Balearic PAU Music & Dance cheat sheet

Medieval (c. 900–1400): Gregorian chant (monophonic, modal, free rhythm); organum and Notre Dame polyphony (Léonin, Pérotin); Ars nova notation (Philippe de Vitry); secular forms: ballata, estampie, virelai, rondeau.

Renaissance (c. 1400–1600): imitative polyphony, modal harmony, a cappella ideal; Josquin, Palestrina (stile antico), Victoria; secular forms: madrigal, chanson, villancico; dance pairs pavane–galliard, basse danse.

Baroque (c. 1600–1750): figured bass (basso continuo), functional major/minor tonality, terraced dynamics; genres: opera (Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, 1607), concerto grosso, fugue, suite, cantata, oratorio; Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau.

Classical (c. 1750–1820): homophonic texture, sonata form, symmetric phrase structure; symphony, string quartet, sonata, concerto; Haydn, Mozart, early Beethoven; dance: minuet as third movement.

Romantic (c. 1820–1900): expanded harmony and chromaticism, program music, rubato; Schubert Lied, Chopin piano miniatures, Berlioz, Wagner music drama, Verdi; ballet: Giselle (1841), Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky, 1877), La Sylphide.

20th century–present: Impressionism (Debussy, Ravel), expressionism/Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern), neoclassicism (Stravinsky), serialism, aleatoric and minimal music (Cage, Reich, Glass); ballet: The Rite of Spring (1913), Les Sylphides.

Spanish tradition: zarzuela (Spanish lyric theatre), Albéniz and Granados (piano), Falla (El amor brujo, 1915; El sombrero de tres picos, 1919), Rodrigo (Concierto de Aranjuez, 1939); flamenco cante, toque and baile as a recognized tradition.

Balearic tradition: Mallorcan and Menorcan and Eivissan song repertoires, xeremies (bagpipe) and flabiol, glosa improvisation, goigs; Balearic composers and performers belong to the broader Spanish and Catalan-language musical sphere.

Rhythm: beat, tempo, metre (simple vs compound), syncopation, polyrhythm, hemiola; dance metres: 3/4 waltz and minuet, 2/4 march and polka, 6/8 tarantella and jota, 12/8 or 3/4 with accents in flamenco compás.

Melody: conjunct vs disjunct motion, contour, range, tessitura, motif and sequence, ornamentation (trill, mordent, appoggiatura); melodic cadence types (authentic, plagal, half, deceptive).

Harmony: triads and seventh chords, function (tonic, subdominant, dominant), cadences, modulation, chromaticism, pedal point; in modal music, cadence on the finalis and reciting tone.

Texture: monophony, homophony, polyphony (imitative and non-imitative), heterophony, chordal and melody-with-accompaniment; density and doubling as texture descriptors.

Form: binary (AB), ternary (ABA), rondo (ABACA), theme and variations, sonata form (exposition–development–recapitulation), strophic, through-composed, da capo aria, fugue (subject–answer–episode).

Tempo: Italian terms from grave/largo/lento/andante/moderato/allegro/vivace/presto; ritardando, accelerando, rubato; metronome mark in beats per minute.

Dynamics: ppp to fff, crescendo/diminuendo, sforzando, terraced dynamics (Baroque), subito piano; articulation marks (staccato, legato, accent, fermata) affect perceived phrasing.

Choreographic language: space (level, direction, pathway), time (rhythm, duration, accent), energy/dynamics (swing, sustained, percussive), body (shape, initiation, weight); motif and phrase development as the dance equivalent of musical form.

Read clefs (treble G, bass F, alto C), key signature and time signature first; identify tonic and metre before analysing content.

Transposition: instruments in B-flat sound a major second lower than written; F instruments (horn) a perfect fifth lower; piccolo and double bass sound an octave from written pitch.

Score types: full score (all parts), short score, vocal score (with piano reduction), miniature/study score, lead sheet (melody plus chord symbols), tablature.

