Tonality

Miss Glover's presentation on Tonality.

Tonality

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Texture

Information on Texture

Texture

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Texture - Monophonic and Homophonic

Homophonic






Monophonic

Rhythm and Metre

Have a look at these.

Effects

Effects are often found in popular music, on the guitar. You need to be able to recognise the sound of each.
                         Chorus                                                                            Reverb

 

        Distortion

African Music

Listen to this podcast on African Music. The keywords have mainly been covered, but an understanding of this type of music is essential.

Indian Music

Listen to this podcast on Indian Music. It links into the keywords that you have already covered and an understanding of this type of music will help in the listening exam.

Time Signatures

Here is the podcast for Time Signatures. Compound Time and Simple Time

Dynamics podcast

Dynamics are explained here.

Rhythm and metre podcast

Rhythm and metre explained.....

Structure and Form podcast: through-composed, binary, ternary, strophic

Structure and Form podcast: through-composed, binary, ternary, strophic

Structure and Form podcast: rondo/theme+variations

Structure and Form podcast: rondo/theme+variations

What is a chord

This may be helpful understanding what a chord is.

Structure and Form

How different sections of a piece are organised.
Binary form: AB
Ternary form: ABA1
Rondo Form: ABACA
Song Form: verse, chorus, verse, chorus
Sonata Form: Exposition, Development, Recapitulation (extended ternary form)
Strophic: A, A, A
Call and Response: form for two or more performers. One performer will sing or play a musical phrase (Call); another performer or group of performers will sing or play a phrase in response
Theme and Variations: Variations on a musical statement/tune

Below are structure and form podcasts 1 & 2, these will test your knowledge of structure and form!

Listen to the extracts in each podcast, then using the sheet here match the extract with the musical form that describes it best

Here are the presentations from the lesson, for revision

Structure 1

Structure 2

Musical Devices

Here is a video that clearly explains the following keywords for melodic ornamentation: Imitation, Inversion, Sequence, Ostinato, Modulation.

Brass Instruments

These are brass instruments. Trumpets, French Horn, Trombone, Tuba (in the middle). Tuba has the lowest pitch. Get used to the sound. Oh, and this is a brass quintet (5 brass instruments).

Brass instruments might use a mute to change the sound. Watch this to see how they work, and how the sound (or timbre) is different.

String instruments

So, here are the main string instruments. Violin, Viola and 'Cello. There is also the double bass, but not in this extract.
This film features pizzicato (plucking), tremolo (that suspense effect) and arco (with the bow). Oh, and homophonic music, imitation and much more.

Violin and Cello

Now if you skip through to 2 mins into this video, you will see a violin (Nigel Kennedy playing) and a cello on their own. They are playing some Bach inventions, but it is a great way to hear the difference in sound and see what the instruments look like and how they are played. They are both string instruments.

The flute, Baroque music and jazz

Now, have a look at this. Fantastic.  Jiří Stivín, an amazing flute player who is performing two pieces: a baroque piece with a string orchestra, with homophonic texture. The second is Jazz, with improvisation and all those instruments. He then moves onto the saxophone. I challenge you not to be amazed by this.

Cadences

If you are unsure about cadences, a basic but informative video to help.
Perfect, Plagal, Interrupted, Imperfect are the keywords.