Music Past Papers 2026
Browse all available Music sessions from 2010-2025. This archive currently includes 144 official papers and 0 donated papers.
25
Sessions
144
Papers
144
Official
2010-2025
Years
May 2025
Latest Session
25
Sessions
2010–2025
0
Question Papers
20
Markschemes
— coverage
Components: —.
May 2025
Latest Session
25
Sessions
2010–2025
0
Question Papers
20
Markschemes
— coverage
Components: —.
Yearly Exam Sessions
About IB Music
IB Music is a Group 6 arts subject covering music perception, creation, and performance. Students engage with music from different cultures, traditions, and contexts, developing their skills as listeners, performers, creators, and researchers. The course is structured around three strands: listening and responding to music, creating music, and performing music.
IB Music is available at SL and HL. Assessment includes a listening paper, internal components for composition and performance, and for HL, a presentation on a music topic. Past papers focus on the external listening examination.
Exam Format
Listening Paper (SL: 1 hr / HL: 2 hr)
Questions on musical excerpts covering musical elements, context, and analysis. Some knowledge of musical notation is expected at HL.
SL vs HL
HL Music requires a longer listening paper with more complex analysis and adds a Researcher's Score project. HL students study music traditions in greater depth and demonstrate more advanced compositional and performance skills.
Study Tips for IB Music
- ✓Listen to music from diverse traditions — Western classical, jazz, world music, and contemporary styles all appear.
- ✓Learn musical terminology in both descriptive and technical form: texture, timbre, dynamics, form, tonality.
- ✓Practise writing about music using precise vocabulary — 'it sounds nice' scores no marks.
- ✓For HL, be prepared to read and reference score notation in your listening paper answers.
Questions, answered.
Performing music is part of the Internal Assessment, but there is flexibility in how students demonstrate musical skill. Non-performing options (composing, technology-based music) may be available depending on your school.
IB Music is explicitly cross-cultural. Students are assessed on music from at least three distinct traditions, which may include Western art music, jazz, African, Latin American, Asian, folk, and popular music traditions.