IB Diploma · session May 2027
Music
Guide first assessed in May 2022.
The four areas of inquiry
Nothing matches that.
The course in one page
The course in one page. Standard and higher level, for the guide first assessed in May 2022 — the guide May 2027 candidates sit.
What the course is
The 2022 guide rebuilt Music around three roles you occupy throughout:
researcher · performer · creator
You are not assessed as a performer who also writes some essays. You are assessed on all three, and on the connections between them — analysis informing performance, performance informing composition.
The other structural change is that the course is explicitly global. Western art music is one tradition among several, not the default with others as options, and a portfolio drawn entirely from one tradition is a weaker portfolio.
The four areas of inquiry
These apply identically at SL and HL. What differs between the levels is not the content but the number of assessment components.
| Area | What it covers | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Music for sociocultural and political expression | music as identity, protest, ritual, community |
| 2 | Music for listening and performance | music made primarily to be attended to — concert traditions worldwide |
| 3 | Music for dramatic impact, movement and entertainment | film, theatre, dance, games |
| 4 | Music technology in the electronic and digital age | production, electronic instruments, recording as composition |
You must engage with all four. Areas 3 and 4 are where students most often have least material, and they are also where the most accessible source material exists.
Assessment
There is no written examination. Music is assessed entirely by coursework — portfolios of written work, recorded performance and submitted composition.
| Component | SL | HL |
|---|---|---|
| Exploring music in context — research, plus creating and performing in response | ✓ | ✓ |
| Experimenting with music — experimentation portfolio, with written reflection | ✓ | ✓ |
| Presenting music — a presentation of your performing and creating | ✓ | ✓ |
| The contemporary music maker — a project realised for a real-world audience | — | ✓ |
Educerie does not mock this subject: there is nothing to mock. What this material does instead is set out what the coursework actually rewards, and give you a way to check your portfolio against it.
What the assessment actually rewards
Musical evidence, not description. The single largest differentiator. "The piece builds tension" is a listener's impression. "The ostinato remains fixed while the upper voices add a semitone at each repetition, so the harmony narrows without the pulse changing" is musical analysis. Bar numbers, timings, pitches, intervals, instruments.
Connection between the roles. The strongest portfolios show research changing performance, or an experiment becoming a composition. State those connections explicitly — assessors cannot infer them.
Genuine breadth. Material from unfamiliar traditions, engaged with on its own terms rather than described through Western categories. Analysing a maqam-based improvisation as though it were a key change is a real error, not a stylistic preference.
Reflection that leads to a decision. As everywhere in IB coursework, "this went well" is a caption. Reflection is only evidence when something changes as a result.
Common ways students lose marks
- Describing music in adjectives rather than in musical terms.
- Never naming a bar, a timing or a pitch.
- Drawing everything from one tradition, usually the one they were trained in.
- Presenting the three roles as three separate submissions with no relationship.
- Recording performance late, so no development is visible.
- Reflection that evaluates rather than decides.
- Analysing non-Western music with Western theoretical categories that do not fit it.
Educerie · written from the published IB Diploma Programme structure for Music, first assessment 2022. Original text. This subject is assessed entirely by coursework; there is no written examination. Last reviewed 5 September 2026.