Cue the entry: count rests using the metre; rests are written per beat in compound time; a whole-bar rest is a semibreve rest centred in the bar regardless of metre.

Identify texture from the score by scanning for simultaneous independent lines vs block chords; check doubling and octave spacing for sonority.

Recognize cadence by bass motion and chord quality: V–I authentic, IV–I plagal, ending on V half, V–vi deceptive.

Common notation symbols: repeat signs, first and second endings, da capo al fine, dal segno, segno and coda, 8va and 8vb, trill, mordent, turn.

For recorded excerpts, sequence the listening: instrumentation and timbre, metre and tempo, texture and form, then style markers (continuo, Alberti bass, ostinato, drum kit, electronic timbres) to date the style.

Renaissance and Baroque court dance: basse danse, pavane, galliard, allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue; dance suites standardized by the Baroque; Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Danse (1661).

Ballet d'action and Romantic ballet: Noverre's reform (18th century) replaced spectacle with dramatic expression; pointe work and the tutu emerged in the Romantic era (La Sylphide, 1832; Giselle, 1841).

Russian and 20th-century ballet: Petipa and Ivanov (The Sleeping Beauty, 1890; The Nutcracker, 1892), Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Fokine, Nijinsky (The Rite of Spring, 1913), Balanchine (neoclassical, plotless).

Modern and contemporary dance: Isadora Duncan (free dance), Martha Graham (contraction and release), Merce Cunningham (chance procedures), Pina Bausch (Tanztheater), Cunningham–Cage collaboration.

Spanish dance: escuela bolera (18th–19th century, castanets and bolero school), flamenco (cante, toque, baile; palos such as soleares, alegrías, seguiriya, bulerías), danza estilizada, and regional dances (jota, sardana, muiñeira).

Balearic dance: the copeo and bolero in Mallorca, the fandango and jota in Menorca, and Eivissa's traditional dance and song repertoire; ballets and dance events at festivals and patron-saint celebrations.

Key works list: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), The Rite of Spring (1913), Apollo (1928), Appalachian Spring (1944), El sombrero de tres picos (1919).

Terminology: arabesque, attitude, plié, tendu, jeté, pirouette, pas de deux, corps de ballet, en dehors, épaulement; in flamenco: zapateado, braceo, palmas, compás.

Balearic instruments and genres: xeremies (bagpipe) with tambor and flabiol, espasí and castanets; glosa and cantada improvisation; goigs and religious song; folk festivals (Festes) with ball de bot in Mallorca.

Spanish traditional repertoire: jota (Aragón, Navarra, Castilla), sardana (Catalonia, danced in a circle), muiñeira (Galicia), zortzico (Basque), fandango, seguidillas; cante jondo vs cante flamenco.

Flamenco palos and structure: compás of 12 with accents (soleares, alegrías, bulerías), free cante (seguiriya, martinete), fandangos; letras, falsetas, llamada; recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage (2010).

Latin American and Caribbean traditions: son cubano, rumba, mambo, salsa, merengue, cumbia, tango (Argentina, UNESCO 2009), bossa nova, samba; clave rhythmic pattern.

Global popular genres: blues and jazz (swing, bebop), rock and roll, pop, reggae, hip-hop (MCing, DJing, breaking, graffiti), electronic dance music (house, techno), K-pop; each has an associated dance style.

Urban dance forms: breaking (UNESCO-listed with hip-hop culture), popping, locking, house dance, voguing, dancehall; street dance battles and cyphers as performance formats.

World music and fusion: gamelan (Indonesia), Indian classical (raga and tala), African drumming traditions (djembe, polyrhythm), Andean music (charango, quena); UNESCO intangible heritage listings.

Globalization and revival: folk revivals, ethnomusicology recordings, festival circuits, and the tension between heritage preservation and commercial adaptation.

Recording formats and eras: shellac 78 rpm, vinyl LP, cassette, CD, MP3 and streaming; each changed listening habits and the economics of music.

