Music and Composition in the Australian Curriculum

In 2009, the council of commonwealth and state and territory education ministers approved “The shape of the Australian curriculum,” which guided the development of the national curriculum framework (ACARA, 2016). The working paper reflected the position adopted by ministers collectively in the 2008 Melbourne declaration on educational goals for young Australians. In December 2012, Version 4 of “The shape of the Australian curriculum” was approved by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), who later produced the finalized national curriculum framework for years Foundation-10 in 2015.

This was adopted by most state and territories, with the exception of Victoria and New South Wales, who currently use their own state-based curriculum while incorporating elements of the national framework and priorities. For example, the Victorian curriculum Foundation-10 outlines what every student should learn during their first 11 years of schooling: “The curriculum is the common set of knowledge and skills required by students for life-long learning, social development and active and informed citizenship. . . . [It] incorporates the Australian curriculum and reflects Victorian priorities and standards” (VCAA, 2020).

School authorities are ultimately responsible for the implementation of the national framework in their schools, making decisions about the extent to which the Australian curriculum is implemented, ensuring alignment with system and jurisdictional policies and requirements. A national senior secondary curriculum is being developed for many subject disciplines and as such, most continue to use state and territory-based curriculum. In Victoria, this is the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) and in New South Wales the High School Certificate (HSC). In addition, there are the industry-based Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses that are offered across Australia.

Music is found within the arts learning area of the Australian curriculum and the content descriptions in each arts subject reflect the interrelated strands of “making and responding.” “Making” includes “learning about and using knowledge, skills, techniques, processes, materials and technologies to explore arts practices and make artworks that communicate ideas and intentions,” and “Responding” entails “exploring, responding to, analysing and interpreting artworks” (ACARA, 2018a). The learning area encompasses five arts subjects—Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music, and Visual Arts— across five bands of year levels: Foundation to Year 2, Years 3 and 4, Years 5 and 6, Years 7 and 8, Years 9 and 10. In music, the three pillars of listening, performing, and composing are used to engage with the two strands making and responding:

Making in Music involves active listening, imitating, improvising, composing, arranging, conducting, singing, playing, comparing, and contrasting, refining, interpreting, recording and notating, practising, rehearsing, presenting and performing. Responding in Music involves students being audience members listening to, enjoying, reflecting on, analysing, appreciating, and evaluating their own and others’ musical works.” (ACARA, 2018b)

Making and responding involve developing aural understanding of the elements of music through experiences in listening, performing, and composing, which underpin all musical activity. Students use their voice, body, instruments, found sound sources, and technology to make music, which is recorded and communicated as musical notation, symbols, and audio recordings. Students develop analytical skills and aesthetic understanding with increasing experience of the elements of music.

Sequential learning is implied in the curriculum as the expectation is that students’ exploration and understanding of the elements of music, musical conventions, styles, and forms will expand with their continued active engagement with music. Students are expected to recognize their subjective musical preferences and consider diverse perspectives through listening, performing, and composing music from a broad range of styles, practices, traditions, and contexts, which will inform the way that they interpret music as performers and respond to the music they listen to. This is intended to culminate in the development of their own musical voice as composers and their own style as musicians.

In the Australian curriculum, music is learned through developing skills and knowledge associated with the elements of music. Therefore, musical ideas are developed through exploring rhythm, pitch, dynamics and expression, form and structure, timbre, and texture. In each of the five bands, students learn about increasingly complex forms of music as they make and respond to different musical styles and genres, from a range of historical and cultural contexts. These may include music in film and media, instrumental genres and songs, new music trends, and folk and art music from varied cultures, traditions, and times.

To develop deeper connections and understanding of the purpose of music, teachers should begin with music students have experienced in their own lives and community. This authentic and realistic link to personal experience may then provide a platform to develop understanding of and the ability to draw from the “histories, traditions and conventions of music from other places and times including Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, Asia and other world cultures” (ACARA, 2018b).

Consistent with the approach and principles of Crawford’s (2008 and 2014) multi- dimensional/non-1 inear teaching and learning model discussed later in the chapter, curriculum advice indicates that students’ musical skills are best developed through activities that integrate the techniques and processes of music that combine listening, composing, and performing. Figure 34.1 summarizes ACARAs suggested application of listening, composing, and performing in the two strands of the curriculum (2018b):

In the process of developing musical skills and knowledge, students learn that meanings can be generated from different perspectives and that these viewpoints may shift according to different authentic contexts or world encounters. As students make, investigate, or critique music from various perspectives, as composers, performers, and audience members, they interrogate, explore, and investigate meanings and interpretations in multidimensional ways.

