Rhythm

• Notes and rests: whole note to 1/16 note (semibreve to semiquavers), dots and ties, tuplets
• Simple meter (e.g. 2/4, 3/4, 4/4) 
• Irregular meter (e.g. 5/4, 7/8) 
• Compound meter (e.g. 6/8, 9/8, 12/8) 
• Understanding of beat groupings for notes and rests
• Syncopation and accents
• Tempo and pulse 

Pitch — melody/harmony

• Treble and bass clefs 
• Major and minor scales (harmonic, natural, melodic), blues scale, pentatonic scale and modes 
• Diatonic intervals 
• Diatonic triads in root position
• Chords to the 7th, 9th, major, minor, dominant, half-diminished, and diminished 
• Altered 5 (dominant) chords (e.g. b9, #5) 
• Ostinato/riff 
• Sus2 and sus4 chords 
• Melody construction and shaping 
• Matching appropriate triads to a melody 
• Standard chord progressions, such as: 1-4-5 (and variants), 1-5-6-4 (and variants), 1-b7-4, 1-4-7-3-6-2-5-1 (fourth cycle and variants), 1-5-6-3-4-1-4-5 (Pachelbel Canon, rhythm changes)
• Transposing instruments (e.g. Bb and Eb)
• Simple modulations or changes of key (typical of popular music only, e.g. up a semitone, or modulation to closely related keys)

Dynamics and expression

• Dynamic shaping and associated markings (symbols) 
• Expressive articulation and associated markings (symbols)
• Tempo indications (e.g. quarter note = 120 BPM)

Form and structure

• Binary
• Ternary
• Song form (e.g. intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge)
• Call and response
• 12 and 16 bar blues
• Standard form and notation symbols (e.g. repeats, 1st- and 2nd-time endings, coda)

Timbre

• Pitched and unpitched instruments (instrument families)
• Tone colour of individual instruments and instrumental combinations (including voices and FX processing)

• Layering and blending of musical lines (melodic and rhythmic)
• Varied combinations of solo and group layering