Year 10 Performing Arts

Music Performance 

Semester Overview   

Students will interpret, rehearse, and perform solo and ensemble repertoire in a range of forms and styles. Through performance, they will demonstrate a developing personal style and technical control, expression, and stylistic understanding. They will use general listening and specific aural skills to enhance their performances and use knowledge of the elements of music, style and notation to compose, document and share their music. Students will visually and aurally analyse works and performances of different styles. They will evaluate the use of elements of music and defining characteristics from different musical styles. Students will use their understanding of music making in different cultures, times and places to inform and shape their interpretations, performances and compositions. 

Key Understandings: 

• Understand the key elements of aural and theory related to performing. 
• Able to perform a solo performance fluently with musicality and expression. 
• Ability to perform and contribute within an ensemble. 
• Identify the musical outcomes that define the character of a piece of music and the expressive elements that create these outcomes. 

Key Skills: 

• Perform pieces as a soloist in varying styles. 
• Rehearse and perform covers and original compositions as a member of a group. 
• Develop & refine technical facility on an instrument. 
• Use the strategies for preparing and coping in performance.  
• Develop performance presentation skills. 
• Reflect & identify areas for improvement in performance 
• Developing skills in reading and writing music notation. 
• Develop aural skills relating to intervals, chords, scales, rhythms, melody & Diatonic harmony. 

Students will be assessed in the following areas: solo performance; group performance; aural/listening/theory skills, music analysis and composition. 

Additional Information: It is recommended that students studying Music Performance should be undertaking tuition on a musical instrument (including voice), either through the Instrumental Music Program at Viewbank College, or by private arrangement.  

Music Composition 

Semester Overview 

Students will be given an opportunity to extend their knowledge of song writing and composition. They will study and explore different ways to manipulate the elements of music to produce musical outcomes. Students will follow a scaffolded and sequential approach to write, record and perform their own compositions on their own and in a group setting. 

This subject will be open to both students with prior technical ability on their instrument as well as those that may be more inclined to produce music using technology.  

Key Concepts   

• Characteristics of the elements of music - Rhythm, melody, timbre, dynamics, style, harmony & Form. 
• How the elements of music can be manipulated to create unity and diversity within music.  
• How music is constructed to create a specific style relevant to time and culture. 
• An understanding of cultural contexts in which certain styles of music were created.  
• How digital technologies can be utilised in the process of composition.  
• An understanding of various compositional devices and how these are used to elicit expressive outcomes.  

Key Skills 

Musical understandings:  

• How to identify and construct chords. 
• Diatonic harmony within a major scale and its uses for creating chord progressions.  
• How to use music scales for melody creation.  
• Composing counter melodic, rhythmic & harmonic ideas  
• How to identify, read and compose drumbeats. 
• Able to use appropriate music terminology to describe the music elements heard. 
• Using digital technologies to write, record and produce music.   
• How to manipulate music elements to create an expressive performance and composition that is engaging to an audience.  
• Develop critical listening and analysis skills when listening to music and adapt these ideas into your own compositions. 

Drama: Performance Making

Semester Overview 

In Year 10 Drama students will be participating in the Malthouse Theatre’s award-winning education programme, The Suitcase Series. Combining classroom activity with in-theatre performance, this innovative program is an opportunity for Year 10 students to develop and expand their theatre-making skills and share work with peers.  

Students will learn:  

• practise and refine expressive capacity of voice and movement to communicate ideas and dramatic action in a range of forms, styles and performance spaces  
• structure drama to engage an audience through manipulation of dramatic action, forms and performance styles and by using design elements  
• perform devised and scripted drama making deliberate artistic choices and shaping design elements to unify dramatic meaning for an audience  
• evaluate how the elements of drama, forms and performance styles in devised and scripted drama to convey meaning and aesthetic effect  
• analyse a range of drama from contemporary and past times to explore differing viewpoints and enrich their drama practice  

Students will be able to:   

• Build further specialised knowledge through in-depth explorations. 
• Make connections between the student’s work and potential career pathways. 
• Explore and analyse contemporary issues, and the student’s relationship to these themes and ideas. 
• Develop collaborative skills and abilities. 
• Identify and cultivate a sense of empathy and understanding for different viewpoints (cultures/values/beliefs). 
• Cultivate self-direction and assertiveness in the student’s own learning and develop a sense of empowerment and agency by generating content from their own ideas.  
• Develop a broad and applied understanding of performing arts concepts and skills. 

Assessment comprises creating and presenting an ensemble performance, ongoing research work, performance reflection and written analysis. This will help prepare students for the Written Analysis Outcome in VCE Theatre Studies.