A2 music (ocr)

Yeah, Berlioz is great.

I think for the composing, programme/choral music is generally favoured by the examiners - our teacher advised us strongly against doing film music because apparently the marks nationally for that category are really low, which is a bit suspicious...

I'm a bit worried about my composition - I chose programme music, and I put in a lot of thought about how to express the programme etc. but as a stand-alone piece, it's not amazing. Do you think the examiners take into account the programme, or do they just listen to it as an abstract piece of music?

Also, if you look at the composing marks, you can go up or down a whole grade just based on the notation and how neat it is. It is important to notate properly, but surely it's not worth a whole grade?

Hey good call for 'reviving this thread' haha!
i had my performance last week. i think it went okay and the viva voce was fine! just make sure you're comfortable talking about the different interpretations you've written on your form and know a bit of background knowledge about composers and stuff.. don't worry! the examiners are usually alright- we had a really nice one

our coursework deadline is this friday :s i think my harmony is okay-ish but not too sure about composition.. our teachers haven't really given us much feedback so i'm just hoping for the best!

what topics is everyone doing for the exam?

Yeah I ended up doing programme music and chorales. Yeah the marks being low does sound a lot like OCR to me XD

I think they take into account the whole thing. We mentioned Berlioz earlier. According to my music history lecturer, people rubbished Symphonie Fantastique when they first heard it as they had no idea what was being depicted. Berlioz assumed the audience would grasp the story just listening to the music. Berlioz then began to issue audiences with the storyline on which the piece is based, and then the audiences began to grasp the concept of his music.

Yeah their is an awful lot of marks at stake just for the presentation. I did mine on Sibelius and just made sure it was as good and as accurate as I could get it before submission.

Did my performance today! It went much better than I was expecting I had two examiners, which was a bit scary - I think one was a head examiner or something.

For the exam, I'm doing vocal works in the first section and programme music for the essay bit. What are you doing?


We're also doing vocal works in the first section (the aural bit) and for the essay's we're doing song.

Hello! I'm also doing vocal works in the first section and programme music for the essay bit. I'm struggling with how to revise though! Anyone have any suggestions?

You need to revise late Romantic music. Programme music is descriptive of a story, scene, object, mood etc. Look at Beethoven's 'Pastoral Symphony' (early example), Debussy's 'La Mer', 'Clair De Lune', 'L'Apres Midi D'Un Faun', Mendelssohn's 'Hebrides Overture', Tchaikovsky's 'Romeo and Juliet', Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at An Exhibition'. See what Wikipedia has to say about them. Apart from anything else, they're brilliant pieces to listen to.

I'm not sure what to do either... I can't even remember what I did last year!

I think I made flashcards for key terms and historical context etc. then I annotated the scores and just listened over and over while following the score - so eventually I was really familiar with the pieces. But I suppose this year is different because we don't listen to any extracts from the pieces, it's just essays... Plus we're doing whole pieces not just single movements.

Sorry, that wasn't much help!

hey, i'm doing vocal scores for the first section and programme music for the essays, just wandering what pieces people had looked at for both? we've done Brittens rejoice in the Lamb and Waltons Belshazzar's feast for the vocal score, and then Four Seasons, Symphonie Fantastique and the Confession of Isobel Gowdie. Hope everyone's performance's and coursework went well!

Hello, does anyone know the percentage the summer music A2 exam is out of the A2 course and out of the A level course as a whole?

it's 40% of A2, 20% overall c:


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its 30% of A2, 15% overall, should hopefully settle some peoples nerves! not looking forward to it, i have a chemistry resit in them orning, and my school music department is too small to be able to afford the score for isobel gowdie. so if i have to write about it, i may breakdown mid exam. but good luck everyone anyway!

The main points of that score is that is rather disonnant but also atonal. The key is usually in A and goes to C during the ends of each section. Also the unison bit where there are 13 strong beats to represent the 13 witches

How many pages for each essay will you probably do?


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