Figure 34.1. Making and responding through listening, composing, and performing

Meanings and interpretations are informed by societal, cultural, and historical contexts, and an understanding of how elements, materials, skills, and processes are used. Challenging thinking and meaning construction provide the basis for making informed critical judgements about the music students create and the music they interpret as musicians and listen to as audiences. The complexity and sophistication of such thinking will change across the curriculum continuum from Foundation to Year 10, and in the later years will incorporate consideration of philosophies and ideologies, critical theories, institutions, and psychology.

General capabilities play a significant role in the Australian curriculum, encompassing knowledge, skills, behaviors, and dispositions intended to equip young Australians with the ability to live and work successfully in the 21st century. Students demonstrate development of a capability “when they apply knowledge and skills confidently, effectively and appropriately in complex and changing circumstances, in their learning at school and in their lives outside school” (ACARA, 2018c). Three of the general capabilities will be briefly discussed due to their relevancy to the arts and music curriculum and link to the case studies later presented. These are: “critical and creative thinking,” “personal and social,” and “intercultural competency capabilities.”

“Critical and creative thinking” is integral to making and responding to artworks within the arts learning area of the curriculum. Students draw on their curiosity, imagination and thinking skills to pose questions and explore ideas, spaces, materials and technologies. They consider and analyse the motivations, intentions and possible influencing factors and biases that may be evident in artworks they make to which they respond. (ACARA, 2018c)

In the cases described, students experiment, take risks, make choices, and consider possibilities when expressing their ideas, concepts, thoughts, and feelings creatively. Students are provided with opportunities to reflect and receive and offer constructive feedback about past and present artworks and performances. Communicating and sharing their thinking and innovations as well as challenging interpretations and artistic expression to a variety of audiences is an important part of developing both critical and creative thinking.

The “personal and social” capability is relevant to music and the arts as students identify and assess personal strengths, interests, and challenges. In the cases described, students are composers/art makers, performers, and audience. Students develop and apply personal skills and dispositions, such as self-discipline, goal-setting and working independently, initiative, confidence, resilience, and adaptability. Students develop emotional intelligence through learning to “empathise with the emotions, needs and situations of others, to appreciate diverse perspectives, and to understand and negotiate different types of relationships” (ACARA, 2018c). Students should be provided with opportunities to work with others and in these contexts develop and practice social skills to communicate effectively, work collaboratively, make considered group decisions, and demonstrate leadership.

The “intercultural understanding” capability enables students to explore the influence and impact of cultural identities and traditions on the practices and thinking of artists and audiences:

Students develop and act with intercultural understanding in making artworks that explore their own cultural identities and those of others, interpreting and comparing their experiences and worlds, and seeking to represent increasingly complex relationships. Students are encouraged to demonstrate empathy for others and openmindedness to perspectives that differ from their own and to appreciate the diversity of cultures and contexts in which artists and audiences live. (ACARA, 2018c)

Through engaging with music and artworks from diverse cultural sources and contexts, students are challenged in the cases studies to consider accepted roles, ideas, sounds, beliefs, and practices in new and different ways.

On June 12, 2020, the education ministers agreed that it was timely to review the current Foundation-Year 10 Australian curriculum, ready for implementation in 2022 (ACARA, 2020). This has come at a time of much controversy in Australia about what should be included in the curriculum and what should be considered essential and nonessential learning. Music and arts educators wait in anticipation to prepare for yet another battle that will no doubt resemble one from the not too distant past where strong advocation was required to have the arts included as part of the Australian curriculum (Ewing, 2010).

Despite the current curriculum encouraging a sequential music learning experience, this is rarely achieved in reality, with the ongoing marginalization of music and arts education. This includes reduced time in school programs, a paucity of available resources and funding that is being prioritized to other subjects, a diminishing investment of pre-service teacher education, a reduction of music specialist teachers overall and a lack of ongoing teacher professional learning to provide appropriate development to ensure that curriculum is interpreted and enacted with rigor and integrity. A critical conversation about music and arts being considered essential learning is required if we are to develop creative and critical thinkers with high levels of emotional intelligence and intercultural competence.