134 Melodic Dictation Exam Review

Procedures for Success

The big picture: listening to the overall shape of the phrase

• Are any elements (rhythm, intervals, phrase shapes) repeated?

• What is the structure of the melody? Is it a sentence, a period, etc.? Does it contain sequential repetitions of melodic material?

• Is there an implied cadence? What solfege degree does the melody end on?

• Related: does the melody change key? If so, to what? Where is the pivotal tone that signifies an implied secondary dominant that takes us to the new key? Remember, the non-chord tone we most often hear first is ti of the new key.

Fine-tuning and checking your work

• If you missed some of the beginning but got the last measure, work backwards. There is no rule that you must work beginning to end.

• Write material in the staff right away. Jotting down solfege syllables can help, but get your pitches in the staff as soon as possible to avoid octave displacement and other pitch errors. At this advanced stage of your training, it is better to place pitches directly in the score.

• Some people find it useful to get the “architecture” of rhythm in first, but don’t spend too much time doing this. Most people find it harder to write down pitches than rhythms, so try to get as many pitches as you can at the early stages of the dictation. If you have any qualms, reserve your final hearing to conduct along and make sure you notated rhythms correctly. For most people, rhythm error detection is harder than melodic error detection.

Practice Examples

Play through this example by Haydn on the piano. Take stock of the melodic and harmonic annotations that are key to understanding Classical-era phrases. You may be asked to write a dictation of comparable difficulty in an exam.

As you play through the next example, which is by Mozart, notice how the composer uses repetition as a structural feature of the phrase.

Musicians who do well at melodic dictation tend to make it part of their everyday lives. As you study repertoire of your own, consider how the composer has put it together. Look for structural, melodic, and harmonic features like the ones we have studied in this course. And as always, listen to as much music as you can get your hands on. If your ears are full of musical patterns, you’ll find dictations much more predictable.