Area of Study 1 My Music: the candidate-centred area built on your own instrument, voice and chosen styles, examined only through the Integrated Portfolio (one solo performance plus one free-brief composition, worth 30%), not in the written paper.

What this dot point is asking

Area of Study 1, My Music, is 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: one solo performance and one composition to a free brief of your choosing, worth 30% of the GCSE. You need to understand what makes this area different from the others, how it is assessed, and how the two pieces of work fit together. Crucially, My Music does not appear in the J536/05 listening paper, which is drawn from Areas of Study 2 to 5.

What My Music is

Where the other four areas point you outward to set styles and periods, My Music points inward to what you can already do. The qualification is designed so that a guitarist who plays rock, a pianist who plays classical repertoire, and a vocalist who sings musical theatre can all succeed by working in their own idiom. There is no prescribed repertoire and no prescribed composition style for this area, which is exactly what makes it the area of greatest personal choice.

How it is assessed

My Music is assessed entirely through the Integrated Portfolio (J536/01 or 02), which is non-exam assessment worth 30% of the GCSE, internally assessed and externally moderated by OCR. It has two halves:

• a solo performance on your own instrument or voice, recorded across the course;
• a composition to a free brief of your own devising, submitted as a score or written account plus a recording.

How the two pieces fit together

The performance and the composition are independent pieces of work, but both come from your own musical world, which is why they sit together in one portfolio. A strong portfolio plays to a consistent set of strengths: a candidate confident in pop might perform a pop song and compose a pop track, building a coherent body of work. The two pieces do not have to be in the same style, but choosing work that suits your instrument, range and taste is the single most important decision, because the marks reward how well the music is realised, not how ambitious or unusual it is.

Why the area matters for the whole course

Although My Music is assessed on its own, the skills it builds run through everything. Performing trains your control of the elements (dynamics, articulation, tempo, phrasing), which is the same vocabulary you use to appraise extracts in the listening exam. Composing teaches you how musical ideas are built and developed, which deepens your understanding of the set areas. So the practical work in AoS1 is not separate from the listening paper; it is the hands-on side of the same musical understanding.

Examples in context

A clarinettist who plays in a wind band might perform a Grade 5 solo with piano accompaniment for the performance, and compose a short film-style cue for woodwind and strings for the free brief, using the ensemble sounds she knows well. A self-taught guitarist might perform an arrangement of a song he can already play fluently, and compose an original pop song with the chord patterns and structures he understands. In both cases the candidate works inside their own idiom, which is what AoS1 is built to reward.

Try this

Q1. Which Area of Study is not tested in the J536/05 listening paper? [1 mark]

• Cue. Area of Study 1, My Music; the written exam covers AoS2 to AoS5.

Q2. Name the two pieces of work in the Integrated Portfolio and its weighting. [3 marks]

• Cue. One solo performance on your own instrument or voice, and one composition to a free brief; the Integrated Portfolio is worth 30% of the GCSE.

Q3. Explain how Area of Study 1 differs from the other four in how it is assessed. [6 marks]

• What the marker wants. AoS1 is assessed only through the Integrated Portfolio (solo performance plus free-brief composition, 30%) and is built on your own instrument and styles, whereas AoS2 to AoS5 are set areas tested in the listening exam (40%); name the two pieces and the weightings.