Curriculum Relevance

The programmes support the composition element of the curriculum at Key Stage 4 of the National Curriculum for England, Northern Ireland and Wales. For Scotland they support the inventing element in Standard Grade and will be useful for the mandatory units - Music: Performing, Inventing and Listening and the optional units - Music: Inventing - Extension at Intermediate 1, Intermediate 2, Higher and Advanced Higher levels.
The programmes cover the following criteria:

To develop understanding and appreciation of a range of different kinds of music, extending the students’ own interests and increasing their ability to make judgments about musical quality. To give students opportunities to develop critical and creative thinking, aesthetic sensitivity and emotional and cultural development. To develop and demonstrate understanding of the impact of ICT on music.
Abbreviated statements taken from 2.1 to 3.3 GCSE SUBJECT CRITERIA FOR MUSIC, QCA

“Provide opportunities for candidates to manipulate, experiment with and organise the elements of music to create something which is original for the candidate. A greater knowledge and understanding of how music “works” can be fostered through the creative processes which are an essential part of the composing activities.”
Memorandum on the internal assessment of course work, page 9, Northern Ireland GCSE Music Syllabus

Compositions should display the candidates ability to create and develop musical ideas and to use musical elements and resources appropriately.
3.2i Welsh Joint Education Committee GCSE syllabus

“Inventing develops ideas principally through imaginative response rather than through measurement and calculation. It offers pupils a training in discrimination and perception…. Although one person may proceed in a different way from another it does not mean that one solution will be better than another. In fact it is the lack of uniformity and the extent of diversity possible which make musical invention so remarkable.”
4.1.2 Standard Grade Amended Arrangements in Music, SCE

“A process model common to all Inventing activities may be adopted. This model is described in terms of the following stages: stimulus, experimentation, development and product.”
Appendix 1 Teaching and Learning 2b Teaching approaches
Standard Grade Amended Arrangements in Music, SCE

‘Pupils are required to create compositions showing some musical understanding and technical competence in handling compositional techniques/concepts through the development of melodic, rhythmic and harmonic ideas’
National unit specification NQs Scotland

The programmes also cover areas of study and topics found in many of the subject brochures. For example:
Programme 1: song, dance remix
Programme 2: dance music, electronic music and ICT
Programme 3: 12 bar blues, Jazz
Programme 4: Minimalism, contemporary classical music, Indian Classical music
Programme 5: film music, songs from musicals
However it must be stressed that each programme's intention is not to give an in-depth knowledge of a particular genre or area of study, but to show the composers creative process within that area.

Related subjects: dance, drama, media studies and ICT.