Practice

1 · "Tell me about this composer."

Closest official area (our reading): Composers

1. Who: dates, nationality, where he lived and worked.
2. Where the music came from: teachers and early influences.
3. What he is known for: genres, innovations, two or three signature works.
4. What came after: who or what he influenced.
5. This piece: where it sits in his life, and one thing that changes how you play it.

2 · "What are some other composers from this period and nation?"

Closest official areas (our reading): Composers · Historical and stylistic context

1. Name the period and the country first — it shows you understood the question.
2. Three or four names, each with one definite fact (dates, a famous work, a job).
3. How they connect to your composer: teacher, pupil, rival, friend, same genre.
4. End with a difference: one thing that makes your composer stand out from them.

3 · "What are the details on this form — modulations in each bar, which form it is in, small details like a tierce de Picardie or a Neapolitan 6th chord, and the parts of the form: first subject, second subject, transitions, subjects, codetta/coda, A, B, C?"

Closest official area (our reading): Structure — the heaviest question; prepare it from your own score

1. Name the form and say why it is that form.
2. Section map with bar numbers from your edition: where each section starts and ends.
3. Keys and modulations: the key of each section, and every modulation — where, to which key, by what route.
4. Cadences that close the sections.
5. The small named details: a tierce de Picardie is a major third in the final chord of a piece in a minor key; a Neapolitan sixth is a major chord on the flattened second degree, usually in first inversion. Point to bar numbers for these and for any others you find (secondary dominants, augmented sixths, cadential 6/4).
6. The parts, in their own names: subject / answer / countersubject / episode (fugue); first subject / transition / second subject / codetta / development (sonata form); A / B / C and coda (dance and character pieces).
7. Climax: where it is and how the music gets there.

AMEB wording: "Candidates must provide the examiners with clear, unmarked copies of all scores, including the piano part." Mark your own copy as much as you like.

4 · "When was this piece written, and is it considered an early or a late work of the composer?"

Closest official areas (our reading): Composers · Historical and stylistic context

1. The date (or "c." and a range) — and say whether you mean composition or publication, because they can differ by decades.
2. His age then, and where he was living.
3. Early, middle or late? Give the label and a reason: what he had written before, what he wrote after.
4. Be honest about uncertainty — "dated c. …" is a perfectly good answer.
5. Link to the music: how this stage of his life shows in the piece.

5 · "What is the style of this composer?"

Closest official area (our reading): Historical and stylistic context

1. Pick three or four features that are really true of this composer: melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, form, expression, and how he writes for the keyboard.
2. Show each one in your piece with a bar number or an example you can play.
3. Place him in his period in one sentence — what he shares with it and what is personal.
4. Finish with a decision: how this style changes the way you shape the piece.

6 · "What are the features of different periods — early classical, late classical, romantic, late baroque, 20th-century neobaroque — and how does this composer use them?"

Closest official area (our reading): Historical and stylistic context (including performance conventions and the instrument of the time)

1. Take the period the examiner names. Give four or five hallmarks: texture, favourite forms, harmony, the instrument, and what the music was for.
2. Say how your composer follows each one — and where he breaks it.
3. One concrete example from the piece for each point you make.
4. Add the instrument of the time and what it means for how you play today.

7 · "What is the composer's contrast between his early works and his late works?"

Closest official areas (our reading): Composers · Historical and stylistic context

1. Name two real works — one early, one late — so the contrast is concrete.
2. Compare on three axes: scale and form; harmony; texture and expression.
3. Say what stayed the same — a good answer has a constant as well as a change.
4. Place your piece on that line: which side is it on, and why.