Music Skills Assessment

The Music Skills Assessment helps our advisors place you into the most appropriate theory and ear training courses to suit your abilities.

Prospective and incoming students take the assessment on their audition day. Students who enter on probationary status (without an audition) will take the exam prior to registering for classes.

The answer to this question depends on your knowledge of theory. Students with a broad knowledge of theory may finish the exam in a few minutes. Others with less experience may take more time as needed. We estimate the average time to be 10 to 20 minutes for students with a moderate theory background, but there is no time limit.

Some incoming students will be placed in Level 1 theory and ear training classes:

• MUS 1057 Music Theory I / MUS 1058 Ear Training I

Theory I will cover topics including music notation, scales, meters, intervals, chords, harmony, and melody. Ear Training I will cover basic ear training and sight singing, interval and chord identification, and melodic dictation.

Depending on your musical background, it may be possible to test into a more advanced class. In these instances, a student might be placed in either the second or third set of classes in the theory sequence:

• MUS 1155 Music Theory II / MUS 1156 Ear Training II

• MUS 2055 Music Theory III / MUS 2056 Ear Training III

For those students who have less background in music theory, there are introductory classes that cover the basics of theory and music notation, as well as an introduction to ear training:

• MUS 1040 & MUS 1050 Introduction to Music Theory 1 & 2

Here is a list of some things that you can study on your own or with your music teachers in order to prepare for the Music Skills Assessment. Basic theory skills are those needed to place into Music Theory I and Ear Training I; your ability to handle the intermediate and advanced skills will determine more advanced placement:

Basic Theory Skills

• Read music in both treble and bass clefs

• Identify all basic note values and rests

• Understand basic time signatures and how to group notes to fit within these time signatures

• Recognize all simple intervals (from unisons to octaves)

• Write out all key signatures, in both major and minor keys

• Write out all scales, both major and (natural) minor

Intermediate Theory Skills

• Write out all major and minor scales (both melodic and harmonic minor)

• Recognize both simple and compound meters (time signatures)

• Recognize triads by mode (major, minor, augmented, diminished) and inversion (root position, first and second inversion)

• Recognize all major, minor and perfect intervals; as well as basic diminished and augmented intervals;

• Sight read simple melodies in major and minor keys;

• Count and perform simple rhythmic patterns in a variety of different meters (time signatures)

Advanced Theory Skills

• Harmonize a simple chorale melody and realize a simple figured bass.

There are a number of free access websites that have music theory materials that can help you prepare for the theory diagnostic:

MusicTheory.net
http://www.musictheory.net

Teoría: Music Theory Web
http://www.teoria.com/index.html