When I did A level music, I had to do keyboard harmony in the practical exam/recital part. Do you still have to be able to play the piano a bit to be able to do A level music? The instrument that I played for the recital part was not piano.

You do not have to be able to play the piano at all for A level music, although I think pianists have an advantage over other instrumentalists such as Flautists, violinists etc as they are simply melody instruments, whereas piano music is very much harmonically involved.

Also the board I whose exams I took, would not accept grade 8 as an alternative to the A level practical exam.

Well I never.

We didn't have UCAS points then. I am ancient. However if the board wouldn't accept it as an alternative to the practical exam I don't suppose the universities would have accepted it as another A level subject either.

Is that small yellow thing practising support in a desert? Wouldn't it be better off with a spade rather than trying to blow the sand away?

I think it's supposed to be tumbleweed....

In that case can I suggest a vacuum cleaner?

Yes. I did too. It was good fun, I liked that bit.

I've always wondered when they brought in composition.

When I took it (mid-late 90s, Edexcel) it was an option you could choose. You had to do either harmony (Bach chorales etc) or composition (or you could choose to do both, as I did).

I get the impression that now composition is compulsory but harmony is optional.

I'm thinking that composition wasn't always an option, but not sure.

Gosh, mine was way back in the mists of time, but I don't think there was a composition option. It's hard to remember exactly what we did do! although I remember my O level set works. We did harmony, yes (? 2 part and 4 part?) including Bach chorales, but I have a feeling the Bach was part of something called S level. We did NUJMB.

All the syllabuses are online, so you can check them.

We did harmony as in write a second violin part for this string quartet, where you are given the other parts.
Keyboard harmony in the practical exam. You are given a line of music that you have never seen before and asked to play a piano part to it. Practical exam. Then also a 3 hour written exam on musical history and form.
No modules.

But how can you compose without a working knowledge of harmony?

I'm a none musician and wanted to ask this but thought I was being really stupid

absolutely!
And until you know the rules, how do you know how to break them properly?

I can think of a way to compose not only without any knowledge of harmony, but also without using any of the conventional music notation. The result is usually known as "squeaky gate music."

On our board (OCR I think but I genuinely can't remember!) composition and harmony were both compulsary. I do remember there being more emphasis on composition though, which I thought was a bit strange. I suppose we were taught harmony 'on the fly' as it were during the composition lessons too.



I really don't want to get into this too much but I feel compelled to say that most composers have knowledge of harmony, but not necessarily regular minor-third major-third ad-infinitum harmony. Just because you don't like the result doesn't mean they don't know what they're doing. Sorry, I'll stop now.

How many of the squeaky gate music composers make a living from their music without Arts Council grants?

Like I said, I'm not getting into it. If you genuinely want to talk about this you can PM me.

If I PM you no one else can see what I have said. I think most people would be quite interested to see what the Arts Council and other bodies funded by our taxes spend their money on.

Chris Redgate is an AHRC fellow, he has been the recipient of several government-funded grants to explore contemporary oboe playing and composition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxHA543NYOk

Personally I think it's pretty awesome.

Without progressive artists, the world becomes more and more conservative until no-one has any thought left at all. You can disagree, but that's what I believe. Not to mention that a lot of people enjoy it! You studied at Huddersfield, contemporary music cannot have left you entirely cold!

Brilliant idea!!
(sorry des )

I know a lot about contemporary music, (squeaky gate music as opposed to film scores like Lord of the Rings which uses contemporary flute techniques) but this doesn't mean to say that I would want to put listen to a CD of it to help me relax in the evening.
Has anyone heard any squeaky gate contemporary music on Classic FM?

No but plenty on R3

I think radio 3 may be funded by the BBC. I think the BBC is funded by the public. Classic FM is not funded by me I listen to it for free. They do have adverts though. Are we seeing a trend starting here?

And I think it is pretty awful, and I would not even classify it as "music". I certainly would not choose to listen to it again for pleasure, although I can see that it might be effective as a sound track to the right sort of film.

I admit that the problem might be my inability to see/hear what it is about, or lack of persistence in sticking with it until it makes sense ... but if I am lucky I have 30 or so years left on Earth, and that is not enough to listen to and learn all the music that I absolutely love (and the books I want to read, the poems I want to learn, the places/films/artworks I want to see ...) never mind force myself to listen to stuff that I might never grow to like or appreciate.

Exactly, and I would never suggest you do otherwise

Check this one out MT see if you think it's any more tasteful - http://open.spotify.com/track/7qlAqeywxOFrwVPOLQopxd
I just don't like morton saying my artistic sphere is a waste of time - who is he to decide that?

Also morton: What's wrong with getting government funding? The government has decided the arts are something worth funding, precisely for the reason that they are unlikely to be self-sustaining without it.

I agree. I used to be a music student, doing quite a lot of composition and I never wanted to write anything atonal, but I would never think that that (or any other) style of music should be obliterated.

However, I did have a problem with people who said that my writing was derivative and boring because it was tonal. There was an awful lot of snobbery going around then (which I am not accusing you of at all).

I still don't want to listen to anything too avant-garde, but I wouldn't have a problem with some of my taxes going to fund it.. I used to work in a research lab where 95% of the ideas were totally bonkers but without that 95% you'd never get the 5% of non bonkers ideas that might actually be useful in some way.

