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WJEC MUSIC
AS / A LEVEL
AoS B,C,D
Rock & Pop, Musical Theatre, Jazz
General pointers
How to choose which AoS you do?
Some things to consider:
Pupil interest
What instrument/voices does your group consist of? Can your choice of AoS reflect
the talents and interests of the members of your class? If they are mainly guitarists &
drummers, perhaps Rock and Pop would be a good choice. Do you have a lot of
singers who are interested in drama/theatre? Then obviously Musical Theatre would
be a good choice. Of course, it won’t suit everyone, perhaps if you had a mixture you
might even choose to do the opposite and choose Jazz.
Teacher expertise
A comment from a teacher recently was that some teachers ‘hate’ Musical Theatre.
Some of course may feel the same about Rock and Pop and/or Jazz, or if not ‘hate’
perhaps feel out of their depth in knowledge. Don’t feel pressurised into doing an
AoS that you don’t feel comfortable with. Of course as teachers we try to embrace
all styles of music, but you may find that you have a particular expertise and genuine
enthusiasm for one AoS in particular. This may well reflect in your teaching and your
students' enjoyment of the lessons.
Extra‐curricular groups
If you are fortunate enough to have a thriving extra‐curricular programme in your
school/college, can you tailor your clubs/concerts towards an AoS? Eg: School
musical, jazz group, battle of the bands, Themed concerts, such as ‘A Rock and Pop
music of the 1970’s evening’. If your curriculum at KS4 allows it, perhaps you can lay
the foundations of the AoS at an early stage.
How much do I need to know about each AoS?
Each question will be testing the knowledge of musical elements, the context and
the use and understanding of musical language, regardless of which AoS you choose.
(Examples of musical elements are in the specification).
Questions will be the same in style to those printed in SAMS as seen with last year’s
AS 2017 paper. There are also details in the specification:
For AS: An aural perception question which may include a score on an unprepared extract.
A question assessing knowledge and understanding of the wider context of the
area of study. Quality of written communication will be assessed in this question.
For A level: an aural perception question on an unprepared extract
A question assessing in‐depth knowledge and understanding of the composers' /artists'
musical style.
With each AoS there will be some stylistic features that are more relevant to each
AoS in particular Eg: Walking bass line (Jazz), Studio effects (Rock and Pop),
descriptive use of accompaniment (Musical Theatre), but care must be taken not to
overlook these completely if they overlap into another AoS.
The teacher may wish to find examples from each AoS covering the date span and/or
main composers/styles featured and use them as exemplar questions focusing on
the listening to the musical elements as well as stylistic features (highlighted in the
specification).
The second ‘essay’ style question will always be a more general overview of a
particular feature of an AoS. Although this is a general question, the students will
need to be able to apply their knowledge to the answer using specific musical
examples of composers/bands and their works.
It is important that candidates understand and can give examples of everything in
the bullet point lists in the specification. One piece of music may serve as an example
for more than one point, if examples are chosen wisely.
Resources for each AoS were provided last year at CPD, and can still be downloaded from
the secure site, for which you need a username and password from your exams officer.
It is also vital to remember that score reading will be essential to reach the highest grades.
The listening question comes with a resource booklet containing a lead sheet of the extract
heard, some of the questions will require the candidate to have an understanding of music
notation including the interpretation of chord symbols.
Further resources are available for each AoS on the Eduqas digital resources website which
contains questions that may be used for preparation for the WJEC questions, due to the
overlap in some areas.
There is also a very informative chapter on each AoS in the Rhinegold publication ‘AS and A
Level Music Study Guide.’ This book goes through different types of questions giving
excellent information in particular for the ‘essay’ style question. ISBN‐10: 1785583476