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AS 90266 - Compose effective pieces of music & AS 90775 - Present a portfolio of musical composition

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STUDENT TASK

You must present evidence of their creative response to the following task.You are to compose a piece of music that is inspired by ONE image by a New Zealand artist - see pages 62-77. Work is to be presented as part of a portfolio. By the end of the year, Level 2 students would have composed at least two pieces of music and Level 3 students would have composed a number of shorter pieces or a smaller number of more extended pieces or a substantial work, which this task might evolve into. You will also reflect on and evaluate the creative process you have undertaken in preparing and presenting your composition work.Once you have begun to develop ideas for the composition, you should liaise with your teacher to ensure that you are undertaking an appropriate amount of work. You should discuss with your teacher strategies for helping you to manage your time effectively and to meet the goals that you set yourself.Your composition could be for:

  • Solo instrument, with or without accompaniment. Where an accompaniment is included as part of a composition, it will be assessed;
  • An instrumental or vocal ensemble of three or more parts. This might be for - four part choir, a small jazz ensemble, a rock group, a percussion ensemble, an instrumental trio, quartet or quintet, tape loop and acoustic instruments, computer generated/electronic sounds or found or natural sounds;
  • A specific musical occasion;
  • Voice, where you set your own or others' text/s. If you use someone else's text/s, you must acknowledge this;
  • Electro-acoustic media.

You will also include:

  • A description of why you selected the artwork you have, and how it motivated you to compose music in response to it. You may also like to document the process of how you came up with your musical ideas and how you developed them. What personal meaning have you taken from the artwork, and how has this impacted on what you wish to communicate through your music? Consider the context, form, media, colours, texture and structure of the artwork and how this may have impacted on your choice of sound media, tonality and compositional structure;
  • Your written score/s and any relevant supporting material, including self, peer and/or teacher evaluations. Tools are provided in this task;
  • A recording of the compositions. This may be a live, sequenced or computer generated recording.

Your portfolio will show evidence of secure technical skills - creating music that suits the instruments/voices/electronic media chosen and is developed and structured using compositional techniques/devices; creative skills - composing music that has character and imagination in response to the task; and, notation skills - graphic, conventional (stave or tablature notation) or other written representation presented as a score/s that appropriately document creative intentions.

Your portfolio, including workings and drafts, will be available to your teacher for discussion during class time.

Electronic works and sequenced material should be fully realised by you and be accompanied by appropriate representation. The editing of computer-generated notation must be by you. If an element of improvisation is included in your composition, sufficient detail must be supplied to give a clear indication of your intentions to the improviser.

You are to sign an authentication form to state that the material submitted is your own work.

Possible Approaches to Preparing for this Assessment
As you start composing music, you will need to spend some time experimenting with sounds and improvising musical ideas.As you experiment with your ideas for your music, consider ways of:

  • Creating unity and contrast;
  • Developing or extending your ideas;
  • Creating sounds through non-traditional means;
  • Manipulating your ideas using the elements of music;
  • Building and releasing tension;
  • Establishing/maintaining/varying mood.

Before you begin building and structuring your ideas into a coherent piece of music:

  • Think carefully about the effectiveness of your ideas, and consider making changes if you need to. At this stage you may want to map out an overall structural plan for your music.
  • Get regular feedback from your friends and teacher/s on the effectiveness of your ideas and work in progress. This is really important because your ideas are the foundation of your musical structure.

As you prepare your music, make sure that your score is as accurate and detailed as possible, considering things like - title, instrument order, spacing, tempo, articulation and expression markings and alignment, so that your performers can easily follow your intentions. Listen to a performance of your work and check whether their interpretation matches your intentions. Give your performers plenty of time to prepare and rehearse for the performance/recording of your work.

Analysing the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Music
You must also analyse the strengths and weaknesses related to the preparation and the presentation of this composition as part of the portfolio, in order to refine and improve. Record any refinements and improvements you made to your compositions whilst working towards this Achievement Standard. Also reflect on why you made these. Use the information on Critical Response and the self and peer assessment templates on the next few pages in order to do this.

Critical Response

A critical response is an intelligent and informed piece of writing which is a musical and technical justification for the subjective emotions and mood evoked by a piece of music.

A critical response should include:

  • A discussion of the main musical elements that are prominent in a given example.
  • An identification of the compositional devices used.
  • A description of how these things combine to create the mood, atmosphere and character of the piece.

How to write a critical response:

  1. Choose three or four short descriptions that best describe the emotion, feeling, or mood evoked by the piece of music.
  2. Using a description of the treatment of the elements of music, discuss how the mood outlined above is created.
  3. Locate specific compositional devices to support your argument and discuss their roles in the creation of the mood.
  4. Finally, give a description of the combination of all of the above in the creation of the musical character and style.

When the musical style is named: When writing a critical response to a piece of music in a named musical style, it is also necessary to remark on why and how the music is indicative of the particular musical

style. For example, if discussing why a piece of vocal polyphony is characteristic of the Baroque style, it would be important to mention that the
"unceasing, relentless semiquaver movement in each individual voice is a result of the Baroque ideal of 'filling space' and therefore rests, silences or lengthy breath pauses are not used."

