Creating texts to support music-making response and research

Sustained written text is used in music by composers and performers to justify and explain their musical intentions. Written texts are also used by listeners to analyse, review, and evaluate musical compositions and performances. Finally, performers, composers and listeners use written text to communicate information about musical styles, performers, histories, and cultures.

In this section, one key strategy—unpacking genre—is used to support students to create these various kinds of texts. This strategy is then applied to examples of texts that could be used with this strategy.

Unpacking genre

All disciplines and subject use specific written genres or text types to communicate knowledge and meaning. By making the structures and purposes of these genres visible, students are better able to produce texts that enable them to communicate with other musicians (become part of the discourse community) (Derewianka & Jones, 2016; Rose & Martin, 2012).

In this strategy, the teacher provides authentic examples of the desired genre and students learn about the features of these texts before creating their own. 

The teacher and students deconstruct model or mentor texts of the given genre (these samples can be published, or models created by the teacher or by previous students). 

Steps:

1. The teacher provides lists of the text features of this genre, and the students highlight these when reading the text
2. Language features including sentence structure, tense and language choices are identified and discussed. The teacher models annotating these features and the students use this as the basis for their annotations.
3. Students (individually or jointly) construct a text in the appropriate genre, using the sample/model as a guide
4. Once they have written the text, students share with their peers, who annotate and highlight their texts according to the features of the genre and provide feedback
5. After receiving feedback on their texts, students review and edit their work for submission/publication

Justifying and explaining musical intentions

One way musicians communicate their musical intentions is through providing written texts to accompany their compositions and performances. Writing texts program notes and artistic statements enable the student to both to communicate their intentions to their audience and reflect on the way they are interpreting music (in the context of performance) or creating meaning through composition.

Evaluation and reflection of one's work is a strategy that research shows has a positive impact on learning and literacy (Benander & Rafaei, 2016; Pedro, Abodeeb-Gentile, & Courtney, 2012). Writing statements connected to the production of a work of art (composition or performance) also highlights the way audience draw on both the language of music and linguistic resources to make meaning.

Two examples of genres students produce that relate to performance and composition are:

• composer's statement of intention
• program notes.

Composer's statement of intention

Students use a composer's statement of intention to explain the musical decisions they have made about the work they have produced.
Composer's statements of intention include the following features:

• details about the purpose or musical intention of the piece
• details of the composer's inspiration and motivation to write the piece
• explanation and justification for the way the elements of music have been used in this piece
• any specific details the audience should listen for as they are enjoying the piece.

Language features to highlight include:

• use of personal pronouns (I/we)
• technical musical language (green)
• expanded noun groups (underlined)
• prepositional phrases of manner, place, reason (italics)

It is helpful to support the development of these statements with scaffolds, such as the compositional notes template, above.

Below is a sample of a Year 9 or 10 student composer's statement of intention which relates to the student string quartet composition of 'Bingo' above (VCAMUP041, VCAMUP044).

Program notes

Students write program notes to accompany solo of group performances.

Program notes are a specific text type that includes the following features:

• details of the performers/performance – the intention of the performance
• details of the works being performed/the composer of the work/s
• information about the performers and their musical experiences
• suggest what the audience might listen for in the performance (live or recorded).

While program notes often order these features as per the list above, individuals may take a more creative approach to the structure of their statements.

Language features to highlight include:

• simple present tense (said in bold)
• evaluative language choices to express feeling, judgement, and appreciation (highlighted yellow)
• an expanded noun or nominal groups (underlined).

Below is an extract of the program notes from Cyborg Pianist, presented by Zubin Kanga and Benjamin Carey as part of the 2016 Melbourne Festival (VCAMUP041, VCAMUP044).

Reviewing, analysing, and evaluating music

Students create written after listening to/viewing a performance or listening to a performance in conjunction with reading a musical score. Students create these texts to show their critical understanding and appreciation of compositions and performances and to build their musical vocabulary and language.
Two key genres students write for these purposes are:

• reviews
• analyses.

Review

One of the most common forms of writing in music is the concert review. To prepare for writing a concert review, students should research the band and performers, and use a graphic organiser (adapted from the Compositional Notes template) to take notes during the performance that they can build on later.
Concert or performance reviews are multi-genre, that is they include information, analysis. Concert reviews often include the following features:

• Information about:
• the performers (background, experiences)
• the performance – place, time, venue.
• the music/repertoire that was performed (and information about the composer if this is different to the performer/s)
• An analysis of the performance (see information about developing analytical language in the 'Building Understanding' section).
• This analysis proceeds in the order of the performance and includes:
• discussion of the composition (the melodies played by flutes, the chromatic harmony) and how the music is realised by the performers (screeching guitar solo)
• evaluation of whether the performance meets its intention and
• discussion of the impact of compositional and performance decisions on the listener/audience.
• The reviewer's reflection on and assessment of the quality of the overall concert experience

While reviews often order these features as per the list above, individuals may take a more creative approach to the structure of these written texts. 

