At Trafalgar High School, our Music program has embedded the Musical Futures approach, with a particular focus on modern contemporary music making. Students have the opportunity to learn and play a variety of instruments, including but not limited to guitar, piano, bass, drums and vocals. A small selection of stringed and brass instruments (e.g. violin, viola and trumpet) are also able to be learned in extra-curricular music lessons. Our school offers compulsory classroom music in Years 7 and Year 8, with elective music classes beginning at Year 9 and Year 10, continuing through into VCE Units 1-4 in Music Contemporary Performance.
Students have the opportunity to undertake private music tuition (pay-as-you-play lessons at a flat-rate cost of $150 per term, per instrumental lesson) with our suitably qualified music instructors. This is an extra-curricular activity and these lessons all run during school hours throughout the week; some lessons are available before and after school upon need/request. Students also have the opportunity to work in bands, duos or as solo artists when their interest and skills are at a suitable level and thus, they can begin to develop their own musicality and focus on developing their own individual tastes in music. We host regular events for students to showcase their musical skills, from lunchtime jam sessions, band rehearsals, recording, Open Mic Nights, inter-school music workshops and our end of year Night on the Lawn Live Outdoor Music Festival, normally held in late November.
Click here to download the Music Tuition Form for 2024.
Open Mic Nights
Trafalgar High School hosts monthly Open Mic Nights for the students to perform at and this has been a huge success in 2023. We have a fully functional stage, complete with backline for a full band, P.A and lighting, so that students can get an authentic live performance experience. We have some regular solo, duo and group performers performing new material but each event also sees us host a number of new performers, keen to showcase their music. We have a growing audience and we are very excited to see this regular performance event getting stronger each month. These shows are hosted mid-week and normally run from around 5:30-6:00pm until 7:30pm-8:00pm. Students wishing to perform, just need to see the staff in the music department and or the school’s Performing Arts Captains to sign up for the next Open Mic Night.
Little Blue Couch
Our short season of our YouTube music show, “Little Blue Couch", featured musicians from Trafalgar High School, shared student performances and music, with our hosts talking to them about their music and their musical experiences. This show was purely developed, performed, filmed, mixed and edited by a creative team of students, including but not limited to some of our Arts Captains and Music students. The show went on hiatus and has been replaced by our Open Mic Nights, where the Little Blue Couch still sometimes features off to the side of the stage. We hope you enjoy it but it would be great to see you at one of our Open Mic Nights.
SEVR Battle of the Bands & Rockfest
Trafalgar High School proudly participates in the annual RockFest, a school-aged battle of the bands event, sponsored by Coleman’s Music, D’Addario Australia and other major sponsors. For more information about RockFest go to RockFest. We have had many successful bands and solo artists go through to the State and National Finals over the years. In 2021, one of our very talented VCE Music students, Em Istraty, won the “RockFest Futures Award" for her performance and took home over $2000 in prizes. In 2018, one of our bands, “The Leftovers”, were successful in winning both the overall “Best Senior Band” and “Best Original Song” awards at the 2018 RockFest National Finals. This event, like many of our school music events, aims to foster skill development in music and provide students with real life “live performance” opportunities, as well as the chance to see other student bands play too. The SEVR Battle of the Bands competition (South Eastern Victorian Region) has begun again in 2023 and we have once again entered bands into this competition.
Trafalgar High School’s music program not only offers students a wide variety of performance opportunities, it also offers students the chance to participate in the Kool Skools Studio and Song Writing Program. Through Kool Skools, students are encouraged to write their own music and record it with studio engineers in a professional recording studio in Melbourne (Studio 52 – Empire Records). At the end of the Kool Skools project, students complete a CD with a compilation of original music and cover songs, all performed and recorded by the students themselves, including the creation of all album artwork and photography. This project often involves a mix of talented students from Years 7 to 12. We hope to be able to run our Kool Skools event again in 2022.
All songs on the compilation albums were recorded at Studio 52, Empire Records, in Melbourne Australia for the Kool Skools project. The albums comprise of a mix of original songs composed by students as well as covers of popular songs and is a snapshot of the Music program at our school in as of 2022.
All songs on the compilation album recorded at Studio 52, Empire Records, in Melbourne Australia for the Kool Skools project. The album comprises of a mix of original songs composed by students as well as covers of popular songs and is a snapshot of the Music program at our school in 2019. All music was played and recorded by the students over two days in September 2019.
To learn more about our classroom, elective and VCE music program, or our instrumental music program, please contact our school’s music coordinator during school hours on (03) 5633 1733. All forms will then be forwarded to the music coordinator and appropriate instrumental teaching staff.
