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You need to be able to recognise styles of 20th Century / modern music and also be able to describe what is happening in the music.
Some of this music will sound unusual to you and you need to keep an open mind as you listen to it. The examiners do not care if you like the music or not so be objective about it!! It may help to think about it like film music as it can sometimes sound random.
| Describe the melody | Is there a melody? How can you describe it? Is it jerky or played smoothly (legato)? Are the notes detached (staccato)? Are the notes limited or wide in their range? Is the melody stepwise or does it have large leaps? Is it tuneful or untuneful, high pitched or low pitched? Are there fragments of the melody passed from one instrument to another? | If there is no melody... | If there is no recognisable melody then what are the important elements of the music? Think about rhythm, collection of sounds, recorded extracts, sound effects and special effects used on the instruments. |
| Describe the Dynamics (volume) | Is it limited? Always loud or always quiet? Does it change and use gradual changes (crescendo / diminuendo) |
| Describe the Structure | No obvious sense of structure or perhaps the same section is repeated again, maybe the music has been altered into a variation of the original idea. Does the structure sound random or improvised? |
| Describe the Texture | MONOPHONIC - one sound , POLYPHONIC - many sounds (often interweaving and sounds complicated). HOMOPHONIC - Block chords like a hymn |
| Describe the Instruments Used | Describe the instruments used and any special or unusual effects or ways of playing the instruments. Find out more about this on the BBC Bitesize website |
| Describe the Use of ICT | Comment on use of electronic instruments, use of loops (eg drums / baseline), MIDI and computers, samples of sound, drum machines, reverb and distortion. |