 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-04-22 05:11
In Australia - we have a national examination board (the AMEB - not a difficult acronym to work out). Hence, most Aussies who are "serious" about taking music exams sit for these - they are graded from 1 to 8 and then three levels of diploma (Associate, Licentiate and Fellowship) - broadly speaking - and you can study just about anything from Piano for Leisure (whatever that is) to orchestral instruments, conducting, teaching, et cetera.
It used to be that one needed to achieve a certain grading before you could sit for your Licentiate (as was the case when I was a youngster) and you needed to have taken up to grade 6 musicianship or theory. Now, the only prerequisite for taking the Diplomas examinations is a pass (with credit I think) at 6th Grade Theory/Musicianship.
I was wondering if there is a simialar constraint on for US musicians. By the way, I also "did" my LTCL which was Trinity College London's version of our AMEB - I also had to pass their musicianship paper (which I did).
Just curious.
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2003-04-22 06:10
Does that mean I can't take my L.Mus until I have completed 6th grade theory? I've only done a 7th grade exam, about 4 years ago.
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Author: susannah
Date: 2003-04-22 06:20
yes, you need to do 6th grade theory/musicianship to sit both your AmusA and LMusA exams, and you need at least a credit to do LMus. I think you also have to have done Amus before you do LMus.
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-04-22 22:18
Morrigan - it's easy mate - just purchase a copy of Bach's Chorale Harmonisations and study them - his choral writting beautiful- he even broke the rules when it suited him (doubling the leading note, or placing the sopranos and altos more than an octave apart). As to the written part of the exam, just read Groves Dictionary from cover to cover - that should provide you ample knowledge! Also - I plan sitting my musicanship exams again soon and going up to diploma level, but then I love writting fugues and counterpoints and love chromatic harmonisations and, importantly, don't have a life.
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Author: susannah
Date: 2003-04-23 02:15
er yeah.. except unfortunately AMEB seems to have no sense of humour or musicality, so... if you want to pass the exams, learn their stupid theory rules, and follow them exactly. Ends up as mediocre music, but at least you get an A.
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-04-23 06:04
diz wrote: "just purchase a copy of Bach's Chorale Harmonisations and study them - his choral writting beautiful- he even broke the rules when it suited him"
So where do these "rules" come from? If you're supposed to be harmonising in the style of Bach, and he broke the rules, then surely these "rules" are based on something other than Bach's work?
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Author: Morrigan
Date: 2003-04-23 11:52
Ah well, my B.Mus from VCA should be enough, who needs AMEB, it's barely recognised anywhere but Australia. I wouldn't mind getting a Dip.ABRSM!
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2003-04-23 18:33
The only talk I've ever heard of music grading and exams of this sort is on boards like this.
True, it could be that I'm completely blind to a segment of music culture, but I've never heard mention of such things in California (L.A. area). I've always had the "you are how you play" mentality.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: D Dow
Date: 2003-04-23 18:57
You have to know the Rules in orcder to break them musically speaking.
Great composers understood the important aspect of part writing and voice leading which lead to their development as GREAT composers.
I would not underestimate the importance of understanding theory and it's role even to the clarinet....
I remember all that stuff for some reason, parrallel octaves, fiths fourths and why and why not they aren't good...inversion, fuguato, fugue, counter subject, motif, elements of style, sonata form, retrograde inversion, texture, harmonic content, key centre, key relationships, diatonic, harmonic minor, etc.
This stuff is used everytime I play with my orchestra and helps me orgainize and interpret the music!!
David Dow
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-04-23 19:58
I also studied harmony and counterpoint at university. But what I have a big problem with is the laying down of so-called "rules", that no great composer seems to have ever stuck to. I have found numerous examples where, for example, Bach and Mozart use parallel, 4ths, 5ths and octaves. Where the voices are further apart than the "rules" allow. Where the soprano sings below the alto. Where phrases don't fit into 4 or 8 bar patterns.
And then there are other procedures that the composers followed which are not taught in these music theory courses. For example- Bach never harmonised a chorale without consulting the text. Different verses of chorales often had different harmonisations (eg. the various harmonisations of 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden' in the Matthew Passion) The words are frequently underlined by the way in which Bach hramonises them- eg. the word "cross" would often have both upper and lower parts crossing each other!
Each great composer had their own way of part writing and voice leading, which is part of what makes them sound the way they do.
So where do these "rules" come from? How important are they if no great composer seems to have been aware of them? Are they not in fact just some kind of over-simplification to give academics an easier way of teaching harmony?
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2003-04-24 02:37
IMHO, The rules, when it really comes down to it, are indications of what, to our trained western ears, sounds good. The iii->vi->IV->ii->V->I, etc. rules are rules of harmonic progression. Harmonic progression is a good basis to begin thinking about music, a starting point. When people ask theory teachers (at least in my classes), "why can't we go from a V to a iii", they say "Because it's not progression." It's not that it isn't musical, it just isn't the particular part of the subject the class is about.
Most composers (the good ones anyways) know these rules, and it is where and how they break them that gives them a unique sound. The rampant parallel 5ths of Copland, for example.
If the rules are broken "too often", and/or with no consistency or purpose, the musicality may become vague and sound like someone is randomly pounding away at a piano. (my first couple of compositions are quite good examples of this... they may sound interesting, but they really don't go anywhere or have steady ideas).
There's no way around it. In context, a V wants to go to a I. Whether or not you let it go there helps determine the nature of the music. If the V doesn't get to the I soon enough and there's no progression to keep suggesting the I, the key gets lost. This may be what you're looking for in music, which is fine too.
In its simplest form, I think of it as centuries of trial-and-error refined to an art. Voice leading rules help us know which combinations of notes will elicit the most satisfying "ooh" at a chord resolution. Breaking the rules makes the listener think "Ah, I was expecting to have an ooh, but I didn't, so this must be something different."
I suppose, in summary, I'm trying to say this... Music is about surprises. If there weren't surprises, we'd just have I-V-I-V-I-V-I in the same inversion.
A surprise is only a surprise if there's something expected to be surprised from. If every beat is a surprise, the ear becomes jaded and is very quickly no longer surprised.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: diz
Date: 2003-04-24 04:19
I think perhaps Mr Copland developed the idea of his heavenly parallel 5ths from Debussy or Ravel's impressionist pallet, do you think?
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Author: allencole
Date: 2003-04-24 11:50
I agree with Alex. Most of the 'rules' are actually observations and save a tremendous amout of trial and error. No one says that we can't bend or break them, but we can at least try them out.
Allen Cole
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