Grade 3 Music Theory - Lesson 13: Questions about a Score
Question 8 in the grade three ABRSM music theory exam paper is based on a musical score. You’ll be given some music to look at – usually about 8 bars of a single line of music. It could be in treble or bass clef.
You’ll be asked several questions about the score. The kinds of question you might see include:
- Explain Italian terms
- Explain symbols
- Give the time name of notes or rests
- Say how many notes are equivalent of each other (e.g. how many semiquavers (16th notes) there are in a minim (half note)
- Describe the time signature
- Add the time signature
- Find bars which contain the notes of the tonic triad
- Say which degree of the scale certain notes are
- Name the relative minor/major key
- Find notes which are/aren’t in the key of the piece
- Find notes which are an octave apart
- Describe intervals marked with a bracket
- Find similarities and differences
- Count the number of times a certain pattern occurs
Many of these topics are covered in other lessons in this grade three course.
In this lesson we’ll look at the rest of them:
Finding Similarities and Differences
You might be asked to describe the similarities or differences between two sections of the music. You need to look at:
- The melody
- The rhythm
- The dynamics and phrasing
For example, you might see two bars which have the same rhythm, but a different melody:
the same melody notes, but a different rhythm:
the same melody and rhythm, but different dynamics:
You should try to describe with a little bit of detail what the similarities and differences are.
For example:
Bars 1-2
Similarity: Both bars use a rhythm of dotted quaver (8th note), semiquaver (16th note), quaver (8th note).
Difference: In bar 2 the melody is a scale step lower.
Bars 3-4
Similarity: Both bars use a leap of a perfect 5th D-A as the melody notes.
Difference: The rhythm is reversed in bar 2.
Bars 5-6
Similarity: Both bars have the same melody and rhythm.
Difference: The dynamics change from fortissimo in bar 5 to pianissimo in bar 6.
Counting Patterns
You might have to count the number of times you see:
- a certain rhythm
- bars which contain all the notes of the tonic triad
- a certain note (e.g. 3rd degree of the scale)
This is a very easy question! Just make sure you don’t rush it and miss something.
Marking Phrases (Trinity only)
You might have to mark out the phrases in the score with a square bracket. The first one will be done for you.
- Phrases will normally (but not always) be the same number of bars in length (often four times two-bar phrases in an 8 bar piece).
- Phrase marks don’t include rests (unless they are in the middle of the phrase)
- Use a ruler to draw the brackets.
- Use clues like crescendos to help you understand which notes would be kept together in the same phrase.
