AQA Music A2

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Reply 20

Harrimusic

anyone know anything about chamber music....? :confused:

Reply 21

stephjess

I'm doing Vaughan Williams and Chamber music. We've only done one by Mendelssohn and one by Borodin but I think we're doing more.
What's everyone else doing for chamber music?

Reply 22

partypool

Hi,
did any of you do british pop from 1960 to present day for the AS option? I haven't studied anything from 2000s and wondered if it would be problem?

Reply 23

InketyDink

Original post by partypool

Hi,
did any of you do british pop from 1960 to present day for the AS option? I haven't studied anything from 2000s and wondered if it would be problem?

I didn't touch anything from 2000 and it was fine. There will be at least one question that doesn't set any specific dates but I don't remember even with questions that ask for a specifc time e.g. 70s, I don't remember ever seeing any mock or past questions asking about 2000s.

Reply 24

thatssojess

I don't suppose anyone who's doing Chamber Music has any notes they fancy sharing? Teacher has left us completely unprepared :confused:

Reply 25

Harrimusic

Original post by thatssojess

I don't suppose anyone who's doing Chamber Music has any notes they fancy sharing? Teacher has left us completely unprepared :confused:

My teachers basically told us to know one movement in a lot of detail, and one work in general detail. Apparently bar numbers are useful, as well op. numbers too.
We should also choose 2 of the same forces (e.g. string quartets, sextets etc) and also maybe one with another, like the schumann piano quintet.
It may also be worth knowing something about each composer that you've chosen to study, like all their other works, their influences and what they were doing at the time of composition like what would have effected them.

I hope this helps :smile:

Reply 26

InketyDink

Original post by Harrimusic

The works I'm covering are:

Mendelssohn piano trio in D minor Op 49
First movement: Molto Allegro e Agitato

Schumann piano quintet in E flat
First movement: Allegro Brilliante
Second movement: In modo d'una marcia

Brahms piano quintet in F minor op 34
Third movement: Scherzo (allegro) & trio

Dvorak piano quintet no 2 in A major Op 81
Second movement: Dumka

Debussy string quartet in G minor
First movement: Anime et tres decide
Second movement: Assez vif et bein rhythme

My teacher did a lot more with me last year but not in much detail on anything so I'm hoping that doing fewer in much greater detail will help. I'll put my notes up if I ever type them up (I prefer handwritten felt tip notes but I guess I could always scan them?)

Reply 27

TheShore

Hey,

I study Mahler's 4th symphony and Jazz for the set work section of the exam and was wondering if anyone had any discussion,or predictions of what may come up this year.

I also wondered if I could leave Ravel,and Gershwin out of my jazz revision (because our teacher didn't even have time to teach us anything about them) and just focus on the other periods of jazz and do them in detail,Eg. Ragtime,new Orleans and dixieland,swing,be-bop and "cool" jazz

Reply 28

TheShore

also i would just like to say that the sheer amount of work you could get asked questions on seems a bit ridiculous,it's as if the exam isn't about musicality whatsoever. Our teacher has given us over 20 pieces for the jazz and it's impossible to remember details like bar numbers,and interesting harmonic features etc.

Reply 29

EdenOfHogwarts

Yes the memory thing is ridiculous. I guess you could leave ravel etc out but it possibly eliminates a questio choice

Reply 30

TheShore

Original post by EdenOfHogwarts

Yes the memory thing is ridiculous. I guess you could leave ravel etc out but it possibly eliminates a questio choice

Yeah that's a risk i think I'm willing to take as i think the other question would have to be on the other jazz stuff right? as in both questions couldn't focus on Gershwin and ravel...well i hope not anyway haha!

Reply 31

sarahgould-x

Original post by TheShore

I'm doing both of them too! We've predicted either the second or third movement coming up this year for the question focusing on one movement in particular but who knows :confused:

I'd say it's fine to leave out Ravel and Gershwin. I'm learning them just because I've found them easier to learn but if it's a general development of jazz question, 12 bar blues, etc, then I guess you wouldn't have to write about the classical pieces?

There's soo much memorising involved arghh!

Reply 32

sarahgould-x

Might be too late to help anyone now but this website is pretty good for jazz! Shame there's no Mahler :mad:

http://galatea.meccahosting.com/~a00076ab/styled-12/styled-35/index.html

Also musictheory.net is good for practising intervals for the listening section of the exam!

