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GCSE Music
Top things to make sure you know:
Dance music
Baroque Suite:
String dominated orchestra – Harpsichord included (basso continuo) –
other instruments with solo material include flute, oboe, trumpet and
lute – Generally lots of ornaments – Terraced dynamics – lots of
sequences – Danced in a formal setting (royal court) though often
performed in a concert hall with no dancing
 Gavotte – simple duple , fastish, sounds like no anacrusis
 Minuet – simple triple, moderate speed, strong beat
 Sarabande – simple triple, slow, lots of ornaments, serious
 Bourre – simple duple, fast, anacrusis
 Gigue – Compound duple (archers), fast, bouncy rhythm
19th Century Dances:
More chromatic melodies – More chromatic harmony – More use of
brass and percussion – Bigger orchestras in general – Piano solos
 Piano waltzes – simple triple, solo piano, full of rubato (randomly
changing tempo), extremely chromatic melodies and harmonies
 Viennese waltzes – simple triple, Oom pah pah accomp, regular
phrase lengths, pauses at cadences possibly, orchestral
 Polka – simple duple/quadruple, comedy effects in orchestra!
Latin American Dances:
Features much percussion – Also features Spanish guitars, vocals, brass
and accordion (in tango) – Syncopation – Generally polyrhythmic –
vocals could be in Spanish or Portuguese – simple chords
 Salsa - from Cuba, 3:2 Son Clave often played on claves, lively
syncopated dance
 Samba – from Brazil, call and response vocals, whistle(apito),
many other instruments, sometimes just percussion insts
Tango – from Argentina, in 2/4 or 4/4, repetitive bass line, strong down
beat, often written for solo piano or accordion
 and features a repetitive rhythmic pattern in bass such as:
Club dance music
Repetitive bass drum rhythms – syncopation – sampling – looping –
special effects – scratching – synths – drum machines – sequencers –
rapping – ostinatos – riffs
Sampling – recording a clip from another song and sticking it in yours
Sequencer – a device for recording and manipulating midi sound
(cubase)
Looping – Taking a sample or a pattern recorded in a sequencer and
playing it over and over as a backing for a song
Orchestral Landmarks:
Classical Period:
 Strings dominate orchestra – w’wind and brass support – no
clarinets – simple brass melodies – no trombones – occasional
timpani – may have w’wind solos or horn solos
 Simple chords, perfect cadences, predictable
 Question and answer melodies
 Mozart
1800 – 1830
 Possible introduction of trombones – more timpani – clarinets
included – brass still supports large string section
 Use of diminished 7ths
 Beethoven
1830 – 1900
 Potentially huge orchestras – full range of percussion – harps –
more unusual woodwind such as bass clarinet – loads of brass,
often with the melody – valves in brass instruments
 Chromatic melodies and harmony
 Tchaikovsky
th
20 Century
 Anything goes in the orchestra – unusual use of insts. – weird
instruments – not necessarily huge orchestra but could be
 Dissonant harmony possible, as is Jazz harmony
 Disjointed melodies
 Unusual tonalities – Atonal (no key) Bitonal (2 keys at same time
 If it sounds a bit quirky then it is probably 20th century
 Stravinsky (dissonant orchestral) Bernstein (Jazz influenced)
World music:
 African – full of percussion – call and response vocals – ostinatos
– polyrhythmic – cross-rhythms – pop music may include close
harmonies and jangly guitars
 Indian – use of sitar (twangy guitar type thing), tabla (high
pitched drum, often played very fast) – lots of improvisation
around ragas (Indian scales) – note bending in sitar playing and
in vocals – vocals full of melisma – microtonal inflections
 Caribbean – Syncopated rhythms - lots of songs in a more popular
style – use of steel drums – calypso and reggae both popular styles
 South American – Fusion of African and Spanish music –
syncopated, polyrhythmic, Spanish guitars featuring, harmonies
in vocals – my incorporate features from any of the South
American dances of course
Other useful stuff:
When you are writing about pieces you are often asked to comment on
features such as melody, instrumentation, tonality etc… Here are some
of the things you might like to focus on from each area:
Melody:
 The contour of the melody (shape)
 The rhythm of the melody – syncopated, repetitive, simple,
disjointed
 Does it include a: Sequence – bit of melody, repeated, a little
higher or lower, in same instrument
Ostinato – bit of melody repeated (same pitch)
Imitation – bit of melody copied by another
instrument
Chromaticism – includes notes other than in
the key
Ornamentation – decoration of the melody
Harmony:
 Does the piece have a fast or a slow Harmonic Rhythm? This is
the speed the chords change.
 Are the chords simple or chromatic?
 Are there lots of 7ths 9ths etc?
 Are there lots of slash/chords?
 Is there a pedal note?
 Are the chords dissonant?
Texture:
 Polyphonic – Lots of melodies at the same time
 Homophonic – Strong melody with chords following same
rhythm
 Unison – Everyone playing the same tune
 Tune with accompaniment – Strong melody with chordal
accompaniment
The texture may of course be a combination of any of these things. It
definitely has nothing to do with the music being ‘rough’, ‘smooth’,
‘scratchy’ etc…
Tonality:
 Major or minor?
 Modal? (Folk music, jazz and Gregorian chant)
 Atonal? (Weird 20th century music)
 Pentatonic? (Celtic songs, Oriental music, black notes on piano)
 Does the music modulate (change key)
Structure:
 Binary – AB (AABB) 1st half ends in dominant key
 Ternary – ABA (AABA)
 Rondo – ABACADA etc…
 Theme and variations – A A1 A2 A3 A4 etc…
These are the larger structures of whole pieces so it would be unlikely
that any of these would come up other than perhaps binary or ternary
as you only get to listen to clips. However, be aware of smaller scale
structural elements within pieces too.