Music Theory, Composition, and Arranging
What to know
Strong candidates move fluently among four layers: intervals and scales, chord construction and function, voice leading and part-writing, and form and instrumentation.
Know every interval within an octave and its inversion: perfect intervals stay perfect, major becomes minor (and vice versa), augmented becomes diminished, and the tritone inverts to itself. Scales include major, all three minor forms, the church modes, whole-tone, and pentatonic. The harmonic minor exists chiefly to supply a leading tone and a dominant-quality V chord.
In major-key diatonic harmony, know the qualities of I ii iii IV V vi vii°. Secondary dominants (V/V, V/vi) and borrowed chords are common answer choices. Cadences are named by their final two chords: authentic (perfect when the soprano ends on tonic, imperfect otherwise), plagal, half, and deceptive.
Part-writing rules: avoid parallel perfect fifths and octaves, resolve tendency tones (leading tone up, chordal seventh down), do not double the leading tone, keep voices in range and reasonably spaced, and approach leaps by step where possible.
Arranging questions test transposition, tessitura, doublings, and texture. For Bb and Eb instruments, written pitch lies above sounding pitch: a Bb clarinet sounds a major 2nd lower, an F horn a perfect 5th lower, an Eb alto sax a major 6th lower. Convert to concert pitch before judging range or balance.
Worked example
A Bb clarinet must sound concert F4. The instrument sounds a major 2nd below what is written, so write a major 2nd above F4: G4. Rule of thumb: written pitch = concert pitch plus the interval named in the instrument (raised for Bb, Eb, and F instruments).
Traps
Items reverse the direction of transposition, call an inversion by its original name, or label an imperfect authentic cadence as perfect because the passage simply sounds conclusive.