Longer extracts
A longer extract
The music in context section of the online exam prints one longer extract, often eight bars or more, and asks about five things in it. Each question uses a skill from an earlier section, so nothing is new; what is new is finding the answer in a page of real music.
Read the whole extract before the first question, the way a player reads a new piece:
- The key. Count the sharps or flats in the key signature, then look at the last note and for a raised 7th that keeps coming back.
- The time. Read the time signature: how many beats in a bar, and of what kind.
- The words and signs. The speed word over the start, the dynamics under the notes, the signs on them, any word over a later bar.
- The shape. Bar numbers count from the start; a number at the start of each new line tells you where you are. Many extracts are built in phrases of four bars, and a later phrase often begins like the first.
Worked example: five questions and more on that extract
- The key: one flat fits F major or D minor. The C sharp in bar 7 is the raised 7th of D minor, and the extract ends on D: D minor.
- The time: 4/4, four crotchet beats in every bar.
- The speed: andante, at a walking pace; rall. (rallentando) in bar 7, gradually getting slower.
- The dynamics: p at the start, quiet; mf where the second phrase begins in bar 5.
- The signs: the lines over the notes of bar 3 are tenuto marks: hold each note for its full value.
- Rhythm: bars 5 and 6 repeat bars 1 and 2. Bar 4 ends with a crotchet rest.
- An interval: from the A in bar 4 down to the D at the start of bar 5 is a 5th (D, E, F, G, A).
- A degree: the B flat in bar 2 is the 6th degree of D minor.
How to answer
- Answer from the music in front of you, not from memory of another piece.
- When a question names a bar, count to it from the start (or from the bar number at the start of the line).
- When a question marks notes with letters, find every letter first, then read each note with the key signature and any accidental earlier in its bar.
- The questions are linked: the key you found in the first answer helps with a degree or an interval later.
Tip: if two answers seem possible, look again at the music. Only one of them fits what is printed.
This question is in Brainlag Plus