Lesson 10 - 2nd December 2016

String Arranging

Here is a handout explaining some stuff about string instruments. 

Here is an example of a bad string quartet. 



Woodwind:
Here are the ranges (written and sounding) of the woodwind instruments.

Here is some information about transposing instruments (again.)

Lesson 9 - 25th November 2016

Recognising intervals aurally:

Here are some resources, many of which you'll have seen last year.






The song helps us to recognise how intervals sound.


Lots of brilliant things here. (Do look at this: it is a stunning resource)

Test yourself on recognising intervals aurally: (when you are regularly getting most of them right, move onto the next one)

Major and Perfect Intervals only.

Major, Perfect and Minor intervals PLUS the tritone (augmented 4th / diminished 5th)

Lesson 8 - Friday 18th November

Some examples of modal music:

Dorian Mode:

  

Phrygian Mode:



Lydian Mode:



Mixolydian Mode:




If you want to practise sightsinging, this page is the place to go. It has countless exercises, you can specify the intervals and key signatures that you want your exercises to include and it has midi files of the exercises so you can check how you did.


Below are some sheets of sightsinging exercises:
A selection of sightsinging exercises of varying difficulty
A load of exercises, including minor and modal melodies.

Lesson 7 - Friday 11th November

Part of the content of these lessons will be decided by YOU.

Let me know what areas of music theory, aural and general musicianship you would like to learn more about. Be as specific as possible.

When you start getting auditions and interviews for Higher Education, you will be told about various things that you need to do. If any of these things worry you, let me know and I will cover it in these lessons.

Use the contact form on the right of this blog to tell me about anything else you would like to cover.


Here are what you said you would like to look at:

Group 1:

Group 2:

Modes

This handout gives you the info you need on modes.


There are some other ways of remembering modes:

Mixolydian is Major with a flattened 7th.

Aeolian is Natural Minor.

Dorian is Major with flattened 3rd and 7th.

Lydian is Major with sharpened 4th.


OR


Mixolydian (TTSTTST)
Aeolian (TSTTSTT)
Dorian (TSTTTST)
Lydian (TTTSTTS)

Make sure that by next week you can play:
C Aeolian
C Dorian
C Mixolydian
C Lydian
G Aeolian
G Dorian
G Mixolydian
G Lydian

Lesson 4 - 7th October

Those of you taking exams:

The exam is on Tuesday 8th November at 5pm.

Exact location will be confirmed to you but it is between Regent's Park and Oxford Street.

Make sure you have pencils, rubbers and rulers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



In this lesson we looked at Minor scales:

The relative minor (ie. minor with same key signature) is the 6th note of the major scale (or a minor 3rd down).

eg. The relative minor of G major is E Minor


The relative major is the 3rd note of the minor scale (minor 3rd).

eg. The relative major of F Minor is A Flat Major

By knowing this, you are able to work out the key signature of a minor key.

Just using the correct key signature will give you the Natural Minor (otherwise known as the Aeolian Mode). 

There are other Minors:

Harmonic Minor: Raise the 7th note of the Natural Minor scale

Melodic Minor: Raise the 6th and 7th notes on the way up, on the way down it is the same as the Natural minor.

Lesson 3 - 30th September

Given how few people are to do the exam, and how weak some areas are for so many people, I am changing the schedule:


30th September:
Grade 5 people:
Test on Grade 5 words
Intervals

Grade 3 and No Exam people
Major (and minor) scales, key signature, tonic triads



7th October
Grade 5 people:
Ornaments
Composition
-Tuplets

Grade 3 and no exam people
Finish Minor scales
Time signatures / bar lines
Rhythmic composition



14th October
Grade 5 people:
Composition ctd.
Transposition


Grade 3 and no exam people

Intervals

HALF TERM

4th November
General Revision

Lesson 2 - 23rd September

(no content from today's lesson as you have been doing a test)

Hopefully all the information you need is now on this blog. Let me know if there is anything you think should be on here that is not ( philip.collins@westking.ac.uk )

Here is a rough plan for what we will be looking at:

30th September:
(Short test on Grade 5 words)
C Clefs
Open / Short Score

7th October
Ornaments
Composition
-Tuplets

14th October
Composition ctd.
Transposition

HALF TERM

4th November
General Revision


Exam is 8th November, 5pm

Lesson 1 - 16th September 2016

Theory words



Today we have looked at the words for grades 1-4.

Next, learn the Grade 5 words. Test on Friday 30th September.

aber	but	German
alla misura	in strict time	Italian
attacca	go straight on to the next section of music	Italian
Ausdruck	expression	German
bewegt	with movement, agitated	German
breit	broad, expansive	German
dolente	sad, mournful	Italian
dolore	grief	Italian
doloroso	sorrowful	Italian
doppio movimento	twice as fast	Italian
ein	a, one	German
einfach	simple	German
estinto	as soft as possible, lifeless	Italian
etwas	somewhat, rather	German
fröhlich	cheerful, joyful	German
immer	always	German
incalzando	getting quicker	Italian
lacrimoso	sad	Italian
langsam	slow	German
lebhaft	lively	German
loco	at the normal pitch (used to cancel an 8va direction)	Italian
lunga	long	Italian
lunga pausa	long pause	Italian
lusingando	coaxing, in a sweet and persuasive style	Italian
mässig	at a moderate speed	German
misura	measure (eg. alla misura: in strict time; senza misura: in free time)	Italian
mit	with	German
nicht	not	German
ohne	without	German
ossia	or, alternatively	Italian
piacevole	pleasant	Italian
piangevole	plaintive, in the style of a lament	Italian
pochettino, poch	rather little	Italian
rinforzando, rf, rfz	reinforcing	Italian
ruhig	peaceful	German
schnell	fast	German
segue	go straight on	Italian
sehr	very	German
senza misura	in free time	Italian
smorzando, smorz	dying away in tone and speed	Italian
süss	sweet	German
teneramente, tenerezza	tenderly, tenderness	Italian
tosto	swift, rapid	Italian
traurig	sad	German
und	and	German
volante	flying, fast	Italian
voll	full	German
wenig	little	German
wieder	again	German
zart	tender, delicate	German
zu	to, too	German

