Musical and choreographic language: rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, form, tempo, dynamics
This domain tests precise vocabulary for describing what you hear and see. Answers must use the correct parameter word - marks are lost when a student writes "fast" instead of Allegro, or "many voices" instead of imitative polyphony.
Musical parameters
- Rhythm: metre (simple 2/4, 3/4; compound 6/8), anacrusis, syncopation, hemiola, ostinato, polyrhythm, rubato. Tempo markings run Adagio (c. 66–76 bpm), Andante, Moderato, Allegro, Presto.
- Melody: conjunct vs disjunct motion, contour, range, motif and sequence, ornamentation, melisma. Scale types matter: major/minor, modal, pentatonic, whole-tone, blues, and the Phrygian dominant used in flamenco.
- Harmony: triads and seventh chords, cadences (perfect V–I, plagal IV–I, imperfect, interrupted V–vi), modulation, tonic–dominant axis, drone, cluster.
- Texture: monophonic, homophonic/homorhythmic, imitative polyphonic, heterophonic (melody plus varied doubling, common in traditional music), antiphonal.
- Form: binary, ternary, rondo, theme and variations, sonata, strophic, 12-bar blues, call-and-response, through-composed.
- Dynamics: ppp to fff, crescendo/diminuendo; Baroque terraced contrasts.
Choreographic parameters
Describe dance with four axes: space (levels, directions, formations, canon, unison), time (tempo, accent, stillness, breath), energy/quality (Laban effort: sustained, percussive, swinging, vibratory), and body (parts used, contact, weight-bearing).
Worked example
A sixteen-bar excerpt: a solo voice is answered by a chorus, a drone sounds underneath, there are no chord changes, and the melody contains an augmented second. Reasoning: call-and-response plus drone rules out functional tonal harmony; the augmented second points to Phrygian dominant. Answer: modal, likely monophonic or heterophonic texture over a drone, in a flamenco or Balkan-style idiom - not Romantic tonal music.
Traps that cost marks
- Labelling heterophony as monophony, or any multi-part music as "polyphonic".
- Confusing metre (organisation of beats) with tempo (speed).
- Calling ternary form "sonata form" because both involve contrast and return.
- Describing dance only as "fast/slow" instead of analysing space, energy and formation.