Digital production tools: MIDI, DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), sampling, autotune, virtual instruments, plug-ins; home studios and bedroom producers lowered entry barriers.

Distribution and platforms: streaming services pay per stream (fractional cents), algorithmic recommendation, playlists; social media (TikTok, YouTube, Instagram) drives viral dance challenges and choreography circulation.

Cultural industries: Adorno and Horkheimer's critique of the culture industry; concepts of mass culture, commodification, star system, and the tension between art and market.

Copyright and rights: author rights vs neighbouring rights, mechanical and performance royalties, collecting societies (SGAE in Spain), licensing, fair use, public domain.

Live sector: festivals, concert tours, ticketing platforms, dynamic pricing, secondary markets; the pandemic's effect on live performance and the rise of livestreams.

Audience and reception: fandom, participatory culture (Jenkins), subcultures, taste and distinction (Bourdieu), gatekeeping by algorithms and critics.

Dance in media: music video choreography, film musicals, televised dance competitions, dance notation and motion capture, and the impact of social media on dance pedagogy and careers.

Historically informed performance (HIP): period instruments, gut strings, valveless brass, lower pitch (A≈415 Hz for Baroque), meantone temperament, rhetorical phrasing, minimal vibrato in Baroque strings.

Ornamentation practice: Baroque trills start on the upper note (main-note trills later), appoggiaturas on the beat, cadenzas improvised in concertos, da capo repeats ornamented.

Articulation and phrasing: détaché, legato, staccato, portamento; bowing and breathing determine phrase shape; singers' diction and registration choices shape interpretation.

Tempo and rubato: tempo flexibility in Romantic music, dance tempi must remain danceable (waltz, sardana, flamenco compás), conductor's role in coordination.

Improvisation traditions: jazz (chord-scale, standards, head-solos-head), flamenco falsetas and cante, Baroque continuo realization, Indian raga alap, organ and choral improvisation.

Dance interpretation: musicality (phrasing to the music), breath, weight transfer, dynamics of movement, stylistic authenticity (e.g., bolera vs flamenco technique), and improvisation in flamenco and contemporary dance.

Ensemble practice: intonation and tuning, balance, cueing, following a soloist, rehearsal technique, and the difference between chamber and orchestral roles.

Performance anxiety and preparation: practice strategies, mental rehearsal, memorization, stage presence; historically documented performance conventions inform modern choices.

Interval recognition: use reference songs (perfect fifth: Twinkle Twinkle; major sixth: My Bonnie; tritone: Maria from West Side Story); ascending vs descending and harmonic intervals differ in difficulty.

Chord and cadence recognition: major/minor triads by third quality; V–I authentic, IV–I plagal, V–vi deceptive, ending on V half cadence; seventh chords add colour.

Scale and mode recognition: major, natural/harmonic/melodic minor, modal (Dorian, Mixolydian, Phrygian), pentatonic, whole-tone, blues scale; identify by characteristic degree.

Metre and tempo detection: count accents to find beat grouping (2, 3, 4, 6); compound metre gives a lilting triplet feel; tap to estimate BPM.

Instrument identification: timbre cues - bowed vs plucked strings, reed vs brass, woodwind colours (oboe nasal, flute airy), percussion, electronic synthesis; ensembles (orchestra, string quartet, jazz combo, rock band).

Texture and form by ear: count independent lines (monophonic, homophonic, polyphonic), detect repeats and contrasts to map form (ABA, verse–chorus, sonata).

Style dating by ear: continuo and terraced dynamics (Baroque), Alberti bass and balanced phrases (Classical), chromaticism and expanded orchestra (Romantic), irregular rhythm and dissonance (20th century).

Choreographic aural cues: identify dance style by rhythmic pattern (waltz 3/4, tango 2/4 with marcato, flamenco 12-count compás, sardana 6/8 feel) and by instrumentation.