Some ideas and resources:

This link is a good one if you want to go through everything again.
(it approaches things in a different way and a different order to how we have done things in lessons so you may find it useful if you have missed lessons or if there are areas you have not understood).
Or you could through bits of it. It is full of exercises together with answers. There is a full practice Grade 5 theory paper on the site as well.

Italian Terms, Scale Degrees, dynamic markings, articulation markings: these are all things that are just a matter of learning... You could get together with a class mate to test one another or  make cue cards for yourself...

Scales: all the information you need is on the blog. I think the best way of revising this is just to practise writing them all out. With and without key signatures. You may wish to fill in a blank circle of fifths like we did in the lesson. You can find one here.

Chords: again, writing them out would be useful. Make sure you have read and understood the information on inversions.

Transposition

Transposition

This is the circle of fifths. It shows us the key signature of each key. The Major keys are round the outside and the minor keys are in the middle.

Here is my list of instructions on how to transpose.

You may find this useful: Here is a page which explains it in a different way and also gives some information about some of the contexts in which you would transpose.

You also need to know about intervals. To revise this, look on the blog under the label "intervals".

Triplets and Beaming

Here is a reminder of the difference between simple and compound time signatures.


And this explains how triplets work.

Here are the basic rules of beaming.

Here are some guidelines for beaming in compound time.

Here are some simple exercises to practise beaming.

Intervals

Intervals:

To work out the numerical interval between two notes:

Counting the bottom note as "1", count up to the top note.

eg. from C to A (C, D, E, F, G, A) is a 6th.

Similarly, on the stave:

Count all lines and spaces.


Important: There are no exceptions to this rule. Sharps, flats, double sharps and double flats make no difference to the number of the interval.



Major, Minor, Perfect, 

Imagine the bottom note of the interval is the first degree of a Major scale.

If the upper note belongs to the scale, it will be:
Major 2nd
Major 3rd
Perfect 4th
Perfect 5th
Major 6th
Major 7th
Perfect 8ve

If you flatten the top note of a major interval it becomes minor.


Diminished, Augmented?

If you sharpen the top note of a major or perfect interval, it becomes augmented.

If you flatten the top note of a minor or perfect interval, it becomes diminished.



Spelling / Enharmonic Equivalent

It is possible for 2 different intervals to sound the same (and be played the same on a keyboard).

eg. From D to G sharp is an augmented 4th
From D to A flat is a diminished 5th

G sharp and A flat are enharmonically equivalent (ie. sound the same and occupy the same space on a keyboards) so these two different intervals sound the same.

The augmented 4th / diminished 5th is also called the tritone for, I hope, obvious reasons.


RESOURCES:
There are excellent online tutorials on numerical intervals, specific intervals and how to write intervals.

You can test how well you recognise written intervals here.

(If you are confident and want to test yourself on more difficult intervals, try this.)

Guitarists and bassists:You may find this useful

Note values and time signatures

If you're unsure about these, this link may help.




Time Signatures

We looked at time signatures. In this lesson.

If you are struggling with time signatures, this link may help.




Simple and Compound Time signatures

Some of you worked on the difference between Simple and Compound Time Signatures. Information about these can be found here.

(please note: both the links talk about "measures". This is another word for "bars".)




An exception

A semibreve rest

is used to show a whole bar's rest in all time signatures

EXCEPT

4

2

where a breve rest is used:

Miscellaneous

Alto and tenor clef
Here's a page which tells you all you need to know about the alto and the tenor clefs.




Open and Short Score
Here's how to do Open Score and Short Score



Ornaments
Here are all the ornaments you need to know for Grade 5 theory.

In the exam, you will be expected to bits of a written out melody with the ornaments sign (which, if you think about it, should be much easier than doing the opposite - that comes up in Grade 6...)

Here's a quiz to test your understanding of ornaments.




Enharmonic Equivalents
This link gives the basic information about enharmonic equivalents plus some more interesting background information. 



Degrees of the scale You also need to know the names of the scale degrees. Learn these!

Chords

Primary and Secondary Chords in Major Keys

The Primary Chords are chords I, IV and V and are major
(ie. those built on the 1st, 4th and 5th scale degree in a particular key).

The Secondary Chords are chords ii, iii and vi and are minor

You will need to know at least 1 to 7 in roman numerals:
I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII (upper case)
i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii (lower case)


A triad is a three-note chord in a closed position with the root at the bottom.

Remember: a triad goes line, line, line or space, space, space.

Inversions

Root position: the root note is in the bass (ie. C is at the bottom of the chord)

First inversion: the third is in the bass (ie. E is at the bottom of the chord)

Second inversion: the fifth is in the bass (ie. G is at the bottom of the chord)

Third inversion: the seventh is in the bass (ie. B flat is at the bottom of the chord)

Remember: a chord’s “inversion” only refers to the bass note.