Option A

Achievement Standard Making Music 91424: Create two arrangements for an ensemble

Resource reference: Making Music 3.9B
Resource title: Pre-Loved Riffs
Credits: 4

Ac
hievement - Create two arrangements for an ensemble.    
Achievement with Merit - Create two effective arrangements for an ensemble.    
Achievement with Excellence - Create two convincing arrangements for an ensemble.   
 

Student Instructions: 

Introduction

This assessment activity requires you to arrange two pieces of music for an ensemble of three or more instruments or voices and present your work both as a score and an audio file.

This assessment task will take place over eight weeks of in-class and out-of-class time.

You will be assessed on the extent to which your arrangements show skill, character, and imagination through the musical elements and processes you use in the pieces.

Task
Arrange two lead lines from either the jazz The Real Book provided in class or similar suitable material that you have found and discussed with your teacher. Present each arrangement as a written score and an audio file playable on a CD player or computer without specialised music software, with a copy of your original source material.

For each arrangement, choose a suitable melodic lead line and give it a new style by creatively reworking, adapting, and adding new material. You may modify or give it new instrumentation, structure, harmony, countermelody, or texture. Retain enough of the original lead line to ensure that it is easily recognisable as the basis for your piece of work.

Your arrangements should demonstrate idiomatic writing for the instruments or voices in the ensemble. This means that parts are written within range and are natural to the instruments you are writing for.

They should also demonstrate skilful, imaginative writing. This may involve applying and combining arrangement techniques such as:
  • harmonic modification, for example, chord substitution or modulation
  • textural variation, for example, the use of countermelodies or changing the density of the piece
  • rhythmic modification to the feel of the piece, for example, through changing the rhythmic scansion of the original melodic line or adding a rhythmic figure or ‘groove’ to the accompaniment
  • dynamic contrasts
  • timbral variation, for example, different combinations of instruments.