Music Elements

Duration

Beat - Metre or time signature; strong or weak, even or uneven beats, change in metre

Rhythmic Patterns - Value of notes (Long/Short) and rests; simple or complex rhythms, triplets, ties, syncopation, anacrusis, dotted rhythms

Rhythmic Devices - Ostinato, riffs, polyrhythms etc

Tempo and andy changes

Traditional or contemporary notated rhythms

Expressive Devices

Dynamics

Louds and Softs: Symbols and Signs, Changes in volume and change in accents

Articulation - Slurs, Staccato etc. Contrast

Instrumental and Vocal Techniques

Structure

Repetition, Variety, Contrast and Unity

Thematic Material

Contemporary Structures

Forms - Binary (AB), Ternary (ABA), Rondo (ABACA) theme and variations, verse and chorus, strophic, 12 bar-blues etc

How the piece is used within a larger musical work (Opera, Musical, Rock etc)

Multi-movement structures

Texture

Mono/Homo/Hetero/Polyphonic

Liner/Vertical Arrangement

Voicing (Number of instruments/voices on each part

Roles of instruments/voices

Track Layering

Thick or thin

Timbre

Instrumentation - List of sounds (voices, instruments, acoustic, electric etc)

Instrumental and vocal techniques

Methods of manipulating sound - muting, vibrato, bowing, harmonics, scrapping, tapping etc

Articulation, range, register, electronic altering of sound (pedal effects, distortion, echo, reverb)

Tone Colour

Pitch - Melody

Look for patterns in the melody eg. riffs, repeated phrases, motifs (small melodic ideas), sequences (a repeated phrase played higher or lower than the original – it has the same shape)

describe the melodic contour (shape)

ornamentation

definite or indefinite pitch, intonation – some 20^th-21^st century works purposefully alter tuning

range (from lowest to highest note) and register (eg. plays in the high area of the instrument; plays in the low area of the instrument)

discuss how it has been written down – normal notation, graphic notation

Pitch - Tonality

keys and modes

scale forms

use of particular scale – blues, diatonic (normal – major or minor), pentatonic (5 note scale), chromatic (use of all black and white notes), whole tone or tone row

atonal patterns – patterns not based on scales

modulation – changing of key

tonality, bitonality (2 keys at the same time), polytonality, atonality

Pitch - Harmony

diatonic harmonies – major and minor chords

consonance and dissonance (yuk, weird sounds) and whether they create tension or resolution

added note chords (6^th, 7^th, 9^th chords, in particular found in jazz)

chord progressions

countermelodies (melodies of secondary importance)

Cadences