Quick questions on Australian Music topic: HSC Music 1

Whatever repertoire you choose, analyse it through the six concepts. Ask how the music uses pitch (tonality, melody, harmony, and any distinctive scales or modes), duration (rhythm, metre, groove), dynamics and expression, tone colour (instrumentation, including culturally specific instruments and production in recorded music), texture and structure. The concepts are what keep your study analytical rather than merely historical or biographical, and they are the vocabulary the aural exam and your musicology will demand.

Australian Music supports all three elective types. For a performance elective, you might prepare Australian repertoire suited to your instrument or voice. For a composition elective, you might compose in an Australian style or idiom you have studied, applying its characteristic use of the concepts. For a musicology elective, you might research and analyse Australian works, perhaps comparing artists, eras or genres.

A strong Australian Music study has a focus rather than trying to cover everything. You might concentrate on a genre (Australian jazz, or contemporary Australian popular music), a period, or a thematic question, then study representative repertoire in depth through the concepts. Depth beats breadth: knowing a smaller body of work thoroughly, and being able to analyse it precisely, serves your musicology and your performance and composition far better than a thin survey.