Canary PAU Music Analysis II common mistakes
Canary PAU Music Analysis II · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing 'this is a deceptive cadence' or 'this is a perfect cadence' after only checking the last two chords, without stating the key, the bass motion and the soprano scale degree (e.g. V–VI with the tonic in the soprano over the VI chord is a different beast from V–vi with the third doubled).
Candidates learn cadence labels as a vocabulary list and pattern-match the chord symbols they see at the final barline, ignoring that the exam asks for functional identification within an established key; they also skip the preliminary step of confirming the prevailing key from the key signature, the opening tonic prolongation and any applied dominants.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed procedure for every cadence: (1) establish the local key by locating the tonic triad and any secondary dominants; (2) write the Roman numerals with inversions and the soprano note on the final chord; (3) then classify (authentic/perfect, imperfect, half, plagal, deceptive, evaded) and justify with one sentence naming bass motion and melodic arrival. Practise on short eight-bar periods, annotating the key at the top of each phrase before labelling anything.
Marking a modulation at the first accidental, so that a single chromatic passing note, a secondary dominant (V/V) or a brief tonicisation is written up as a full modulation to the dominant or relative major.
Accidentals feel like decisive evidence to candidates who have not internalised the difference between tonicisation and modulation: a modulation requires a cadence or a sustained new tonic with its own dominant preparation, whereas a tonicisation is local and quickly resolved. Candidates also under-use the evidence of phrase structure, which usually aligns with the real modulation point.
What to do instead
Apply a three-test rule before writing 'modulation': (a) is there a cadence confirming the new key? (b) is the new tonic prolonged for at least a phrase, with its own dominant? (c) does the original key return, and where? If fewer than two tests pass, label it tonicisation or chromaticism and say so. In the written commentary, state the pivot chord explicitly (e.g. 'the tonic of the old key becomes the subdominant of the new'), because naming the pivot is what examiners reward.
Describing texture with a single adjective ('homophonic') and never distinguishing melody-dominated homophony with accompaniment patterns from genuine polyphony, imitative entries, parallel thirds, pedal points or chordal declamation.
Texture is taught late and thinly in many courses, and candidates default to a binary monophonic/homophonic/polyphonic scheme; they also confuse texture with timbre or with dynamics, so the description carries no analytical information.
What to do instead
Build a texture checklist and apply it bar by bar: number of real voices, whether they move in similar, parallel, contrary or oblique motion, which voice carries the melody, whether the accompaniment is broken-chord, Alberti, block chords or a walking bass, and whether entries are imitated. Then write a sentence that changes over the phrase ('the opening two-voice imitation gives way at bar 9 to melody-dominated homophony with a repeated quaver accompaniment').
Analysing a post-1900 work with tonal vocabulary only, writing 'unusual harmony' or 'dissonance' without identifying the pitch-class collection, the symmetrical scale, the row form or the interval cell that actually organises the music.
Candidates are trained on common-practice harmony and lack a working method for atonal and modal material; when the Roman numerals stop working they retreat to impressionistic adjectives, which earns no analytical credit.
What to do instead
Keep a small toolkit and name the system you are using: for modal or folk-derived music, identify the mode and its characteristic degree (e.g. Dorian raised sixth, Mixolydian flattened seventh); for symmetrical collections, name whole-tone, octatonic (and which of the three transpositions) or hexatonic; for serial music, label P, I, R and RI forms with the starting pitch class and show the row's interval succession; for freely atonal music, identify recurring interval cells (e.g. a semitone–tone–semitone motive) and the registral or dynamic articulations that mark them. Always state which system you have chosen and why the score supports it.
Treating rhythm as an afterthought: not identifying the metre from the score, missing syncopation, hemiola, cross-rhythm, additive or changing metres, and describing a bar as 'fast' or 'irregular' without counting the beats.
Candidates read pitch more fluently than rhythm, and in twentieth-century repertoire the barline may no longer mark the pulse; without a conducting gesture or a count, the ear defaults to the notated grouping and the analysis becomes vague.
