Music Department- S1 and S2 Course Choice

S1

The course consists of 3 elements – Performing, Composing and Listening.

•  Performing - Students learn to play keyboard, drum kit, guitar and bass guitar. They perform a range of music including Scottish and Blues. Individual practice is followed by class group performance.
•  Composing – Using their creative skills students produce graphic scores based around a short story and make recordings of their pieces. They also compose a Scottish piece, improvise on the blues scale and design a short piece of film music.
•  Listening – The Instruments of the Orchestra topic provides students with a knowledge of the sounds of all types of instruments. They go on to listen to and learn about the music of Scotland and America.

 S2

As in S1 the course consists of 3 elements – Performing, Composing and Listening

•  Performing – Students continue to develop their practical skills and start to make choices regarding their preferred 2 instruments. Voice is also introduced as an option.
•  Composing – Midi-sequencing (computers and music) is introduced and students are given opportunities to use the computers in their compositional work. There is a group songwriting task and students produce a CD or MP3 recording of their work.
•  Listening – The course is mainly practical in nature, but S2 also do a Music in the Media topic and listen to extracts from musicals and films.