Music Theory, Composition, and Arranging
This domain tests four-part writing and voice leading, counterpoint, harmonic vocabulary and modulation, and idiomatic arranging: transposition, ranges, clefs, doubling, and texture. Items are usually short passages to correct or complete, plus practical scoring decisions.
Voice leading in four parts
- Spacing: soprano–alto and alto–tenor stay within an octave; tenor–bass may open to a twelfth.
- Avoid parallel perfect fifths and octaves in similar motion; avoid direct (hidden) fifths or octaves between outer voices when the soprano moves by leap.
- Resolve the leading tone up to tonic and the chordal seventh down by step.
- Doubling: prefer the root; never double the leading tone or the chordal seventh; in first inversion, double the soprano or root.
- Keep common tones and move remaining voices by step where possible.
Counterpoint and harmonic vocabulary
- Species counterpoint: note against note, two and four against one, syncopation, then florid.
- Invertible counterpoint at the octave or twelfth; fugue subject, real versus tonal answer, countersubject, episodes.
- Secondary dominants (V/V), mode mixture (iv in major), Neapolitan (flat-II6), augmented sixths: Italian (flat-6, 1, sharp-4), French (adds 2), German (adds flat-3, resolves to V and is enharmonically a dominant seventh).
- Modulation: pivot chord diatonic in both keys, common-chord, or enharmonic (German sixth respelled as V7).
Arranging and orchestration
- Transpositions: B-flat clarinet and trumpet sound a major second lower; F horn and English horn a perfect fifth lower; E-flat alto sax a major sixth lower; tenor sax a major ninth lower; piccolo an octave higher; double bass and guitar an octave lower.
- Clefs and ranges: viola reads alto clef (C4 on the middle line); bassoon, cello, and tenor trombone use tenor clef (C4 on the fourth line). Practical ranges include violin G3–E7, flute C4–C7, bassoon B-flat1–E5, B-flat trumpet written F-sharp3–C6.
- Choral ranges: soprano C4–A5, alto G3–E5, tenor C3–A4, bass E2–E4.
Worked example
An arranger wants a B-flat trumpet to sound concert E-flat5. Reasoning: a B-flat instrument sounds a major second below the written note, so the written pitch must sit a major second above the desired sound. A major second above E-flat5 is F5. Check the result against the trumpet's written range (comfortable up to C6), so F5 is idiomatic and needs no octave displacement.
Traps that cost marks
- Transposing in the wrong direction (writing what you want to hear instead of what the player reads).
- Treating the alto sax as a major-second transposition rather than a major sixth.
- Missing parallel fifths hidden by octave displacement or occurring between inner voices.
- Doubling the leading tone in a V chord.
- Choosing theoretical rather than practical ranges, or ignoring clef changes for viola and bassoon.