Diagnostic Examination: Composition & Musicology
The Diagnostic Exam is advisory and is administered to all entering students once a year during exam week at the end of the fall semester. This exam is intended to ascertain the student’s musicianship skills and identify areas needing remedial work. This information helps the faculty prepare students for careers in music teaching and research. All students must take the entire exam once. Each portion of the exam is graded on a Pass/Fail basis. Students who fail any part of the exam have the option to retake the failed sections the following year. Depending on the result, the student may be advised to take remedial actions, e.g., no-credit participation in an undergraduate course or private tutoring by a faculty member. Retakes are strongly encouraged but not mandatory.
The Diagnostic Exam consists of seven parts, listed with suggested textbooks that you may wish to consult:
| 1. Realization at the keyboard of figured bass, recitatives, and jazz-standard lead sheets. | |
2. Score reading at the keyboard; typical passages include the slow movements of string quartets and symphonies. | |
3. Singing; students are encouraged, but not required, to use solfège. For parts 1, 2, and 3 (keyboard, score reading, and singing): Music for these parts is given to students at the beginning of semester 1. The student receives ten exercises for each category that should be prepared in advance for the exam at the end of the semester. During the exam, the student chooses one exercise from each category, the committee chooses one from each category, and the committee reserves the option to have the student sightread an exercise from each category. | |
| 4. Analysis of a common-practice tonal piece given to you one week in advance of the exam (consult chapters 8, 14, 15, 17, 19 in Stein, ed., Engaging Music; William Caplin, Classical Form; Burstein and Straus, A Concise Introduction to Tonal Music). Students will discuss the piece with the members of the exam committee on the day of the exam. Topics to prepare for discussion include formal design, harmonic function and syntax, and dissonance treatment. | |
| 5. Aural identification of intervals and chords; melodic and rhythmic dictation. | |
| 6. Harmonization of a simple melody, e.g., a chorale tune (consult Aldwell and Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading; Salzer and Schachter, Counterpoint in Composition, Chapter 8). Students may check their work at the keyboard during the exam. | |
7. Identification and historical placement by prose commentary of 10 score and recording excerpts. Demonstrate your understanding of the piece in its historical context, based on discussion of style and other features of the score or recording. Include suggestions about the identity of the composer, the type of composition, and an approximate date (consult, for example, Fuller, The European Musical Heritage: 800-1750; Burkholder, Norton Anthology of Western Music; Morgan, Anthology of Twentieth Century Music, Martin and Waters, Jazz: The First 100 Years; Covach and Flory, What’s That Sound: An Introduction to Rock and Its History). Parts 5, 6, and 7 are administered the day of the exam. The harmonized melody and prose commentary on the ten excerpts must be turned in to the DGSA by 5:00 pm on the day of the exam.
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First-Year Oral: Ethnomusicology
Instead of a Diagnostic Exam, Ethnomusicology administers a 90-minute oral discussion at the start of the Fall of Year 2. At the end of the Spring semester, 1YR, students will receive the following materials to prepare for the oral:
- Four stylistically contrasting recordings from around the world, each clearly identified.
- Four audio tracks with contrasting production values (i.e. recording and processing techniques).
- A folder of historic ethnomusicology works from which you select four articles or book chapters that are related in some way, summarize in two paragraphs each, and prepare for discussion
Also, at the end of the Spring semester, Y1, the student will submit an audio recording related to their work, and propose what feature of it they will transcribe. A faculty member will then write a prompt, and in conversation with the student set the limits and agree on the basic approach the transcription will take.
One week before the oral discussion, students will submit:
- Transcription
- Two paragraph summaries of each of their four selected articles.
The Oral includes:
- Discussion of one or more of four stylistically contrasting audio tracks from around the world. Students will show their understanding of the style in its historical, geopolitical, social, or generic context, based on discussion of stylistic features of the track, demonstrating how they listen across the breadth of global sounds.
- Discussion of one or more of four audio tracks selected for their contrasting production values, demonstrating the student’s knowledge and aural awareness of recording and signal processing techniques and aesthetics.
- Discussion of the transcription, demonstrating the student’s ability to translate aural experience into a print-based form of communication
- Discussion of one or more of the articles the student has prepared.
The faculty will select which recordings and articles to discuss.
Feedback will comprise oral response to students’ breadth of aural knowledge and analytic listening skills and to their interactive critical engagement. A written summary assessment will be filed in the DGSA’s office.
For incoming students with majors other than music: a short proficient performance on any instrument in any style, broadly and capaciously construed. This performance is scheduled separately by the Ethnomusicology faculty.