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Home > GCSE > GCSE Year 11 > Revision Tips for the Listening Exam > Describing Music

GCSE Revision - Describing Music

Rhythm | Melody | Tempo | Harmony | Dynamics | Instrumentation | Accompaniment Styles | Types of Jazz | Tonality | Pitch | Style | Texture | Time signature | Timbre | Structure | Expression



Rhythm

  • Regular Beats / irregular beats
  • Syncopated / Jazzy, Offbeat, Jerky
  • Repetitive
  • Constantly changing (speed / rhythm patterns)
  • Simple time ( 3, 4,or 5 beats per bar).
    • Compound time (3, 6 or 9 quavers per bar)
  • With rests / without rests
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Melody

  • Smoothly played (legato)
  • Staccato - short detached sounds)
  • Limited range of notes / wide range of notes
  • Stepwise melody / large leaps
  • High pitched / low pitched
    • Major (happy), minor (sad), modal (folk like), pentatomic (5 note scale), atonal (no key centre) melody.
  • With rests / without rests
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Tempo

  • Slow / fast (learn some Italian terms eg andante, Moderato, Allegro, Presto etc)
  • Rituendo (slowing down)
  • Accelerando (speeding up)
  • Constant / changing speeds
  • The speed of the piece also gives some idea of mood - eg slow = sad, lonely etc.
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Harmony

  • Simple Triads - chords without 7ths and 9ths
  • Complex chords / harmony (chords with additional notes added = 7ths, 9ths etc)
  • Major, minor, modal, atonal, dissonant (clashing sounds)
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Dynamics

  • Constant / changing
  • Crescendo - getting louder, Decrescendo - getting quieter.
  • Learn some Italian terms - Piano - softly, Forte - loudly, Mezzo forte - moderately loudly.
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Instrumentation

  • Mention specific instrument names
  • Mention family groups - Brass / Woodwind / Percussion / Strings.
  • Explain the role of instruments - eg which instruments provide the melody, harmony, bass line, accompaniment.
  • Compare instrument groups together - eg imitating same melody, question and answer, melody and harmony etc.
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Accompaniment Styles

  • Supporting the melody and providing chordal, arpeggio accompaniment
  • Mention family groups - Brass / Woodwind / Percussion / Strings.
  • Adding harmony parts to the melody
  • Improvising sections between the melody - instrument or voice
  • Imitating the melody / playing the same music.
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Types of Jazz

  • Blues - use of flattened 3rd in scale
  • Dixieland - fast traditional jazz - almost cartoon background music!!
  • Ragtime - usually played on piano - Scott Joplin 'Entertainer'
  • Big Band - Swing - Glen Miller 'Moonlight Serenade'
  • Modern Jazz - quite unusual, lots of improvising, sounds disjointed.
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Tonality

  • A piece may be in a MAJOR key (sounds happy) or MINOR key (sounds sad) based on a Major or Minor scale
  • May also be chromatic, pentatonic or whole-tone scale
  • Music not based on a type of scale is called ATONAL - eg Twentieth Century
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Pitch

  • May be High, Medium or Low
  • Try to identify any Intervals between notes - either between two notes played after each other in a melody - MELODIC, or between two notes played simultaneously - HARMONIC, by counting up from the bottom note to the top note.
  • 3rd and 6ths sound pleasant, 2nds and 7ths sound unpleasant, 4ths and 5ths sound bare
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Style

  • There are many styles of music from Classical to Rap, Latin American to Reggae, Punk Rock to Blues.
  • Even within one style there can be many different styles eg 'classical' = Classical, Renaissance, Medieval, Baroque, Romantic etc
  • Try to identify a piece of music by listening to the general effect and comparing it in your mind to a similar piece of music you know in a similar style.
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Texture

  • General words used to describe music include - light, heavy, thin, rich, soft and hard.
  • MONOPHONIC - one sound eg a piece for a solo violin
  • POLYPHONIC - many sounds - where there are several instruments playing together and there are several layers of sound.
  • HOMOPHONIC- block chords, as in a hymn
  • CONTRAPUNTAL - two or more tunes being played together which form some interesting harmonies.
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Time Signature

  • A time signature is a group of two numbers written near the beginning of almost all music.
  • The top number says how many beats there are in every bar
  • The bottom number is a type of code which tells you what kind of beat to count in. A bottom number of 4 tells you to count in crotchet beats.
  • SIMPLE time signatures are where the beat is a non-dotted note which can be divided into twos.
  • COMPOUND - time signatures are where the beat is a dotted note that can be divided into threes.
  • The most common time signatures are:

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Timbre

  • Timbre means 'sound quality'
  • The difference in sound say between a trumpet and a violin
  • Try to identify as many different sounds as you can.
  • Learn to identify the sounds of different instruments in the same family eg Strings - violin, cello, double bass
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Structure

  • Structure or form describes the order in which sections of it are repeated or not.
  • BINARY form (AB) consisting of a section (A) folowed by a section (B)
  • TERNARY form (ABA) consisting of section A followed by section B followed by a repeat of section A
  • RONDO - (ABACAD) where section A keeps returning
  • ROUND or CANON - where a tune is played or sung by two or more parts one after another.
  • VARIATION - where a tune is repeated several times, but each time it is changed
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Expression

  • The expression of the music, or in other words how it is played.
  • Many Italian words are used to describe the expression of the music.
  • These include : Animato - in an agitated manner, Con Brio - with vigour, Con Moto - with movement, Dolce - sweetly, Grazioso - gracefully, Legato - smoothly, Mesto - sadly, Pesante - heavily, Subito - suddenly, Tutti - everyone plays or sings, Vivo - lively.
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