Term 3, Last Lesson - Friday 16th June

Over the Summer, I would recommend that you learn the Grade 4 Italian (and French) terms.

The full list (Grades 1-5) can be found here.
(if you want to filter or reorganise the words, make a copy in your GoogleDrive or just download it as an .xls file which can be read in Microsoft Excel. If you don't have that, get OpenOffice which work just as well and is free.).


Here are the Grade 4 words:

a	to, at	French
affettuoso	tenderly	Italian
affrettando	hurrying	Italian
amabile	amiable, pleasant	Italian
animé	animated, lively	French
appassionato	with passion	Italian
assez	enough, sufficiently	French
avec	with	French
calando	getting softer, dying away (and usually slowing down)	Italian
cantando	singing	Italian
cédez	yield, relax the speed	French
come	as, similar to (eg. come prima, as before; come sopra, as above)	Italian
douce	sweet	French
en dehors	prominent (a direction to make a melody stand out)	French
et	and	French
facile	easy	Italian
fuoco	fire	Italian
giusto	proper, exact (tempo giusto: in strict time)	Italian
l'istesso	the same (eg. l'istesso tempo: at the same speed)	Italian
légèrement	light	French
lent	slow	French
mais	but	French
modéré	at a moderate speed	French
moins	less	French
morendo	dying away	Italian
niente	nothing	Italian
nobilmente	nobly	Italian
non	not	French
perdendosi	dying away	Italian
peu	little	French
plus	more	French
possibile	possible (eg. presto possibile: as fast as possible)	Italian
presser	hurry (en pressant: hurrying on)	French
quasi	as if, resembling	Italian
ralentir	slow down	French
retenu	held back (en retenant: holding back, slowing a little)	French
sans	without	French
sonoro	resonant, with rich tone	Italian
sopra	above	Italian
sotto	below (sotto voce: in an undertone)	Italian
très	very	French
un, une	one	French
veloce	swift	Italian
vif	lively	French
vite	quick	French
voce	voice	Italian

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, clefs: 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. You might want to practise writing out chromatic scales as well.

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

Intervals: I would recommend that you work out a method that is going to work for you! This could be working it out from major scales or counting semitones.


You can buy past papers from various places if you want to practise and gain more familiarity with the format.

Term 3, Lesson 12 and 13 - Friday 9th and Monday 12th June

During these lessons we worked on a past Grade 5 paper.

We came across three things that have either not been covered or not in a great deal of detail.


1) Tuplets

We have already come across the triplet which means 3 in the time of 2. There are other similar things, which are nicknamed "tuplets"

2. Duplets: 2 in the time of 3
3. Triplets: 3 in the time of 2
4. Quadruplets: 4:3
5. Quintuplets: 5:4
6. Sextuplets: 6:4
7. Septuplets: 7:4
8. Octuplets: 8:6
9. Nontuplets. 9:8



2) Compound Intervals

These are intervals bigger than an octave. 

Hopefully the image below is self-explanatory. "Major 9th" and "compound major 2nd" are equally correct so you could use either in an exam unless they state otherwise.

Remember: because a 9th is a compound 2nd, it should be described similarly as major, minor, augmented or diminished.

3) Pedal Markings

This link has some excellent stuff on piano pedals and how they are notated (alongside lots of other excellent stuff on notation generally)

Term 3, Lessons 10 and 11 - Friday 2nd and Monday 5th June

Composition

At Grade 5 you have to write an 8-bar melody. You have a choice between writing for voice (where you are just given some words and you set them to music) or writing for a specific instrument (where you are given a phrase and asked to continue it. I would recommend the latter, as I think you should find it easier but it is, of course, up to you.


Here is an excellent "formula" for melodic composition in Grade 5 theory.

Here is a very thorough tutorial.

And here are some practice exercises

Term 3 - Lessons 8 and 9 - Friday 19th and Monday 22nd May

NB: no lesson on Friday (or Monday which is the bank holiday!) Thereafter, lessons will continue as normal.


Ornaments

Here are all the ornaments you need to know for Grade 5 theory.
(ignore all the stuff about Italian/French words - we're dealing with that separately - see below)

This illustration of a trill is more accurate than the one on the link above. It also demonstrates different ways in which the trill could be interpreted. (Please bear in mind, the trill can start on either upper note or the note itself - i.e. the example above could start on an E).




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...)




Grade 3 Words

Here are the Grade 3 words. Learn them for Friday 2nd June when you will be tested!

ad libitum, ad lib	at choice, ie a passage may be played freely
adagietto	rather slow, but faster than Adagio
agitato	agitated
alla breve	with a minim beat
amore	love
amoroso	loving
anima	soul, spirit (eg. con anima - can mean with feeling or spirited)
animando	becoming more lively
animato	animated, lively
ben	well
brio	vigour (eg. con brio - with vigour, lively)
comodo	comfortable/convenient (tempo comodo - at a comfortable speed)
deciso	with determiniation
delicato	delicate
energico	energetic
forza	force
largamente	broadly
leggiero	light, nimble
marcato, marc.	emphatic, accented
marziale	in a military style
mesto	sad
pesante	heavy
prima, primo	first
risoluto	bold, strong
ritmico	rhythmically
rubato, tempo rubato	with some freedom of time
scherzando, scherzoso	playful, joking
seconda, secondo	second
semplice	simple, plain
sempre	always/throughout
stringendo	gradually getting faster
subito (sub.)	suddenly
tanto	so much
tranquillo	calm
triste, tristamente	sad, sorrowful
volta	time/instance (eg. prima volta - first time; seconda volta - second time)

Term 3 - Lesson 7 - Monday 15th May

Good Morning.

