• As with the sight singing portion, the melodic dictation portion will have one melody in treble def and one melody in bass clef.

• One melody will be in simple meter and one will be in compound meter.

• One melody will be in a major key and one will be in a minor key.

• The melody will be played three times for the first example and four times for the second example with time in between to notate.

Skills Required for Successful Melodic Dictation

• Recognizing the key

• Recognizing the meter and understanding the rhythms

• Understanding the relationship of the pitches to the tonal center

• Recognizing familiar melodic and rhythmic patterns and their placement
  in the measure

• Being able to correctly draw note heads, stems, dots, beams, accidentals, and Rags that correspond to rhythm, and pitches on the staff corresponding to placement in the tonality

• One of the keys to successful melodic dictation is being able to reproduce the melody you hear in your head (audiation). Listen to the melody as if you were asked to sing it back.

Understanding the Melody

• Know the key and any altered notes that may occur in minor from the use of scalar variance.

  • Write down the full scale if chat helps you focus on the available choices.

  • Write down the leading tone in minor.

• Recognize common beginning patterns.

  • Do-Re-Mi and Do-Mi-So are by far the most common patterns.

• Recognize common ending patterns

  • Mi-Re-Do

  • So-La-Ti-Do

  • Re-Ti-Do

  • Ti-Re-Do

  • So-Ti-Do

  • Fa-Ti-Do

  • Mi-Ti-Do

  • Do-Re-Do

  • Do-Ti-Do

• Note that at the middle of the exercise, there is generally an implied half cadence.

  • Know the pitches that constitute V7 chord: So-Ti-Re (Fa)

  • The melody will usually be two symmetrically related phrases. The first phrase generally ends with an implied half cadence and the second half may start with an anacrusis.