In order to assess your current skill, to suggest areas for improvement, and to advise you on course selection, we give a test. The Composition Diagnostic Test is in three parts:
Counterpoint Examination:
Tuesday, September 4, 2012, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm, Room 320
Harmony Exam:
Tuesday, September 4, 2012, 2:00-5:00 pm , Room 320
Analysis Exam:
Wednesday, September 5, 2012, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm, Room 320
Part I requires you to continue a given opening in 16th-century contrapuntal style and to compose part of a three-part fugue in 18th-century contrapuntal style based on a given subject. Part II requires you to harmonize a Bach chorale, to continue a given opening in some 20th -century style, and to provide harmonic analysis of an extended tonal excerpt. Part III tests your ability to analyze harmony, theme, form and other features in tonal, extended tonal, atonal and twelve tone music. A sample test is attached.
You have access to a piano for Parts I and II.
You may find it useful to review work from previous courses you have taken, to study music directly (Palestrina, J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Scriabin, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten, Dallapiccola, Carter and others), and/or to refer to the following texts:** Aldwell, Edward and Carl Schachter. *//Harmony & voice leading//*. Thomson/Schirmer, 2003. Gauldin, Robert. */A practical approach to eighteenth-century counterpoint/*. Prentice-Hall, 1988.** Green, Douglass M.* //Form in tonal music//. *Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979 Jeppesen, Knud. */Counterpoint: the polyphonic vocal style of the sixteenth century/*. Dover Publications, 1992.** Kostka, Stefan M. */Materials and techniques of twentieth-century music/*. Prentice Hall, 2006.** Persichetti, Vincent. */Twentieth-century harmony; creative aspects and practice/**.* W. W. Norton, 1961. Straus, Joseph Nathan. *//Introduction to post-tonal theory//*. _3rd ed_. Prentice Hall, 2005.
Sample Diagnostic Test
Please arrive at the examination room 10 minutes before the examination.