Music
Home > Music > Glossary > Glossary
Glossary for Music Stage 6 Syllabus
©Board of Studies NSW (1999), Stage 6 syllabus Music.
The glossary is designed to assist teachers in interpreting the syllabus and to aid student learning.
View the general glossary of assessment terms that apply to all HSC subjects.
| Duration | Duration refers to the lengths of sounds and silences in music and includes the aspects of beat, rhythm, metre, and tempo, pulse rates and absence of pulse. |
|---|---|
| Dynamics and Expressive techniques | Dynamics refers to the volume of sound. Important aspects include the relative loudness and softness of sounds, changes in loudness (contrast) and the emphasis on individual sounds (accent). Expressive techniques refers to the musical detail that articulates a style or interpretation of style. |
| External assessment | External assessment is used throughout this document to refer to the external HSC examination. |
| Formative assessment | Formative assessment is the process of monitoring student performance progressively during a course of instruction. Rather than simply testing students at the end of a long period (a term or year), teachers test them after small segments of instruction. The main purpose of formative assessment is to allow teachers to identify problems which students are having, so they can re-teach or change their methods of instruction. |
| Integrated study | Teachers are encouraged to teach the Syllabus through an integration of the learning experiences performance, compositions, musicology and aural skills. |
| Internal assessment | Internal assessment is used throughout this document to refer to school-based assessment. |
| Learning experiences | A term used throughout the syllabus to refer to Performance, Composition, Musicology and Aural. |
| Pitch | Pitch refers to the relative highness or lowness of sounds. Important aspects include high, low, higher and lower pitches, direction of pitch movement, melody, harmony, definite and indefinite pitch. |
| Portfolio | A portfolio is a collection of examples of students’ learning experiences and outcomes collected over a period of time. It may contain examples of the process towards a finished product or a series of tasks aimed at developing specific knowledge and skills, and a number of finished products. |
| Spiral curriculum | The spiral curriculum refers to a learning process that involves revisiting recurring knowledge and skills with increasing depth and complexity. |
| Structure | Structure refers to the design or form in music. |
| Summative assessment | Achievement tests that are given towards the end of a course of instruction are referred to as summative assessment. Summative assessment is useful for determining students’ ability to integrate areas of knowledge and skill. As summative assessment comes after a long period of instruction, it allows the teacher to measure only a representative sample of learning outcomes included in the course. There are three general purposes of this assessment: measuring student outcomes, certifying student mastery and assigning grades. |
| Texture | Texture refers to the layers of sound that make a composition and the function of each of those layers. |
| Tone colour | Tone colour refers to that aspect of sound that allows the listener to identify the sound source or combinations of sound sources. |
| Tonicisation | Tonicisiation refers to the principle that any chord can be preceded by its own dominant. It implies a temporary tonic of brief duration whereas modulation implies a longer lasting and more significant change of key area. |
|