Repertoire Based Music Literacy Education (RBMLE)
Repertoire-Based Music Literacy Education (RBMLE) is an approach to music teaching that places the music learners are already singing, playing and studying at the centre of literacy development.
Rather than teaching musical concepts as isolated theory topics and only later attempting to connect them to repertoire, RBMLE begins with real music. A piece becomes the starting point for hearing, experiencing, identifying, reading, understanding, interpreting, creating and performing.
Through one carefully chosen piece of repertoire, learners can explore rhythm, pitch, notation, form, harmony, aural awareness, sight-reading, improvisation, composition and musical interpretation in an integrated and meaningful way.
RBMLE is grounded in the belief that music literacy develops through connections. Learners should not only be able to recognise a musical concept on a worksheet; they should increasingly be able to hear it, feel it, identify it in a score, understand how it functions, apply it in another context and communicate it through musical performance.
Why repertoire?
Repertoire provides a musical context in which concepts have purpose and meaning. Instead of learning a rhythm, interval, chord or structural feature in isolation, learners encounter it as part of music they can hear and perform.
This allows the teacher to move naturally between:
- listening and aural perception;
- movement and rhythmic experience;
- notation and score reading;
- musical vocabulary and conceptual understanding;
- interpretation and expressive decision-making;
- improvisation and composition;
- practical performance; and
- reflection and musical communication.
The same piece can therefore support many areas of learning without fragmenting music into unrelated subjects.
The eight dimensions of music literacy
Within the ScoreS2Duo approach, RBMLE supports the development of eight interconnected dimensions of music literacy:
Hearing — recognising and anticipating musical sound.
Feeling and experiencing — experiencing pulse, rhythm, phrasing, movement and musical character.
Identifying — recognising musical features, patterns and concepts.
Reading and representing — understanding notation and representing musical ideas.
Interpreting — making sense of musical meaning, structure, style and expression.
Reasoning and applying — explaining musical relationships and transferring knowledge to new contexts.
Creating — improvising, composing and experimenting with musical ideas.
Communicating and performing — expressing musical understanding through performance and musical communication.
The dimensions are not intended to function as eight separate lesson activities. Instead, they provide a way of considering how richly and comprehensively a learner is engaging with the music.
What does RBMLE look like in a lesson?
A learner might begin by listening to or performing a passage from a current piece. The teacher can then draw attention to a rhythmic pattern, melodic shape, interval, harmonic feature or structural idea already contained within that music.
The learner might:
hear the feature;
clap, sing or move it;
find it in the score;
name and explain it;
compare it with another example;
apply it in sight-reading or an unfamiliar passage;
use it in a short improvisation or composition; and
return to the repertoire with a deeper understanding of how the music works.
In this way, theory grows out of music and returns to music.
A connected approach to musical learning
RBMLE does not reject written music theory. Written work remains an important part of music education. The difference lies in ensuring that written knowledge remains connected to sound, experience, repertoire and practical musicianship.
The aim is not simply to produce learners who can complete theory exercises successfully, but to nurture musicians who can increasingly hear, understand, read, interpret, create and perform with independence.
At ScoreS2Duo, RBMLE informs the development of teaching resources, music literacy workbooks and practical learning activities designed to help teachers build these connections within everyday lessons.
ScoreS2Duo — inspiring a lifetime of music.