The Role of the Department
The Academic Music Department supports and extends each individual student's instrumental work throughout the school. It plays a vital role within the Music Department, teaching every student across all age ranges. It is therefore the largest academic department within the school, representing a core subject in the curriculum. The Department works towards the closest possible integration of each student's academic and musical development.
Teaching Objectives and Methods
An aural approach informs the department's teaching in all areas of musical study. This is at the heart of developing the inner hearing and critical self-awareness crucial for performing musicians and composers.
Basic aural training and choral work leads to an understanding of simple compositional principles. This understanding, coupled with the stimulation of the creative imagination, leads in turn to the more advanced disciplines of composition (both stylistic and free) and analysis (both aurally and with the score).
Students explore a wide variety of musical styles, including jazz, rock and non-Western music. They are encouraged to view music in its historical, social and cultural perspectives and to consider music's relationships with other disciplines such as science, literature, languages and art.
The department aims to enable students to develop appropriate skills in written expression and in handling ICT as well as in general musicianship (for example in improvisation, score-reading and keyboard harmony).
Classes and Exam Syllabuses
Students are taught in class groups as part of the normal timetable, with additional lessons off timetable when appropriate. The sizes of these groups vary, particularly in the Lower and Middle School. Ideally, classes in the Third to Fifth Forms are no larger than fourteen. In the 6th Form, tuition is usually in groups of from ten to fourteen, splitting in to smaller groups for composing lessons. In addition, each pupil in the Third Form and above attends twice-weekly aural sessions at 8.25 a.m. in a streamed group of between twenty and twenty-five.
Normally, Chetham's students take GCSE Music (Edexcel) in Form 4 (a year earlier than in mainstream schools), treating the GCSE specification as a one-year, rather than two-year course. Particularly gifted students are entered for GCSE in Form 3. Everyone in the Sixth Form takes A level music (AQA); some begin their studies a year early (AS in Form 5 and A2 in Lower 6th). These students, who have completed their A-level studies when they enter the Upper Sixth, are encouraged to work towards the Trinity Guildhall Music Theory Diploma (AMusTCL.)
Many Chetham's students elect to apply to University to continue their academic study of Music. Each year, there are extra classes dedicated to preparing those students and we have a history of success in gaining offers of places, particularly from Oxford and Cambridge colleges.
Help, in the form of regular dedicated classes, is given to students preparing to take the ABRSM Grade 5 Theory examination. Tuition in small groups is also available in preparation for the aural component of ABRSM practical examinations.
In addition to regular lessons, students benefit from occasional workshops and lectures, given both by members of the department and by visiting speakers. These events have included "World Music Days" and study days focusing on a particular composer, period or genre; recent examples have been a Mendelssohn Day in 2008 and an American Music Day in 2009.
