Introduction

In SOTA’s music programme, students are taught a variety of aspects in music. Students are encouraged to express themselves through music. Not only do they learn about their own culture and instruments, students also experience and experiment with different instruments and styles. A deeper understanding of music is fostered through the use of worksheets, online activities, group work and more. Many other courses are provided so that students can discover and develop their interests in music.

Performances

A diverse range of performances are required of students. From experiencing solo performance classes to group chamber music, students can gain more confidence and passion for performing to a larger audience.

Performance classes: They provide students with feedback on their playing and more experience in performing. Teachers and students will give feedback on the student’s playing, such as their good points and what they could improve on further. The student that was performing would also share how long he/she have been practicing the piece for, and what he/she hopes to achieve.

Group performances: These could range from temporary groups to chamber groups. Temporary groups could include experimenting with different interpretations of performing, or composing a piece of music together. They help with nurturing students’ sense of cooperation and group work. Students also get to express and share their ideas with their own groups, forming their own unique interpretation towards composing. For chamber performances, students are required to work together with their teachers and perform pieces. They also get to experience using different instruments, which in turn widens their perspectives and understanding of music. Trying out different instruments also lets the students discover a new passion or hobby, while learning new useful skills. Overall, the group performances help with increasing each student’s confidence and self-esteem.

Portfolio

Students are required to have their own portfolios for each topic learnt in music lessons. The portfolio is split into many sections; IS (Instrumental Studies), IMS (Integrated Music Studies) and theory reflections. Portfolios take up a bigger percentage of the overall grade, and will be used throughout the 6 years of the International Baccalaureate music curriculum.

Every week, students have to attend IS lessons where they have a teacher to work on their specific instruments. During Supervised Studies, which take place once a week, students work on writing their reflections for their IS lessons, sharing their new pieces, and setting goals they hope to achieve in the next lesson. The purpose of the IS reflections is for the students to record down their progress and improvements with playing their instruments for the year. Although the reflections are important as it is counted in the overall grade, students can also improve in performing as the reflection includes writing things the student learnt in class, hence students know their weaknesses and work on it. Students also have to include pictures of their score from their pieces and explain their annotations on their score, such that it is easy for everyone to understand what they have written or drawn. Students also have to explain what they did in IS lessons, but in point-form and to just state the main things they did in the lessons. Apart from that, students have to set goals, such as how much time they want to spend on practicing their instrument a day, and working on their new pieces and studies.

The IMS reflections that the students work on are based on their IMS lessons, which take place every Wednesday. Students experience and learn about different cultures during those particular lessons, and whatever they have learnt will be applied and reflected in their portfolios. This helps to form an in-depth understanding of the topics learnt, and improve their critical thinking, argumentation and analytical skills. Students are provided feedback from their assigned portfolio markers or teachers, to prepare for the Mid-Year and End Of Year assessments. Peer-marking is also involved, so that the students can see what they’ve written from their classmates’ perspectives. As mentioned above, students will in turn improve and work on their weaker points to form better and well-organized arguments or analysis.

Last but not least, are the theory reflections. Every week, students will learn about theory-related topics. To enhance their understanding of theory, they are required to write down theory notations on their own scores to visualize and form a thorough knowledge of the learnt notations. Theory is also applied in the IMS reflections, which helps back up their theory-related arguments.