Longer extracts

A longer extract

The music in context section of the online exam prints one longer extract, often eight bars or more, written for a named instrument or for piano, 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.