Compositional craft, arranging, and the technology used to create and capture music.
These are the statements the Music 1 syllabus makes about Composition, Arranging and Technology. Dux records each one against the questions you answer, so you can see which of them you have actually been tested on and which have never been asked.
Melody, harmony and rhythm as materials, and the choices that make them coherent.
Setting existing material for new forces, and the register, range and balance problems that follow.
DAWs, sampling, sequencing and virtual instruments, and what each changes about composing.
Developing a work from sketch to score or recording, with the decisions documented.
Repetition, sequence, inversion and fragmentation as the means of building a piece from small material.
Functional harmony, modulation and modal colour, and their effect on tension.
Preparing a score or lead sheet another musician can actually read and play.
Microphone placement, mixing and mastering at a level appropriate to a school studio.
HSC Music 1 - Written Paper Shape is 40 marks in 90 minutes. Questions on Composition, Arranging and Technology are not one shape repeated: the command word decides what the marker is looking for, and the mark value decides how much of it. These are the ones Music 1 uses.
Dux writes practice for this module in exactly these shapes, so the drill is the same task the paper sets — not a general knowledge quiz with the module name on it.
Composition, Arranging and Technology is module 3 of 4 in Music 1. Students routinely lose marks because a question spans two modules, so the neighbouring modules are worth reading next to this one.
Dux diagnoses Music 1 dot point by dot point, then writes questions in the shape this course marks. Written answers come back marked against the bands.