IB Group 6 · The Arts
Music
2022 syllabus · First assessment 2022
A process course with no prescribed works and no listening exam. The framework — four areas of inquiry, three contexts, three musical roles — then each process in each role, every assessment submission with its limits, and the HL contemporary music maker. A musical toolkit unit carries the terminology the guide expects you to use, and four optional modules work through twelve example pieces — three per area of inquiry — as models for studying whatever works you actually choose.
1. Framework 1: Areas of inquiry
The four lenses through which you engage with diverse musical material. Not a genre taxonomy, a flexible way of asking what music is for.
MU1.1 — The four areas of inquiry
2. Framework 2: Contexts
Personal, local and global. The guide requires you to look beyond your own context into music you do not already know.
MU2.1 — The three contexts
3. Framework 3: Musical roles
Researcher, creator, performer. Every process is practised in all three, and the guide insists none is taught in isolation.
MU3.1 — The three roles
4. Component 1: Exploring music in context
Investigating music through aural, kinaesthetic and scholarly research, and turning findings into practical work.
MU4.1 — Exploring as a researcher
MU4.2 — Exploring as a creator
MU4.3 — Exploring as a performer
MU4.4 — The assessment
5. Component 2: Experimenting with music
Connecting theory to practice: trialling, refining and revising musical material, and justifying the decisions.
MU5.1 — Experimenting as a researcher
MU5.2 — Experimenting as a creator
MU5.3 — Experimenting as a performer
MU5.4 — The assessment
6. Component 3: Presenting music
Preparing finished works for an audience, and communicating the thinking behind them.
MU6.1 — Presenting as a researcher
MU6.2 — Presenting as a creator
MU6.3 — Presenting as a performer
MU6.4 — The assessment
7. Component 4: The contemporary music maker (HL only)
A collaborative project modelled on real-life music-making, bringing all three roles and processes together.
MU7.1 — The project
MU7.2 — The assessment
8. Support: the musical toolkit
The vocabulary the guide expects you to use when explaining findings, organized by element.
MU8.1 — The elements of music
MU8.2 — Analysing styles
A. Optional module A: works for sociocultural and political expression
Three works whose musical choices only make sense once you know what they were for: a Mass written for worship that was illegal, a protest song built on restraint, and an Afrobeat groove that provoked a state response.
MUA.1 — Studying works in this area
MUA.2 — The works
B. Optional module B: works for listening and performance
Music written to be listened to for its own sake - what the guide calls intrinsic aesthetic value. Two works the revision guide analyses bar by bar, plus the modal jazz recording that changed how soloists think.
MUB.1 — Studying works in this area
MUB.2 — The works
C. Optional module C: works for dramatic impact, movement and entertainment
Music that serves something outside itself - dance, theatre, film. Three traditions in which the music is shaped by a body moving, a puppet speaking or a picture cutting.
MUC.1 — Studying works in this area
MUC.2 — The works
D. Optional module D: works for the electronic and digital age
Three recordings twenty-odd years apart that form a single chain: a studio composition that could not be performed, the electronic record it made possible, and the hip-hop track built out of that record.
MUD.1 — Studying works in this area
MUD.2 — The works
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