Edexcel Music GCSE 2013 thread

Yeah, I do Biology Chemistry and German as A2's and while I miss Music as my 'fun' subject, it's not related enough to my future which is a bit of a shame. But I like being a musician without learning a 'syllabus'. Dictation was really the worst But at least I have evidence of a musical past in my AS Level and my GCSE in it :P Yeah, music sounds dire at A Level, 2 hour exams and the like

It's one of the reasons I dropped M.Tech, because it detracted from my study time for my sciences because of the heavy coursework.

First off, maybe try writing an essay question for each set work. Like, pick five musical elements (rhythm, tonality, texture, instrumentation and melody for example) and just go through the textbooks making sure you can come up with at least 2 points for each element, for each piece. Make charts, tables, anything really.
You'll also wanna familiarise yourself with every set work- read the breakdown in the textbook, go through the Anthology and read the scores and listen to them all on repeat. Even Rag Desh and Peripetie
Learn specialist music vocab and foreign terms, e.g the words in the Indian music section mainly for Rag Desh and stuff like Klangfarbenmelodie for Peripetie.
Look up videos on youtube, learn dates of album releases, when the piece was composed, musical periods..yeah, all that jazz.
Learn the structure of each piece too btw. I find that the hardest point to talk about..especially for pieces without an obvious structure. Like Yiri or Peripetie.
I'll think of some other stuff later but this is all I can remember right now. Good luck


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Those are some great suggestions, thanks!
Another thing that has been bothering me is how much detail we have to go into compared to the blue edexcel music books analysis' of the pieces. For example, do we have to know which bars the cadences actually happen and how many cadences there are or could you just get away with saying something like: 'There are a number of cadences used throughout the piece, although they are mostly perfect cadences with the occasional plagal cadence'.
Does anyone have any idea as to how much detail we should go in?

How hard is Music Tech? I've put it down as a subject when I applied to my sixth forms.


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As far as I'm aware, the use of cadences is only relevant in the Handel piece...
Um, I suggest learning where the cadence occurs and what type of cadence it is. There's an important perfect cadence at the end I believe.


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Well it's a lot of work, for sure. Your first task is to sequence a track (Listen to some music and recreate it in Logic/Cubase or whatever your school has) and you have to try and match it up as closely as possible to the original. Obviously, they aren't expecting it to be perfect, but they'll be listening out for your rhythms, timbres, and how you manipulate the sounds to try to get as close a match to the original as possible (like adding compression, EQ).
You second task is a recording of a song played by musicians, so you have to plug in and organise the microphones. Certain microphones go with certain instruments, depending on the sound you want, and the sound that's more appropriate. You'll learn all about how different microphones have different efficiencies in how they record. It's really training to be like a studio producer, it 's really cool. You're in charge of the mixer, the controls and the recording. You can take a few takes and then you do further editing on it on Logic/Cubase/Audacity or other computer software etc. You add a bit of reverb or whatever effects you've learnt to show that you've really thought about ambience and the effect you want to get. You really need to exhibit your skill though, show what you've learnt.

The third task is by far the best. You do a composition based on another song, and you need to convert that song into another style. I converted Kylie Minogue's 'Can't get you outta my head' into a Rock 'N' Roll style. I was the only one who chose Rock ' N ' Roll but I chose it because it had a distinct sound and you know it when you hear it. That's the coursework which is 70% of the AS Level. The final 30% is a written exam. They play a piece of music, you answer questions on it. You learn about a specific style of music which extended questions will be asked on it. It's a bit like this exam which should help you a bit. It was definitely my fun subject last year and I miss it, but dropping it was the right option because it was so coursework-heavy.

Been a couple of years but I'm still pretty sure the last cadence in ATGOL is a plagal... (Sounds like amen )

adsjdjskasjda omg yes, sorry, that Yeah, I must admit I'm still not sure how to tell the difference from a perfect and a plagal except from knowing that one is V-I and the other is VI-I
#badhearing

Ah, but there's a perfect cadence in the middle of the piece somewhere, then. I believe there should be one.... too lazy to hunt for my anthology atm, but I shall find out later

Just remember that plagal sounds like amen (my favourite type of cadence )

Fairly sure there's a perfect in the first line, at a (pretty educated) guess I would say the end of bar 8 Definitely more than one in the middle, with it being Handel they're thrown in left right and centre

That actually sounds pretty fun, I didn't really know what I was letting myself in for when I put the subject down but it seems cool so..
Is that the same for all exam boards? Or is there only one exam board? I haven't done my research.

How hard is Music Tech? I've put it down as a subject when I applied to my sixth forms.


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