IB art vs IB music

[Sophiawyu]

Hi, I'm in a dilemma here. I'm currently in IB art SL, but I'm thinking about switching to IB music SL.

Here's my reasoning:

I've played piano for around 11 years, so I reckon that I have a bit of an edge to music in general. However, the art class overall has a very good atmosphere and I have a lot of fun in it. I think what I'm worried about mostly is the score ill get from the IB assessment. I'm not an amazing artist, but I'm decent enough. I'm also worried about the workload.

Any advice or suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Geek^Grenade]

The important question here is how much do you like/love music and visual art?What are your other subjects and what are your aspirations? I'm assuming you know how to read music notations which will be a great help to you in the ib music course.

Also how much art work have you completed and what are the music students learning currently?

I think it would be easier for you to switch to sl music as you're a practising pianist and you're also required to create a musical composition or perform a personally composed, improvised piece in a group or solo(thats what I've understood from the ib site). there are others options for sl too like stylistic techniques. look at the ib site and the 2011 guide which is supposed to be the latest.

Does your school have a capable music teacher who's efficient and aware of ib music requirements?

[Esteban]

If you are worried about workload, then stay in IB art. With IB music, you also have to take a IB music theory class, which is no cake walk.

[yii yann]

I did IB Music HL. It was not easy.

In SL, you will have a number of components - the analysis paper, performance, and musical links investigation (This is as of May 13).

Unless you're HL, coursework wise music is not that heavy. The bulk of music coursework is in composition, which only HLs do.

As you're a practising pianist, the performance part will not be of great difficulty.

The analysis paper mainly requires you to be able to identify items within the music and comment on them, much like IB English. You do not require lots of music theory knowledge. The catch is that you have very little time (about 20 mins for each two page essay), and you have to be an expert at picking out things in the music and relating them to larger themes, effects, etc.

Musical links investigation is exactly like it sounds - you pick two music cultures (eg african and hindustani) and compare musical links.

That is what you will be doing in music SL. The real question is, are you willing to settle for a lower grade or put in the extra time and effort required, if you want to stay in IB art?

If not, IB music SL is a better bet.

[crimson.threads]

I do IB Art HL. In a sense, HL is actually easier than SL for art, simply just because you get far more time to work on refining everything- the basic requirements for artistic thinking are the same to get high scores at both HL and SL, and since HL has much more allotted class time, it is often easier to nab a seven. I guess what I'm saying is that what you're doing now in SL art really requires time and effort, that might be slightly redundant since it's only a SL subject for you.

I unfortunately know nothing about Music; but I do know that of all the people in my cohort, we have several (certified) orchestra-level players, and none of them have chosen to take Music at HL or SL, meaning Music is definitely not easy. In comparison, Art is one of the bigger and well-supported Group 6 subjects at my school, film being another. So my opinion is that you should consider how well you are supported alongside your natural aptitude, because a brilliant teacher can literally force you to rise by two levels, if you're willing to listen and work really hard.

Either way, it's going to be a hard slog for you, because as my TOK teacher so appropriately put it, most people don't take a group 6 subject because it's the hardest subjects due to how arbitrary they are, and so it's not easy to score well in it.

From what you've given us, I'd say go for IB Music! If you believe the class atmosphere is good in Music SL and you get enough support from your music teacher, I see no reason as to why you shouldn't switch (better sooner than later!)