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Summary of Skills to be Evaluated

Students must be able to:

  • Take Melodic Dictation
  • Take Harmonic Dictation
  • Sing a Melody at sight
  • Sing a Rhythm at sight
  • Realize a Figured Bass and Provide Harmonic Analysis
  • Analyze a piece of music tonally, harmonically, and formally
  • Display understanding of standard musical terminology
  • Recognize and identify standard musical constructions such as sequence, cadence, and modulation
  • Identify and describe, through a given piece of music, characteristic elements of the various style periods normally designated in Western music (i.e. “Romantic, Classical, etc.)
  • The music history & musicology portion of the DMA Entrance Exam covers the standard eras — Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classic, Romantic, and
  • 20th-Century. Students will be asked to discuss major composers and works, identify names and terms, and discuss style characteristics. To be well prepared, students are advised to study recent editions of either Peter Burkholder’s A History of Western Music or Barbara Hanning’s Concise History of Music.