Reply 33

TheShore

Original post by sarahgould-x

I'm doing both of them too! We've predicted either the second or third movement coming up this year for the question focusing on one movement in particular but who knows :confused:

Yeah it seems more about memorizing things then actually being musical haha. I'm going to leave out the ravel and gershwin,simply because they are so long! and they can't come up in both jazz questions anyway (i hope)

Reply 34

sarahgould-x

Original post by TheShore

Aha yeah exactly i wouldn't have thought so! I just checked and the previous 2 years' questions have been on the 1st and 4th movements :smile:

Reply 35

TheShore

i quite like the 3rd movement,its nice haha.harder to write about though

Reply 36

Lulasun

How do you even begin to revise for Mahler? Having some major problems

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 37

InketyDink

Original post by Lulasun

How do you even begin to revise for Mahler? Having some major problems

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

I'm memorising my notes and then applying that knowledge to whatever comes up in the essay I suppose. As long as you vaguely know where locations of things are you needn't worry about knowing the bar numbers exactly since you have the score with you.

When you're going through your notes, have a copy of the score close at hand as well as a copy of the movement you're studying on CD, itunes, etc. so that you can associate the sound with the words e.g. if I was trying to memorise all the ways that the dotted rhythm pattern is developed out of motif 2, I would listen several times with the score paying attention to little else other than this motif until I had a good map in my head of where it reappears and how it has been changed.

--

http://pastebin.com/TZEv6xVx

^ Here are my notes. There are other things that I haven't noted here because I know that I know them (e.g. further information about themes and influences) but I'm afraid I can't spare the time to type all of that out.

Also you'll notice I've covered the 4th movement in very little detail... I guess that's a bit risky, but they already had the 4th movement as a question last year as well as in the specimen paper so I'm quite confident there won't be anything on that and though you might need to know some passages if you choose the general question you should be able to get away with it. (Only recommending this since it's so close to the exam!)

If you have the Rhinegold study book you'll find that what I've pasted is a mixture of notes from that, partly in my own words (until I got a bit lazy :colondollar:

) as well as stealing ideas from other sources e.g. "The Mahler symphonies: an owner's manual - David Hurwitz" and BBC Radio 3 Discovering music programme.

--

As for answering the question in the exam, I've copied some useful stuff from the examiners reports from the past two years to try and help in knowing the best way to go about answering the essays.

"Specific movement questions: The best approach is to go through the movement chronologically and it is also important that equally detailed attention is given to the whole movement when this is asked for in the question. "

“Many candidates ran out of time before the end of the movement or gave the
recapitulation fairly short shrift. Some, unfortunately, misread the question, either discussing the development only, or starting from the beginning of the development and continuing to the end of the movement.”

“Mention of harmonic ideas was also lacking in some scripts. The latter was indeed very prevalent in those answers which tended towards being descriptive, ie what the candidate saw on the page, as opposed to what he/she heard. It cannot be stressed more strongly that if only the visual aspects of the work are noted then the candidate can only achieve up to half marks for that answer. “

"Open ended questions: To answer this sort of question thoroughly a better approach would be a detailed investigation of selected short sections - two or three at the most - spread through the whole symphony. "

"In the Mahler it is simply not sufficient to refer to dynamics, arco, pizzicato, col legno etc and the fact that the wind instruments play with raised bells as examples of Mahler's individual way of writing for instruments. The scordatura violin in the second movement always featured (sometimes tuned higher, sometimes lower....). It would have been more profitable to have considered tessitura, scoring and other similar matters"

"Mere score descriptions will not receive as many marks as essays where the candidate refers to a passage specifically and then makes a comment relevant to the focus of the essay’s question."

Hope this helps a bit! Now if only I could drag myself over to the desk to memorise that Schumann quintet...

Reply 38

Lulasun

Good luck. For me, the romantic chamber music is the one you just learn generally. Just bar numbers. The Mahler is my Everest. Thanks so much!!!!

This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Reply 39

Harrimusic

panicking sooooo much! I'm afraid i'm going to do badly and as i'm going to music college people will all think that i'm awful and dont deserve to be there

but although i'm panicking i dont seem to be spending much time on the revision, mostly because i dont know how.... especially chamber music