HSC Music Extension case studies
HSC Music Extension · Put your knowledge to work in context.
HSC Music Extension is a New South Wales higher school certificate course taken alongside Music 2, designed for students who want to pursue one area of music at a depth beyond the core syllabus. Candidates choose a single strand - Performance, Composition, or Musicology - and build a substantial major work across the year, supported by a viva voce and a portfolio documenting their process. The HSC Music Extension case studies are 5 cases and about 3,042 words.
1The Vanishing Third Movement
A Year 12 performance candidate has programmed a 22-minute recital: a Baroque sonata movement (7 min), a Romantic character piece (6 min), and a contemporary Australian work (9 min). Six weeks before the exam she reports that her lip fatigue in the final work is causing cracked notes in bars 140-160, and her accompanist has just withdrawn from the contemporary work because it is unaccompanied.
604 words, about 3 min2The Score That Doesn't Match the Recording
A composition candidate submits a 6-minute work for string quartet plus fixed electronics. The submitted score is a clean Sibelius engraving.
636 words, about 3 min3The Musicology Topic That Outgrew Its Question
A Musicology candidate proposed a 4000-word essay on 'the influence of gamelan on twentieth-century Western art music'. After research, the draft has grown to 6500 words and now covers Debussy, Ravel, Britten, Reich, and three Australian composers, with a separate section on tuning systems.
557 words, about 3 min4The Viva the Candidate Didn't Prepare For
A composition candidate has submitted a 7-minute work for wind quintet and a portfolio of drafts. In the viva, the panel asks: 'Why did you choose an ABA form here?' The candidate answers that ABA is 'a standard classical form and it suits the ensemble'.
629 words, about 3 min5The Ensemble That Counts the Candidate's Marks
A performance candidate is submitting an ensemble item: a string quartet movement in which she plays second violin. The quartet has rehearsed for ten weeks but two members are unreliable, and in the final rehearsal the ensemble is not together in the development section.
616 words, about 3 min