Course topics.

Try this with Music Studies

1. Compare the topic list with the current course outline from your school.
2. Pick a topic you can partly explain and identify the exact part you want to work through.
3. Bring one example of the kind of question or task your school uses.

View Music Studies resources on ATARMAXXING ↗

Topics in the resource inventory

• Rhythm, melody and time-signature recognition: hearing the beat grouping
• Rhythmic dictation: ties, dotted rhythms, semiquavers and triplets
• Chord quality by ear and broken-chord naming and notation
• Scales and modes by ear: adding accidentals to major, minor and modal scales
• Melodic dictation, error detection and fragment matching
• Identifying chord progressions under a melody (Roman numerals or chord symbols)
• Rhythm grouping, beaming and re-barring in simple, compound and irregular meters
• Intervals, key signatures, scales and modes on the formula sheet
• Triads, sevenths, inversions, extensions and altered chords: spelling and naming
• Clefs, transposing instruments, concert pitch and scale-degree names
• Harmony in a score: chords, cadences, keys, modulation and secondary dominants
• Compositional devices and melodic development: sequence, imitation, inversion, augmentation
• Texture, timbre, instrumental techniques, articulation and expression markings
• Form and structure, including theme and variations and arrangements of known melodies
• Aural-only analysis of an unfamiliar piece: meter, roles, texture, tonality and style
• Comparative analysis tables: describing and comparing two works or a theme and variations
• Completing an eight-bar melody: motif development, implied harmony and cadence
• Composing three parts beneath a melody: voicing, voice-leading, extensions and non-chord notes
• Option A four-part vocal harmony: cadences, six-four progressions and the dominant 7th
• Option B jazz-related harmony: piano voicing, secondary dominants, extensions and alterations