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Author Topic: Have you considered Music Investigation?  (Read 8999 times)  Share 

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keltingmeith

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Have you considered Music Investigation?
« on: June 14, 2014, 12:37:29 pm »
+4
So, since this board is dead, and MI was my favourite subject last year, I decided to post this little topic here, see if I could reign in some interest for people. :P

So, what IS it?
Music Investigation is an alternative to your normal music performance. Like performance, it's still 50% performance 50% theory, and you still have your 50% performance exam at the end. Here's the real kicker, though - there is NO theory exam. Which, really makes sense (and you'll see why in a second).

In this class, you select a song from the list, as per usual. This song comes from whatever list you'd normally pick from. Let's say I pick "Poker Face" from the group list (making stuff up, I'll list my actual stuff later). From this song, you come up with a "focus area", and you do in-depth research which leads into a write-up and/or presentation of some form at the end of unit 3 (based on your school). Come unit 4, you use what you learned, and you apply it to either arrange a current song to suit your focus area, compose an entirely new song OR do an improvisation that would be suitable for the style (the last one sounds weird, namely for people who do jazz focus areas).

You might be thinking, "so does that mean I perform that song in my performance exam? What about the other 20-40 minutes? Would I talk about my focus area?" Yes, you do - THROUGH SONG!! The rest of your performance exam is playing other songs that represent your focus area. The best part - they can be ANYTHING. As long as it's a song, you can perform it. A lot of people even perform the compositions they wrote in unit 4.

Hopefully by this point you can see why there's no theory exam - there's not really anything they could assess everyone on that could be scaled fairly against everyone.

Is it theory intensive?
More than definitely - it has 20x more theory than performance could hope to have. However, it's the good kind of theory. Let's say my focus area was, "how polka music has shaped current popular styles from the 1960s to now" (sticking with Poker Face as our focus area song). I could skip over talking listening to and singing intervals - hell, I'd never have to write a scale again (minus the tech SAC)! I could just talk about where polka came from, I could talk about the kinds of awesome scales that polka music uses. I could talk about the dissonance involved in polka, and how pop uses that to attract current media. It's a lot more theory intensive, but it's the kind of theory that *I* like. My music teacher even said she prefers to teach investigation because she learns things from her students instead of just teaching the same old boring curriculum over and over again.

How am I assessed?/How does it scale?
So it's 50/50 like performance - 50% performance, 50% theory. So, the 50% performance is the 50% performance exam. This means that the other 50% comes from your in-semester SAC work. 25% for unit 3, and 25% for unit 4. 20% comes from SAC 1, which is your write-up/presentation. That's a lot of marks, but don't worry - you'll spend all semester on this, so you've got plenty of time. The other 5% is your tech SAC (yeah, they're still around...). You also have an S/N performance in unit 3. In unit 4, you have 20% based on your compo-rangem-isation. Once again, all semester, don't stress about it. Then, last 5%, tech SAC. Pretty straight forward, really. I don't think unit 4 has a S/N performance component, but you should be doing a performance trial for your upcoming exam, anyway. Besides, ungraded performances? Those are the best kind of performances. ;) That just leaves the scaling.

Using last year's scaling report, the normal distribution had a mean of 30 and standard deviation of 7.1 . In layman's terms, get a raw under 30, you go down (like I did). Get a raw over 30, you go up. The issue is, because there's no theory exam, they'll use your practical exam to scale your theory mark. This is basically the only con with music investigation, and so if you want a high ATAR, it's best taken as a 5th or 6th subject, where its low score isn't going to affect you greatly. Otherwise, the enjoyment you get out of taking it will be a great destresser out of VCE. Honestly, the SACs did not feel like work to me, I was just having fun.

And finally, for those curious...

So, what was your focus area? What was your program like?
So, I played solo electric bass. Most people will either pick the focus area first and then find a song they can squeeze into the focus area - I was different. I picked my song first, and then thought of a focus area that fit the song perfectly. So, my song was Continuum by Jaco Pastorius, and my focus area was "Playing multi-layered textures on solo bass guitar". The best part about it was it surprised me at every turn. At first I thought it would be all finger styled stuff, but because I knew my theory inside and out, I finished all that very quickly. So, when looking on youtube for songs to play in my final program, I noticed people using electronics to play multiple layers, and realised that I could do that, too, which added on to my unit 3 presentation even more.

