Area of Study 6 (optional): contemporary traditional music, covering folk and world traditions, the conventions of named styles, traditional and fusion instruments, modal harmony and characteristic rhythms.

What this dot point is asking

Contemporary traditional music is one of the five optional areas of study in Component 1; you study two of the five optional areas. AQA wants you to know the conventions of folk and world music traditions through named styles, to recognise traditional and fusion instruments, modal harmony, drones and characteristic rhythms, and to analyse unfamiliar extracts in Section A and the Section B essay.

Melody, mode and harmony

Rhythm, metre and texture

Many traditions are dance-based with characteristic metres and lively, syncopated or asymmetric rhythms. Irish jigs lilt in compound time, reels run in a brisk four, and much Balkan music uses additive, asymmetric metres such as seven-eight grouped as two plus two plus three. Repetition is structural rather than incidental: melodic and rhythmic ostinati, strophic verses and call-and-response patterns shape the music in place of the developing forms of the Western classical tradition. Textures include solo unaccompanied song, unison singing, drone-based textures, call-and-response (a leader phrase answered by a group) and heterophony, where performers play simultaneous decorated variants of the same melody at once. Identifying the texture is often the quickest way to place an extract in its tradition.

Instruments and fusion

Traditional instruments vary by culture and are worth knowing by name: the fiddle, bodhran (a frame drum), uilleann pipes and accordion of Celtic music; the sitar, tabla and tanpura (a drone instrument) of Indian classical music; the mbira (thumb piano) of southern Africa; the kora (a West African harp-lute); and pan pipes of Andean music. Each carries a distinctive timbre and a characteristic way of playing that helps identify the tradition. Contemporary traditional music frequently fuses these with the apparatus of popular music, setting a modal fiddle tune over a rock drum kit and electric bass, or blending tabla rhythms with synthesisers and studio production. The interest of an extract often lies precisely in this meeting of old and new, so describing both the traditional roots and the contemporary additions is central to a strong answer.