These are ATARMAxxing’s course-guide summaries. Review all required areas, including school assessments, practical work, performances or folios where applicable. Follow your course’s option rules.
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Aural perception and dictation
Roughly the first third of the paper (the 2023 SAA counts 40 of 120 marks for aural recognition and dictation). Expect tick-box recognition of rhythms, melodies, chord qualities, time signatures and progressions; rhythmic dictation of two to four bars with ties, dotted figures, semiquavers and triplets; broken-chord naming and notation; adding accidentals to scales; finding wrong notes; and completing an instrumental part from a given rhythm, often in a minor key using the melodic minor. In this hub excerpts are printed, so practise real dictation with audio as well.
Musical elements, notation and the formula sheet
The supporting document lists the theory you must control: note values, beat grouping in simple, compound and irregular meters, clefs (including alto), scales and modes, intervals and inversions, triads and sevenths in all inversions, extensions and altered dominants, secondary dominants, cadences, modulation to closely related keys, transposition and score order. Question 12 tests rhythm grouping directly, and the formula sheet is meant to be used to derive and proof answers.
Score reading and analysis of unfamiliar works
Questions 7 to 10 analyse works you have not seen: chord naming across clefs, keys and cadences, compositional devices, textures with bar numbers, string and wind techniques, articulation, form, how an arrangement changes a known tune, an aural-only piece in any style, and a comparative table. Markers reward precise terminology, evidence from the score, timbre described by quality, and comparison with the theme rather than the previous variation.
Manipulating elements: melody writing, arranging and harmonisation
Question 6 (melody completion), Question 11 (three parts beneath a melody with chord symbols) and Question 13 (Option A four-part vocal style or Option B jazz-related keyboard harmony, 24 marks) are the creative notation tasks. Success depends on correct chord spelling, smooth voice-leading seen both horizontally and vertically, cadences at phrase ends, the named features (six-four progressions, dominant 7th, secondary dominants, modulations, extensions and alterations), and a musical rather than mechanical approach.
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These links come from this subject’s existing official-paper archive. A listed year is the document’s year, not a claim that it matches the 2026 course. Written papers may cover only part of your assessment; use the official requirements for practical, performance and folio components.