HSC Music Extension study guide
HSC Music Extension · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
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 study guide has 4 sections and about 1,519 words.
01Performance: Building an Advanced Program and Defending It
The Performance elective rewards interpretive command , not mere accuracy. You must demonstrate control of tone production , articulation , dynamic shaping , rhythm and pulse stability , intonation or tuning , technique appropriate to the instrument or voice , and stylistic awareness of the period or idiom.
390 words, about 2 min02Composition: Score, Recording and the Argument for Your Choices
Composition is assessed through the work itself and the documentation around it: a legible, accurate score (or lead sheet, graphic score, or notation appropriate to the idiom) and a recording that realises it. Markers look for coherence of idea , development , structural logic , idiomatic writing for the forces used, control of texture and timbre , and notational accuracy .
353 words, about 2 min03Musicology: Extended Research, Analysis and Argument
Musicology rewards a sustained, evidenced argument over a chosen topic. You need a clear research question , a justified scope , engagement with primary sources (scores, recordings, interviews, archival documents) and secondary sources (scholarship, criticism), and analytical evidence drawn from the music itself.
366 words, about 2 min04Viva Voce and Portfolio: Documenting and Defending the Major Work
The viva voce and portfolio make your process visible and defensible . The portfolio typically holds evidence such as drafts, scores, recordings, rehearsal logs, research notes, annotated sources, and a process diary or journal; the viva tests whether you can articulate and justify the decisions that evidence records.
410 words, about 2 min