mo - More!

PROS:

1) A way to provide a basic outline for your analysis

2) Reminds candidate to include contextual and stylistic information

3) Includes majority of the elements

CONS:

1) Missing important categories of musical terms like TEXTURE, not to mention dynamics, articulations, etc.

2) Candidates may spend the majority of their time on the first one “ME” or “melody”, and reduce word count to write about structure and other elements.