Longer extracts

A longer extract

The music in context section of the online exam prints one longer extract, often eight bars or more, in the treble or the bass clef, 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:

1. 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.
2. The time. Read the time signature: how many beats in a bar, and of what kind.
3. 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.
4. 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.