This course expects the student to have attained a basic level of competence in the overall understanding of music. This is best tested through the way the pupil responds to the tanpura. Thus, he/she will be required to tune the tanpura to the appropriate swars.

• Swar - The student should be able to sing and recognise shuddha and komal-teevra swars, and also use various kinds of alankaars in his/her performance.
• Raag - The student will be taught one vilambit and one drut khyaal in Raags Chhayanat, Puriya Dhanashri, Bhimpalas, Jaijaiwanti, and Asavari. He/she should be able to perform any two of these raags for fifteen minutes, with complete aalap, taan, and boltaan. Apart from this, he/she will also be trained in performing a madhya-laya bandish for ten minutes in Raags Kamod, Kalingda, Kedar, Hindol, and Bahar. The student will also have to get trained in one dhrupad and one dhamaar composition (with double and quadruple tempos), as well as two taranas, and one Drut Ektaal bandish in this course. Also, as part of semi-classical music, the student will be asked to perform either natya-sangeet, bhajan or bhaav-geet (light music).
• Taal - The student will be taught the Taals Tevra and Surfakta (Sul taal) this year, and will also be assessed in all the taals learnt in the previous courses. The student will be expected to say the taals with bols while counting the maatras with the fingers and hands in single, double, triple and quadruple laya.
• Theory - The student should be adept at reading and writing both the scripts of music by this level. He/she will be asked to write the notation of the chhota and bada khyaals in the raags learnt for the written examination. Here, the student should also be able to write the double, three times and four times tempos in the Bhatkhande as well as Paluskar style of notation. With respect to the written examination, the student should be aware of the complete profile of all the raags and taals in the syllabus and be able to compare them with each other. He/she should also have in-depth knowledge about dhrupad and dhamaar. Definitions of terminology such as purvanga-uttaraanga, purvaraag-uttarraag, varna, khatka, murki, gamak, aandolan and gitakadi, as also minutiae about alpatva-bahutva, avirbhaav-tirobhaav, anulom-vilom, etc are also part of the syllabus. Other technical details that are included in the curriculum are the different raag-jaati and kinds of taan, sound and its properties, the shruti system, its classification in the ancient and modern systems, as also in the North Indian and South Indian styles of music, etc. The learner should also know about the thaat system and its relative pros and cons. He/she will also be asked to write a brief biography of Pt. Balkrishnabua Ichalkaranjikar and Ustad Abdul Karim Khan in the written examination.