What to do instead
Before any harmonic work, count the piece aloud or tap the tactus and write the metre and grouping at the top of each section. Mark every change of metre, every syncopation and every hemiola (two bars of 3/4 felt as three minims), and in asymmetric metres state the beat grouping (e.g. 7/8 as 2+2+3). For music with changing or additive metre, quote the bar numbers where the pattern changes and relate the change to the phrase structure.
Writing a running harmonic label under every chord with no phrase-level argument, so the commentary is a chord list rather than an analysis of phrase structure, thematic development and form.
Candidates equate analysis with Roman numeral labelling and are anxious about missing a chord, so they spend their time on the vertical dimension and run out of words for the horizontal argument the question actually asks for.
What to do instead
Work in layers: first sketch the phrase structure (motives, repetitions, sequences, cadences, sentence versus period, antecedent–consequent), then mark the harmonic rhythm and only the structurally important chords, then write the commentary around the phrases. Use a two-column plan: what happens (bars, events) and what it means (function, tension, expectation). Label chords in full only where they articulate a cadence or a modulation.
Producing a historical contextualisation that is a list of dates and biography ('born in 1685, died in 1750, was a Baroque composer') with no link between the analysed features and the period, genre or social function of the piece.
Candidates memorise composer biographies as a separate revision topic and never practise connecting them to the score in front of them; under time pressure the biography is easier to retrieve than the argument.
What to do instead
For every work, prepare four lines and use them in the answer: genre and performing forces (church cantata, string quartet, piano miniature), the occasion or patron and the social setting, the stylistic conventions the score exemplifies (concertato writing, sonata-form rhetoric, functional harmony with periodic phrasing), and one feature of the score that departs from those conventions. Write the contextual paragraph so that each factual claim is anchored to a bar number or a named musical device.
Using impressionistic evaluative language ('beautiful', 'very emotional', 'the composer wanted to express sadness') as the whole of the personal judgement, with no musical evidence and no acknowledgement of alternative readings.
The exam asks for justified personal judgement, and candidates read 'personal' as licence to be subjective; they also lack a template for connecting an expressive claim to a specific musical parameter.
What to do instead
Use a claim–evidence–qualification pattern: state the effect, name the musical means that produce it (e.g. the flattened sixth degree, the low register of the cello, the unresolved suspension at the cadence), then qualify ('this reading depends on hearing bar 24 as the climax rather than bar 30'). Keep evaluative adjectives to a minimum and make each one earn its place with a bar reference.
Writing an unstructured commentary with no introduction, no bar references and no terminology, or the opposite: a wall of technical labels with no prose connecting them, so the reader cannot follow the argument from bar to bar.
Candidates either write an essay with no musical substance or dump their analytical notes verbatim; both come from not planning the commentary as an argument with a beginning, a middle and an end before writing.
What to do instead
Spend five minutes planning: a one-sentence thesis (what the piece does and how), three or four paragraph headings tied to bar ranges, and the two or three technical terms you will use precisely. In the writing, open each paragraph with a claim, support it with bar numbers and named devices, and close with a sentence that links to the next section. Reserve time to check that every technical term is used correctly (e.g. 'sequence' for a repeated pattern at a different pitch, not for any repetition).
Misreading the notation itself: clefs and transposing instruments taken at sounding pitch, tenor and alto clefs read as treble, ornaments or figured bass realised incorrectly, and repeat signs or da capo ignored when describing the form.
Sight-reading fluency is assumed but unevenly developed; transposing instruments and C-clefs appear rarely in candidates' own playing, and figured bass is often studied as theory without practice at the keyboard.
What to do instead
Do a notational audit of the first page before analysing: list the instruments and their transpositions, note any C-clef staves, and write the concert pitch of the opening chord. Practise reading alto and tenor clefs daily for five minutes, realise a handful of figured-bass exercises at the keyboard, and always check repeat structure and da capo instructions before describing the form, since they change the proportions of the piece.