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.