AQA A2 Music Essays

For the 20th century choral music option, can anyone think of any possible essay titles? I want to do some for revision but literally the only ones I can think of are the ones on the specimen paper, the one about different ways of writing for the chorus and the one about what makes it 20th century. So can anyone think of anything else they might ask about?
Thanks

By the way was your specimen paper a total mess, if you did one? As in the CD was mucked up and didn't play any of the right tunes and basically it was ridiculous?

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Reply 1

Ollie53

FINALLY a music A2 thread. I can't help you with choral music (as we are doing chamber music at my school) but it would be good if we could find a group of us doing this exam!

Reply 2

randomsocks

Im doing the exam on friday :s-smilie:

Were doing chamber music and the Mahler but we've pretty much dossed the whole year with crap teachers so im absolutely bricking it!

Need an A in this to get into uni but luckily i got 22 ums last year so i only need 207 ums overall?

Im so stressed out with this, anyone done any practice essays? I find the timing really tight!

Reply 3

tea_please

I need an A too... which is a bit of a disaster. I just don't really trust AQA because their marking was so random last year, everyone just got a total out of the blue mark for the composition, didn't seem to relate to what the composition was like at all. Oh well... good luck with trying to get an A

Reply 4

randomsocks

haha thanks :s-smilie:

What gets me is that surely with composition each examiner has different tastes so whilst yours might be really musically good, they might just hate it? i did a jazz arrangement of hungarian dance for saxophone quartet, im just hoping they liked it!

Reply 5

owen_10

i'm so scared for this exam. aqa are ridiculous. the spec mark scheme had wrong answers in and then they released one paper with 1 mini mahler question and then 1 large essay question on it, as well as your set area. so like 3 questions, when they say in spec it will only be two essays overall. and i'm resigned to failure in the listening- don't know how to prep. if i don't get an A, bye bye uni...

Reply 6

randomsocks

Seriously?!? I hate listening at the best of times as I just can't puck out the things they're lookin for! It makes it worse this time round as i'm having really bad hearing problems :s-smilie:

Reply 7

owen_10

i think it is all made worse because the exam is the most weighted this year, whereas it was performing at AS. aqa is supposedly so much harder than the other boards...woo. i don't know anyone who is feeling ok for this exam.

Reply 8

jellybean_e

Hi, I'm doing the music exam on Friday. We've done the Vaughan Williams 5th symphony and choral music...anyone else the same??

Reply 9

jellybean_e

Also, is anyone going to Manchster uni to do music?!

Reply 10

owen_10

how are people revising for the mahler and chamber music?

Reply 11

randomsocks

im doing mahler and chamber works :frown:

and im going manchester uni butnot todo music...physics all the wayy :smile:

for the mahker ive been trying to do practice essays and made notes from the study guide thing but only the basics have gone in. im crap on any modulations and what key it is and when :s-smilie:

the chamber music is where im really struggling :/

finding it so so hard cos i dont even know what im supposed to be revising??

Reply 12

Felicity-Quackers

Listening to Mahler with scores, writing essay plans, doesn't matter too much about keys as you won't be able to write about every key change anyway. Maybe just avoid a harmony question as we get 2 choices anyway.
1st movement focus on form, classical and romantic features and thematic development.
2nd focus on timbres and imagery.
3rd structure, variation and orchestration
4th erm think about heaven and children, how the music reflects the text and structure again.

Re-writing musical quotes from chamber music, keep listening to the music so you remember it better, just bullet point key points about each piece you're doing. Think about context and easy bits of the music to reference. What are you studying??

Reply 13

randomsocks

so with the chamber music do we have to remember bar numbers for each piece? Our teacher told us we have to pretty much memorise the whole piece :s-smilie:

im doin mendelssohn piano trio mvt3, Schumann piano quartet mvt 3, brahms piano quintet in f mvt 3, tchaikovsky piano quartet mvt 2, dvorak piano quintet in A- dumka and debussy string quartet in g min mvt2

Reply 14

Gurnani P

To the person above. I'm doing chamber music too, and the VW.
I have no idea how the hell you can possibly remember bar numbers and music quotes.

I see you're basically doing the pieces from the A2 study guide.

Our teacher decided, lets not do that, lets not actually teach you anything.
Im doing Debussy Mv2, the Piano quartet and Dumky - Trio Mv1.

Reply 15

randomsocks

yes, i got the study guide cos our teacher didnt really teach us a thing :/

Im so so worried about the chamber music! theres just so much to learn!

Reply 16

Gurnani P

Yeah i did that last year and got a D :/ not good.

Im just gonna learn 3 pieces really well, its a pretty ridiculous exam if you ask me

Reply 17

owen_10

i've learnt 3 for the chamber music. an early, mid and late romantic. i've learnt bar numbers as opposed to actually music quotations. but i am worried. i've made essay plans for harmony, melody and texture for the chamber music, and just hoping that i can apply that to the question. tbh i think providing we state how different composers did things we should be okay.
for the mahler, i've done plans for commentary's of the first 3 mvmts, and i'm going to just briefly cover 4th as there has been 2 qu already on the spec and additional questions on it, so i don't reckon it'll be anything on thje 4th again. hopefully the 1st! just talk about sonata form and how mahler uses it, but also shows how he wants to be more complex.
fingers crossed it'll be good questions! and the lsitening is too hard...i'm not going to hold out too much on that one haha

Reply 18

tea_please

I'm doing the Vaughan Williams and the choral music... literally don't know the choral music at all, are we meant to be saying things like 'ooh and then there is a chord of e minor then modulating to D...' I can't hold all that in my memory - ohhh why do AQA put us through this.

Reply 19

musicmad123

I am TERRIFIED about this exam, and I'm the only person in my school doing A2 so noone to tlak to about it haha. The Vaughn Williams is beautiful but I just can't keep it in my head, it's so complicated and all those frigging modes in the Schrezo, I haven't got a cat's chance in Hell of remembing it all even with the score right in front of me :O