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Music

GCSE Music

Examination board: AQA

Own the stage and the studio with GCSE Music. This isn't just about listening - it’s about mastering your instrument, composing original music, and decoding music spanning a range of genres. You’ll find your creative edge developing not only musical skills, but transferrable skills that looks great on a CV, whether you’re aiming for the charts or a global career. Have a passion for music (performing/creating)? Use it to succeed in GCSE Music. 

Get 60% of your grade in the bag before the exam even starts. Here’s how it splits: 

Coursework (60%) 

  • Performance (30%): Record 4 mins of music (solo + ensemble). Aim for accurate, expressive, and ambitious pieces. Bonus: We subsidise instrumental/vocal lessons for GCSE musicians to support students with this. 
  • Composition (30%): Create two compositions (3 mins total). Piece 1 is total creative freedom; Piece 2 2 follows an exam brief. You'll use Sibelius for notation or GarageBand/Logic DAW to complete these. 

The Listening Paper (40%) – 1hr 30m 

  • Section A (Unfamiliar): Using the musical elements, and your finely tuned listening skills, you’ll analyse a range of unfamiliar pieces from a wide range of genre/musical period – from Baroque music to 20th Century Minimalism; Pop to Musical Theatre; and Blues to Video Game Music. 
  • Section B (Study Pieces): Deep dive into Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 and three Queen classics (Bohemian Rhapsody, Love of my Life, Seven Seas of Rhye). You'll handle short questions plus two 8-mark essays where you get to really showcase your deeper musical understanding and critical thinking. 

 

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