When you must identify the musical style: Normally, a list of musical characteristics can be derived from an example to support a claim that it is from a particular style. For example, an excerpt from a Classical work by Mozart might be said to have the following Classical characteristics:

  • balanced and equally proportioned phrasing;
  • singable melodies;
  • functional and chordal harmony;
  • clear and defined form;
  • graceful and refined melodic and rhythmic ideas;
  • a contrast of mood throughout the work.

Remember that these subjective judgements are culturally specific and will largely be a product of what, through enculturation, sounds "normal" to Western ears.

(From D. Smith and M. Sawers, "Musicianship and Analysis Skills", pg 26, Champion Press, © Deborah Smith 2002.)

Self Evaluating a Composition Peer Evaluating a Composition

Assessment Schedule

Achievement

Achievement with Merit

Achievement with Excellence

Compose effective pieces of music that show development and structuring of ideas, and that are represented through generally clear notation. Compose effective pieces of music that show character, skilful development and structuring of ideas, and that are represented through clear notation. Compose effective and convincing pieces of music that show character and imagination, highly skilled development and structuring of ideas, which are represented through accurate and detailed notation.

The composition shows:

  • The ability to create stylistically coherent piece of music
  • Development/extension of ideas through the use of compositional devices
  • Structuring of ideas into cohesive piece
  • Generally clear representation of creative intentions through notated score appropriate to the style or genre of the piece

The composition shows:

  • The ability to create a stylistically coherent piece of music with character
  • Skilful development/ extension of ideas through the use of compositional devices
  • Skilful structuring of ideas into a cohesive piece
  • Clear representation of creative intentions through notated score appropriate to the style or genre of the piece

The composition shows:

  • The ability to create a stylistically convincing and coherent piece of music that has character
  • Highly skilled development/ extension of ideas through the use of compositional devices
  • Highly skilled structuring of ideas into a cohesive piece
  • Accurate and detailed representation of creative intentions through notated score appropriate to the style or genre of the piece
EVIDENCE:
Student's composition work for this task (including score and recording). This composition contributes evidence towards making a judgement for awarding this Achievement Standard.

Note: This assessment contributes evidence towards the final grade for Achievement Standard 90266. The final grade will be determined on completion of this activity and another piece/s of music in response to a given task/s.

Assessment Schedule for 90775

Achievement

Achievement with Merit

Achievement with Excellence

  • Present a portfolio of musical composition that demonstrates secure technical skills, creative skills, and is represented through generally clear notation.
  • Reflect on and evaluate the processes and presentation of the portfolio.
  • Present a portfolio of musical composition that demonstrates a range of secure technical and creative skills, and is represented through clear notation.
  • Reflect on and evaluate the processes and presentation of the portfolio.
  • Present a portfolio of musical composition that demonstrates a range of secure and advanced technical skills, convincing creative skills, and is represented through accurate and detailed notation.
  • Reflect on and evaluate the processes and presentation of the portfolio.

The portfolio of music composition demonstrates:

  • secure technical skills, which show the ability to create stylistically coherent and idiomatic music appropriate to the task/s and develop/extend ideas through the use of compositional devices
  • creative skills, through cohesive music which displays some character and imagination in response to the given tasks
  • notation skills through generally clear written representation appropriate to the style or genre of the music
  • reflection on and evaluation of the preparation and presentation of composition work.

The portfolio of music composition demonstrates:

  • a range of secure technical skills which show the ability to create stylistically coherent and idiomatic music appropriate to the task/s and skilfully develop/extend ideas through the use of a variety of compositional devices
  • a range of creative skills, through effective music which displays character and imagination in response to the given tasks
  • notation skills through clear written representation appropriate to the style or genre of the music
  • reflection on and evaluation of the preparation and presentation of composition work.

The portfolio of music composition demonstrates:

  • a range of secure and advanced technical skills which show the ability to create stylistically convincing and idiomatic music appropriate to the task/s and highly skilled development/extension of ideas
  • convincing creative skills, through highly effective music which consistently displays character and imagination in response to the given tasks
  • notation skills through accurate and detailed representation appropriate to the style or genre of the music
  • reflection on and evaluation of the preparation and presentation of composition work.
EVIDENCE:
Student's composition work for this task (including score and recording). This composition contributes evidence towards making a judgement for awarding this Achievement Standard. Completed reflection and evaluation.

Note: This assessment contributes evidence towards the final grade for Achievement Standard 90775. The final grade will be determined on completion of this activity and another piece/s of music in response to a task/s.

AUTHENTICATION:

The work that has been submitted for assessment is entirely my own work.

Student signature   Date:  
TEACHER'S COMMENT
FORMATIVE GRADE   Resubmission Date:  
Student's signature   Date:  
Teacher's signature   Date:  
  Self-Assessment Teacher Assessment
Strengths    
Areas to work on    

as90266 (Word 83 KB)

Word file (83 KB)

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