The AS Level Music courses follows the Edexcel Music GCE 8MU01 Syllabus

Edexcel GCE Music 8MU01 Course
Simple in design but comprehensive — it is intended to be stimulating and enriching for students and teachers alike. Students will develop performance skills (solo and/or ensemble), compose music and learn about harmony. They will build up their aural and analytical skills by studying selections from the New Anthology of Music (Edited by J. Winterson, Peters, 2000) and wider listening.

The course is as follows :

• Unit 1:  Performing Music
  This unit gives students the opportunity to perform as a soloist and/or as part of an ensemble.  Students can choose music in any style.  Any instrument(s) and/or voice(s) are acceptable as part of a five-six minute assessed performance.
• Unit 2: Composing
  This unit encourages students to develop their composition skills leading to the creation of a three minute piece in response to a chosen brief.  Students also write a CD sleeve note to describe aspects of their final composition and explain how other pieces of music have influenced it.
• Unit 3: Developing Musical Understanding
  This unit focuses on listening to familiar music and understanding how it works.  Set works from the anthology provide the focus for the first two sections of the exam, through listening and studying scores.  It is recommended that students familiarise themselves with each work as a whole, before learning how to identify important musical features and social and historical context.  In the third section of the exam, students use a score to identify harmonic and tonal features and then apply this knowledge in the completion of a short and simple passage for SATB.

Assessment
30% - Unit 1 (6MU01) 5-6min performance – Internally assessed
30% - Unit 2 (6MU02) 3 minute composition and CD sleeve – Externally assessed
40% - Unit 3 (6MU03) – 2 Hour Paper examination