Course Description (from College Board)
“A major component of any college music curriculum is a course introducing the first-year student to musicianship, theory, musical materials, and procedures. Such a course may bear a variety of titles (Basic Musicianship, Elementary Theory, Harmony and Dictation, Structure of Music, etc.). It may emphasize one aspect of music, such as harmony; more often, however, it integrates aspects of melody, harmony, texture, rhythm, form, musical analysis, elementary composition, and, to some extent, history and style. Musicianship skills such as dictation and other listening skills, sight-singing, and keyboard harmony are considered an important part of the theory course, although they may be taught as separate classes.

The student’s ability to read and write musical notation is fundamental to such a course. It is also assumed that the student has acquired at least basic performance skills in voice or in an instrument.”

Scope and Sequence

Pre-course assignment: NOTATION

Knowledge:

• notation of pitch—the staff
• rhythmic notation
• meter signatures
• dynamic markings

Skills:

• extremely fluent recognition of note names in treble and bass clef
• sight reading rhythms
• aurally recognizing errors in rhythmic notation
• notating manuscript appropriately according to set guidelines

UNIT 1: SCALES, TONALITY, KEYS, MODES

Knowledge:

• major and minor scales
• tonality
• key

Skills:

• reading and writing major and minor scales
• reading and writing key signatures
• aural recognition of major and minor scales
• sight singing major and minor scales

UNIT 2: INTERVALS AND TRANSPOSITION

Knowledge:

• perfect, major, and minor intervals
• augmented and diminished intervals
• transposition
• methods of transposition

Skills:

• writing intervals with fluency
• hearing intervals with fluency
• sight singing intervals
• writing transpositions

UNIT 3: CHORDS

Knowledge:

• major, minor, diminished and augmented triads
• seventh chords
• triads on scale tones
• triad inversion
• Roman numeral chord symbols
• figured bass
• popular music symbols

Skills:

• identifying all four triad types
• writing all four triad types
• aural identification of all four triad types
• analyzing chord progressions using Roman numerals
• analyzing chord progressions using figured bass symbols
• writing chord progressions using popular music symbols

UNIT 4: CADENCES AND NONHARMONIC TONES

Knowledge:

• phrase
• cadence types
• non-harmonic tones

Skills:

• recognizing cadence types on paper
• aural recognition of cadence types
• analyzing chord progressions including non-harmonic tones

UNIT 5: SPECIES COUNTERPOINT AND 4-PART VOICE LEADING

Knowledge:

• the first four species of counterpoint
• voice leading in four-voice texture
• common chord progressions

Skills:

• writing first, second, third and fourth species counterpoint with appropriate voice leading
• four-voice realization of Roman numeral chord symbols
• four-voice realization of figured bass symbols
• writing a soprano line above a bass line

UNIT 6: HARMONIC PROGRESSION AND HARMONIC RHYTHM

Knowledge:

• harmonic progression
• the relationship of chords

Skills:

• creating chord progressions
• harmonizing a tonal melody
• four-voice realization of chord progressions
• Roman numeral analysis of written chord progressions
• aural recognition of chord progressions

UNIT 7: SEVENTH CHORDS

Knowledge:

• dominant seventh chord
• resolution of the dominant seventh chord
• leading-tone seventh chord
• progressions from viiº7 and viiǿ7
• non-dominant seventh chords in major and minor keys

Skills:

• aural recognition of dominant seventh, leading-tone seventh and non-dominant seventh chords
• vocal arpeggiation of dominant seventh and leading-tone seventh chords
• resolving dominant seventh and leading-tone seventh chords with appropriate voice leading
• writing circle progressions
• Roman numeral analysis of heard chord progressions including all types of seventh chords

UNIT 8: MODULATION AND SECONDARY KEY CENTERS

Knowledge:

• modulation types
• analytical symbols for modulations
• secondary dominants
• secondary leading-tone chords

Skills:

• harmonizing melodies that modulate
• recognizing and analyzing modulations from written examples
• recognizing and analyzing modulations from aural examples
• writing modulations
• Roman numeral analysis of secondary dominants and leading-tone chords
• four-voice realization of chord progressions containing secondary dominants and leading-tone chords
• aural Roman numeral analysis of secondary dominants and leading-tone chords

UNIT 9: MELODIC ORGANIZATION

Knowledge:

• the motive
• the sequence
• phrase
• period
• melodic structure

Skills:

• composition of motivic pieces
• composition of sequences
• formal analysis of written and aural examples containing motives, sequences, phrases, periods
• composition of melody

UNIT 10: TEXTURE AND TEXTURAL REDUCTION

Knowledge:

• texture
• texture types
• textural reduction

Skills:

• analysis of texture from both written and aural examples
• composition of pieces containing various texture types

UNIT 11: FORMAL ANALYSIS

Knowledge:

• formal divisions
• open versus closed formal divisions
• simple versus compound forms
• two-part form
• three-part form
• expanded ternary form
• rounded binary form

Skills:

• analysis of two-part, three-part, expanded ternary and rounded binary forms from both written and aural examples
• composition of a binary piece and a ternary piece

Course Policies

Academic Integrity :
It is the responsibility of the student to uphold the highest in academic integrity. Students in this course will be expected to comply with the official Spokane District 81 Policy regarding Academic Integrity. It is the assumption of the instructor that all work is done by the student.

District Computer/Network Usage:
Careful and ethical use of computing resources is the responsibility of every user. Students will be held to a stand of accountability for how they use computers. The official District Acceptable Use Policy is found here (PDF).