Aural and Theory: Hearing What the Page Says
What you must know
Aural and theory questions test whether you can move fluently between sound, symbol and label. Core content includes clefs and ledger lines, major and minor key signatures (including relative and parallel relationships), all diatonic intervals and their inversions, triad quality (major, minor, diminished, augmented) and the primary chords I, IV, V(7) and vi, plus cadence types: perfect, imperfect, plagal and interrupted. You should also recognise simple, compound and irregular metre, dotted and syncopated rhythms, and be able to transcribe a short melody or notate a rhythm after hearing it three times.
Traps that appear
- Enharmonic spelling. An augmented fourth and a diminished fifth sound identical but are spelled differently; questions often ask for the written interval, not the sounding one.
- Minor scales. Natural, harmonic and melodic minor differ; the raised seventh of harmonic minor creates an augmented second, which is a favourite aural identification item.
- Cadence confusion. A V–vi progression is an interrupted (deceptive) cadence, not imperfect; imperfect is any V–I with the soprano on the third or fifth.
- Metre versus tempo. 6/8 is compound duple, not simple triple, even though it has six quavers.
Worked example
Hear a melody in 3/4 with no sharps or flats, ending on A. Rule of thumb: check the final note first. No accidentals and a final A suggests A natural minor or C major; if the seventh (G) is raised to G#, it is A harmonic minor. Confirm by singing the tonic triad.
Rule of thumb
Always identify the tonic and mode before naming chords or cadences; almost every later answer depends on that first decision.