Also, after writing about the fingerstyle side, I noticed a lot people wrote in keys of E. My teacher asked me why, and I realised it was because in E a lot of tonics were available on open strings, which meant that melodies could become a lot more intricate, while still leaving harmonies available to be played.

If you want to see my write-up, I should have it around somewhere, just ask. My final program looked like this:

Continuum by Jaco Pastorius (focus area song) - Triple stops, melody/harmony
Portrait of Tracy by Jaco Pastorius (not my focus area song, but on the list, you could have more than one song from the list) - Triple stops, melody/harmony
Lavender Town Theme from Pokemon Red/Blue/Green - Loop pedal and triple stops, melody/counter melody/harmony
Yesterday by The Beatles - Loop Pedal and plectrum, melody/harmony
Own Composition (I gave it a name, but I forgot it) - Tapping and loop pedal and triple stops, melody/harmony
Rain by Rob Scallon - Delay pedal, canon

Because my focus area was a textural area, I wanted to expose my assessors to as many different techniques to playing in different layered textures as possible. So, above, I've written the technique required to give the "multiple layered" feel and what kind of a texture it is, just for interest sake. :)

SammyP

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Re: Have you considered Music Investigation?
« Reply #1 on: November 12, 2014, 06:05:48 pm »
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Hey,
I was considering doing Music Investigation next year but I'm still unsure as it seems really vague... and I also have a few questions.

So do you get marked on the actual performance (technique, etc.) more so than the actual investigation work?
How do you present your findings?
How do they get consistent marks throughout the state if it is very subjective ?
Do all songs played in the final performance have to be from the list? Do any?
Did the course feel vague throughout the year or did you feel uncertain of some things?
Would this benefit for a future university course in composition? (As I would choose the subject mainly for its composition aspect)

Thanks for starting the thread because there seems to be nowhere else where I can find past students' opinions and advice  :)
« Last Edit: November 12, 2014, 06:08:09 pm by SammyP »

keltingmeith

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Re: Have you considered Music Investigation?
« Reply #2 on: November 12, 2014, 06:22:28 pm »
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So do you get marked on the actual performance (technique, etc.) more so than the actual investigation work?

Just like performance, it's split 50/50 - the difference with performance is that it is straight 50/50. So, performance has some SACs for performing which end up in your theory mark, but the 50% that investigation has for its theory mark is all theory work - 20% for your unit 3 research task, 20% for your composition folio and 10% for your technical work.

How do you present your findings?

From reading through the study design, this depends on your school and is up to the teacher, so I'd ask them how they assess the unit 3 research task. I did mine via a 25 minute powerpoint presentation (believe it or not, 25 minutes was way too short :'( ), and was allowed to hand up a booklet of written work as well.

How do they get consistent marks throughout the state if it is very subjective ?

This is where it gets tricky/annoying - examiners do not assess you on your research/composition task, ONLY your end-of-year programme. So, when VCAA gets to scaling, they're going to scale your theory marks according to your practical marks. So, if you want to score highly, you're going to have to ace that final exam.

Do all songs played in the final performance have to be from the list? Do any?

You can include as many songs from the list as you want, but you MUST have at least one. The rest of them can be anything, including your composition/other compositions. Half my programme was arrangements/compositions I had done myself.

Did the course feel vague throughout the year or did you feel uncertain of some things?

I basically knew what I was doing throughout, but it depends on how obscure your focus area is. I have a friend who did pieces from the romantic era, and it made the thing so open she found it difficult to write on anything. Mine, however, was narrow enough that I knew where I was heading, but wide enough that I had things to talk about. So, you'll know what you're doing if you pick a good focus area. Your teacher should also be able to help with this.

Would this benefit for a future university course in composition? (As I would choose the subject mainly for its composition aspect)

Oh, more than definitely! The research skills I acquired through this unit has been a tremendous help in my science studies, forget music. :P The benefits will so easily extend into a music degree (probably not initially, but later on) it's not funny. However, if you only want to do it for the composition aspect, you should consider doing music styles as well, which I think may have a bigger emphasis on composition (can't comment myself, though, my school wouldn't let me do styles. :'( ).