OCR GCSE Music: My Music (Area of Study 1) - the Integrated Portfolio, performing, composing and technology

What this area covers

This area is Area of Study 1, My Music, the candidate-centred heart of OCR GCSE Music. It is built on your own instrument or voice and the styles you know, and it is examined only through the Integrated Portfolio (Component J536/01 or 02), non-exam assessment worth 30% of the GCSE. Unlike the other four areas, My Music is not tested in the listening paper, which is drawn from AoS2 to AoS5. The area covers what My Music is, the solo performance, the free-brief composition, and the use of music technology.

This guide ties together the four dot-point pages for the area.

What My Music is

My Music points inward to what you can already do: your chosen instrument or voice, and the styles you perform and want to compose in. There is no prescribed repertoire and no prescribed composition style, which makes it the area of greatest personal choice. It is realised entirely through the Integrated Portfolio, so its marks come from recorded practical work, not a written answer.

The solo performance

The performance is one half of the portfolio. Choose repertoire within your technical control but not trivially easy, because OCR rewards the difficulty of the music alongside how it is played. It is marked on accuracy (notes, rhythm, intonation, fluency) and interpretation (dynamics, articulation, phrasing, tempo). Accuracy is the floor; interpretation is what turns correct notes into music. It is assessed from a recording, so capture it early, in good conditions, and keep your best complete take.

The free-brief composition

The composition is the other half, and the brief is yours to set: the style, the intended effect, the instrumentation and the rough length. The marks reward how well you develop your ideas (sequence, transposition, inversion, augmentation, fragmentation, reharmonisation, changes of texture and instrumentation) and how the elements are controlled to fit the brief. Give the piece a clear structure so ideas return and grow, and submit a score or written account plus a recording, with the brief stated.

Using music technology

Technology supports both halves and can be your chosen medium. A DAW lets you sequence and revise a composition, record live playing, and multitrack and mix parts into a balanced recording. MIDI lets you edit notes, dynamics and timing precisely. Because the portfolio is assessed from a recording, production matters, but it should serve the music, not mask it, and the marks still rest on the performance and the developed composition.

How to revise this area

1. Play to your strengths. Choose performance repertoire and a composition style you genuinely control, because fluency beats ambition here.
2. Secure accuracy, then interpret. Get the notes reliable, then shape dynamics, articulation, phrasing and tempo.
3. Develop, do not repeat. The composition marks come from growing an idea, not looping it; use named development techniques and a clear structure.
4. State a brief and fulfil it. Set the intended effect, then control the elements to deliver it, so the moderator can judge the music against its purpose.
5. Record early and well. Both pieces are assessed from recordings, so capture them in good conditions, and let production serve the music.

The dot points in this area

Each links to a focused answer page: the area of study My Music, performing on your instrument, composing to a free brief and using music technology.