Oh dear, des, my cat didn't like your 1st one, and nearly took half my lap with her
Your 2nd link is more palatable for me personally, and more the stuff I used to hear on radio 3 when I was younger. Not sure if it's my personal cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's not good, just not for me.
I also have no problem with Arts funding, the more the merrier!

A trend starting? Just when did commercial broadcasting begin?

Yours too? I thought it was just mine. He hit the roof and started yelling. I had to switch it off. Poor thing - he's had a bad day - been silly all day and constantly in trouble. He even smashed a bottle of wine deliberately.

Being slightly scientifically minded I had to play this to my cat to see if it had the same effect

Result: no response, not even looking at me like I'm crazy

(not my cup of tea though)

Mines now growling at the ice cream van (from the bedroom window)
I give up..

Hilarious
Does your cat sit in on music lessons?
My little girl cat likes to "instruct" and she is amazingly good at knowing when a pupil's playing is good or disastrous. When disastrous she complains bitterly. I don't know how she knows, but she gets it right every time!

My tom likes to sit in. He has often joined in by watching the pianist carefully then rising up importantly on his back legs and placing front paws on piano. He then looks smugly at pupil, who by now is usually in too much hysterical laughter to continue!
He also once stuck his head in a sax while it was being played..but I'm not sure why
My female cat has been known to sit on the top of the piano and turn pages, but not so clever to turn them at the right time unfortunately

BBC radio is principally funded through the licence fee, so if you have a television licence, you will be contributing towards the cost of BBC radio. If you don't have a licence, you can still listen to the radio, at absolutely no financial cost - bargain!

Commercial revenue is, of course, funded principally through advertising, so there's no direct cost, although obviously the advertiser needs to fund their advertising, and some of the purchase price of anything you buy will end up in the marketing department's coffers.

As for A-levels, I did double music back in 1991. The board was ULSEB. Far too much compulsory aural for my liking, but at least I didn't have to do any composition! I had the option to do so had I wanted; there were also choices over which harmony papers, set works, and weighting of performance.

I did double music too!
Does it still exist?

I think the answer to that is yes and no. I've had recent students with A-levels in two separate music subjects e.g. in both Music and Music Technology, but none recently with 'double music' - but I teach a different university subject so there my still be a 'double music' course available which simply hasn't been taken by any of my students.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is "double music"?

2 A levels in music.
Don't ask me what each entailed, it was years ago and I really can't remember!

We did A level and something supposedly a bit more advanced called S level - but I don't think that's quite the same thing.
Or maybe it's similar but given a different name by a different board - I don't know.

As Flossie stated the two that seem to be around more these days are Music and Music Technology and of course Btec (though I think that's more common at GCSE level).

We have been looking at music courses post 16 and not come across double music. It might exist and be hiding somewhere

mine were definitely 2 separate but equal standard A levels, and the board Deborah mentioned sounds vaguely familiar too.

S-level is different. It was a more advanced paper taken at the same time as A-levels and was roughly equivalent in standard to 1st year undergraduate level work. You could only the S-level if you were also taking the same subject at A-level. I did an S-level in the subject I now teach at university. Sadly S-level doesn't exist anymore, which is a shame as it was great preparation for university-style/level study. They tried to replace it with an 'Advanced Extension Award' at the same time as they re-did the AS levels to make them a lower qualification, but the AEA never really took off (possibly because it doesn't count in league tables, whereas an extra AS or A-level does...).

To all those interested the current set out of the AS level music course is as follows:

Musc1 - 40%
90 minute exam paper consisting of three music analysis questions, and two essay questions. One essay on the first/third mvts of Symphony No 41 K551 by Mozart, and the other on a historical study - in the case of my school we have studied songs from musicals 1940-1980.

Musc2 - 30%
This can be either Brief A or Brief B:
Brief A:
Part 1: You are given a piano part of length 16-32 bars and you must write parts for two melody instruments to fit with the piano accompaniment.
Part 2: You are given the melody line of a chorale and must complete the four part harmony for it.
Brief B:
Free composition! Any composition you want between 3 and 6 minutes!

Musc3 - 30%
The candidate must perform two programmes of music each between 5 and 8 minutes in length. Each program must either be one solo program and one ensemble program, or both solo programs for two very different instruments (eg Flute and Piano), or both ensemble programs for two very different instruments.

Hope this has cleared up some of the confusion...
Regards,
Wurlz

The above applies to the syllabus wurlitzer is studying, but there are multiple syllabi. I'm sure wurlitzer will confirm which exam board he is doing it with...

Double music existed in the 1990s. I think it was abandoned in the great switch to AS in Year 12 and A Level in Y13 around 10 years ago.

Edexcel offered many different papers at A-Level, all with an end of course exam. They included:

Advanced Performing (G7-8 for full difficulty?) [Double paper]
Harmony
Composition
Performing (G6-7 for full difficulty)
Aural/Listening
Analysis (with the anthology)
Project / Essay

There were others as well, and you took 5 papers to get 1 A-Level and 10 papers to get 2 A-Levels. It worked in much the same was as Maths & Further Maths do now, except the double A-Levels were called something like Practical Music and Theoretical Music.

Thanks very much, Flossie! I guess I knew some of that once upon a time!