11–12Music 1 11–12 Syllabus (2025)

Style, including the characteristic manner in which music is composed, performed or understood

Genre, including categorisations of music based on formal and cultural criteria

Musical conventions, including established practices, norms and rules that govern the composition, performance and interpretation of music within specific genres, cultures or historical periods

Metre, including simple and compound

Note values and rhythmic patterns, including

Image long description: Seven single notes, including: a semiquaver, a quaver, a crotchet, a dotted crotchet, a minim, a dotted minim, and a semibreve. A bar line and 7 beamed subdivisions of a crotchet, including: 4 semiquavers; a quaver and 2 semiquavers; 2 semiquavers and a quaver; 2 quavers; a dotted quaver and a semiquaver; a semiquaver and a dotted quaver; and 3 triplet quavers. A bar line and 2 subdivisions of a dotted crotchet, including: 3 quavers; and a dotted quaver and a semiquaver and a quaver.

Scales and modes, including diatonic major and minor, pentatonic, Aeolian, Lydian, Mixolydian and Dorian

Chords, including I/i (tonic), ii/ii° (supertonic), IV/iv (subdominant), V (dominant), vi/VI (submediant) and V⁷ (dominant seventh)

Chord progressions and cadences

Rhythmic devices, including syncopation, polyrhythm, ostinato, triplets, hemiola, backbeat, swing and groove

Melodic devices, including sequence, imitation, inversion, hook, riff and melisma

Harmonic devices, including modulation, dissonance, resolution, drone, pedal point and circle of fifths

Textural devices, including canon, doubling, layering, countermelody, unison, parallel and looping

Structural devices, including verse–chorus, motifs, theme, call and response, binary and ternary

Expressive devices, including dynamics, articulation, vibrato, mute, accent and phrasing

Digital techniques, including looping, sampling, delay, echo, pitch shifting and digital reverb, electroacoustic

Performing media, including choices of instrumental, vocal, analogue and digital sounds and manipulation of timbres

Lead sheets

Guitar tablature

Five-line staff notation

Note and rest notation, including

Image long description: Seven single notes, including: a semiquaver, a quaver, a crotchet, a dotted crotchet, a minim, a dotted minim, and a semibreve. A bar line and 6 rest symbols, including: a semiquaver rest, a quaver rest, a crotchet rest, a dotted crotchet rest, a minim rest and a semibreve rest. A bar line and 7 beamed subdivisions of a crotchet, including: 4 semiquavers; a quaver and 2 semiquavers; 2 semiquavers and a quaver; 2 quavers; a dotted quaver and a semiquaver; a semiquaver and a dotted quaver; 3 triplet quavers. A bar line and 2 subdivisions of a dotted crotchet, including: 3 quavers; and a dotted quaver and a semiquaver and a quaver.

Drum notation

Graphic notation

Digital audio workstation (DAW) representations, including waveform, piano roll, beat grid and spectral visualisations

Systems associated with music from specific cultural or performance traditions which may include oral, kinaesthetic gesture-based systems