Please continue with the transposition worksheet we started on Friday and submit it at the end of the lesson (either by handing it to Farz or leaving it in a pile at the front of the classroom).

Also, Group B (and Group C if I'm not back by then) should be submitting their "General Exercises" worksheet. (Group A: you have until Friday).


On the transposition worksheet:

For the exercises where you are transposing by an octave, make sure you think about where Middle C is. If you do that, it should be very straightforward.

For the exercises where you have to transpose by a Major 2nd or a Minor 3rd, look at my list of instructions on how to transpose.

Please note: where you are given the Clarinet (or trumpet) in B flat part, you need to transpose down a major 2nd. Where they want you to write the Clarinet in B flat part, you need to transpose up a major 2nd. Similarly, go down a Minor 3rd to transpose from the Clarinet in A part and up a Minor 3rd to transpose to a Clarinet in A part.(You won't have to work this out in the exam - they tell you the transposition you have to do).

Term 3 - Lesson 6 - Friday 12th May

What happens if you don't want to start this on C?

Transposition

By now, you should be able to figure out key signatures. Here is the circle of fifths for you to use to check.

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 need to be clear on intervals. Revise this if necessary.

Transposing Instruments:

Basically, some instruments are not written at the pitch they actually sound!

For example, the Clarinet in B flat (which is the most common type of clarinet). If you play a C on a Clarinet in B flat, you will hear a B flat. In other words, it will sound a tone lower than it is written at.



Here are some of the common transposing instruments.

Here's an excellent wikipedia entry on transposing instruments.



This "Music Teacher" with, like, "Three Degrees" doesn't understand why we have transposing instruments:



Fortunately, "Mr Audio" does.

Term 3 - Lesson 5 - Monday 8th May

Here's a copy of the crossword we did.

And here are the solutions in case you are stuck.




Here are some questions to test your knowledge of instruments.



Here is a page which gives you the spellings and families of instruments and some sound clips.
(note: it says "English Horn" which is the same as Cor Anglais"

Here are the ranges of the instruments and voices you will need for Grade 5 theory

And here is information about the clefs they use.



BY FRIDAY

Make sure you have learnt the technical names for the degrees of scale:


1  Tonic
2  Super-Tonic
3  Mediant
4  Sub-Dominant
5  Dominant
6  Sub-Mediant
7  Leading Note

Term 3 - Lesson 3 and 4 - Fridays 28th April and 5th May 2017

A We have been looking at intervals again.

There are lots of resources on the blog from when we did them before.

If you know all your major scales (which you should do by now!!) then it is easy to recognise/write major intervals. You can work out all the other intervals from that!

AND/OR you may want to think about how many semitones in each interval!

This is a link to an online test to practise recognising Major/Minor intervals.
(You should be aiming for 90% and above in this test. We will look at Augmented and Dimished intervals at the end of term).


This test also includes Augmented and Diminished intervals.


In addition to the methods on my blog from before (7th November), you might want to consider using the following.

Counting the semitones:

Inverting the interval:


For sevenths, if you turn the interval upside down (see below) you can work out the interval quite easily. A Major 7th is a semitone if you invert it and a Minor 7th is a tone if you invert it.

Term 3, Lessons 1 and 2, Friday 21st and Monday 24th April

You were given a test on all the content covered so far, particularly what we worked on last term.


I will add resources to this post to help with areas where some or many of you struggled.


Many of you had forgotten rules about accidentals. Remember: an accidental lasts for the whole bar, at the pitch (and at the octave) at which it is written.

eg.



This link will help you to practise this.

Term 2 - Lesson 19 - Friday 24th March

Key Signature Tests

Group C

Group B

Group A

Do 20 questions, take a screen shot and put it on your blog, titled: Key Signature Test, label: Theory.

Feel free to reset your score if you get off to a bad start.



There will be a test in the first lesson of next term.

Revise the following:

Open / Short score

Recognising chords (including inversions)

Cadences

Italian words (the ones we've learnt so far)

Alto / Tenor clef

Time signatures (including compound time signatures)

Beaming

Key signatures (major and minor) up to 4 sharps and flats AND writing major and minor scales of those keys.


I won't test you on composing rhythms or text-setting.

Term 2 - Lesson 18 - Monday 20th March

Short Score:




Open Score





For Grade 5 theory, you need to be able to convert some music from open score to short score and vice versa.

This link gives a thorough explanation.

And here are some exercises.

Term 2 - Lessons 16 and 17, 13th & 17th March 2017

Recognising chords

In Grade 5 Theory, you only have to recognise chords I, II, IV and V.

In a major key, I, IV and V are major chords but ii is a minor chord.

In a minor key, i and iv are minor, ii is diminished, and V is major and includes an accidental (because of the raised 7th of the scale) - THE FACT THAT V NEEDS AN ACCIDENTAL WILL GIVE YOU A MASSIVE CLUE AS TO WHETHER KEY IS MAJOR OR MINOR!!!!

Use "a" for root position, "b" for 1st Inversion, "c" for 2nd Inversion.

Here is a link to a page that gives you a very thorough overview of this.

And here's a link that gives you some exercises to practise with.