Language features to highlight include:

• Use of the third person
• evaluative language choices to express feeling, judgement, and appreciation
• an expanded noun or nominal groups (underlined).

For sample analysis of reviews, see strategies 'Unpacking expanded noun groups' and 'Jointly deconstructing a review' in the previous section.

Analyses

Once students can identify the elements of music, they then need to begin to describe and interpret how the musical elements work to create aesthetic effect and meaning. When musical works and musical elements, students need to:

• identify musical elements in the piece(s)
• use musical vocabulary to describe the elements
• offer an interpretation/analysis of the intended purpose of the described musical element.

Note: The below strategy focuses on writing analytical sentences. For further support to teach students to write analyses, see the Putting It Together section.

Teachers can present students with sentence frames or model sentences that support the student to analyse musical works. The strategy below uses a sentence frame to support students to write an interpretation of a given musical element.

1. The teacher introduces a musical work (depending on resources available and student cohort's existing skills and knowledge). For example, the teacher might use tracks from Australian composer Luke Howard's album '(Information about Luke Howard and his music can be found here).
2. Pairs of students are given an element that is used in the musical work(s).
3. After listening to the piece(s), students write down adjectives that describe their element in objective or subjective ways. These adjectives will typically include:
   • classifiers that categorise the group, genre, or class of music (e.g. orchestral, pop, country)
   • factual that describe objective characteristics of the music (e.g. multi-layered, monophonic, guitar ensemble)
   • evaluative (or opinion) that describe subjective (or individual opinions) about the music (e.g. evocative, emotional, sad).
4. The students use these adjectives to write noun groups that describe the musical element.
• For example, the students looking at timbre might write, 'dense, homophonic, multi-layered texture'
5. The teacher asks pairs of students to offer their descriptions of the element of music and write some of these up on the board.
6. The teacher leads a discussion to support students to offer an interpretation of the intended purpose or effect of the described elements, writing some of the student responses on the board
   • For example, the teacher might ask:
     • How does the dense texture make you feel?
     • What do you imagine when you hear this texture?
7. The teacher presents a model sentence structure to show students how to offer an interpretation of an element of music in a work. For example:

In <artwork>, <the composer > has used <description of art element> which <intended effect or purpose of element of music>.

• Students use the model sentence structure to write their interpretations of the element of music they have described.
  For example, the students focussing on dynamics might write:
  
  In 'Bear Story 1' Luke Howard has used a gradually building string crescendo which creates a feeling of tension and keeps the listener on the edge.

Curriculum links for the above examples: VCAMUR038, VCAMUR045.

Researching music history, culture, and style

Students also produce research reports and other information texts drawn from reading about a musician, musical period, or style, and listening to and comparing musical works from a particular period. This research is used to inform and enrich their music-making. Writing an information report about these aspects of music and musicians requires students to gather a range of information from various sources.

A research report in music is multi-genre and can include the following features:

• definitions (of the musical style or period)
• descriptions of the styles
• comparisons or discussions of some of the major works of the period, and how they represent the musical style
• lists of the major performers of this style or period, and details about their most famous work and musical contribution.
• quotes from experts about the importance of the musical style and major artists
• timelines showing major musical developments during a period (listing artists and their recordings)
• video clips, photos and/or audio recording of music with an explanation about why these are important.
• a list of references and sources.

Different language features will be used in different parts of this report. 

For example, sections which focus on the history of a musical style and artists of a period will use:

• the third person
• past tense (bold)
• adverbials of time (italics)

See for example the opening paragraph of a Research report on jazz fusion written by a Year 9 or 10 student (VCAMUR046).

In reports, sections which compare key works from the period are likely to:

• be written in the present tense
• use an expanded noun or nominal groups

Preparing to write a research report in music

1. Teachers support students' first reading and research by advising about suitable websites and sources. A list of curated sources will ensure that student access suitable information that will enable them to take note which will, in turn, help them in writing their response.
2. Students take notes in a graphic organiser structured around the dimensions of the report.
   The teacher can provide a graphic organiser with the key terms already filled in, or provide a blank template, and discuss with students the type of information they should be researching and collecting.
   A sample graphic organiser for a research report on the topic 'Jazz Fusion' is below.
   
   

As well as reading about the given history and style, students also develop knowledge of the musical period and style through analytical listening. The teacher can support this listening by providing the following graphic organiser.

Writing the report

1. The teacher takes the student through the 'Unpacking genre' strategy.
   
2. Students draft their music reports, using their graphic organisers to structure the different components of the written text.
3. The teacher provides feedback on both the content and grammatical features.

For example, when providing feedback, the teacher might note the different tenses used in the report and discuss with the students which verb tense to use and when.

• past tense is used in the part of the report which recounts and reports on the background of the music form or artist (examples in bold)
• present simple tense in the section of the report which describes the music form or current artists (examples in bold italics). The present simple is sometimes called the timeless present tense to reflect that the actions happen 'all the time.'

Below is a sample information report on Jazz Fusion written by a Year 9 or 10 student VCAMUR039, VCAMUR046.