Login

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

July 15, 2025, 01:54:17 am

Author Topic: Music Question Thread  (Read 117778 times)  Share 

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

DalvinT

  • Trendsetter
  • **
  • Posts: 188
  • We can always improve, right?
  • Respect: +3
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #105 on: July 05, 2017, 11:08:28 pm »
0
It's okay, you're doing the HSC. Think about that stuff after HSC like I did.

Jumpy things are hard af. Always start slow. (I gotta do consecutive jumps with each strike at 132 BPM (performance speed 160 BPM) and I hate it So easy to hit the wrong notes

TRU :P
OMGGG SO ADVANCED :OOOO and yeah it is :((( My teacher told me that it's caused I keep doubting myself lol... I kinda practice weirdly, I usually point my wrist and elbow to the direction I need to go to then suddenly place my fingers where they need be. And faster practice, I would my wrist and elbow lead the way and my fingers would be situated where they need to be. IF  I GET THEM WRONG, I scream. And also, see if I went to back or too foward and keep practicing the leap until they are perfect!!!!
PLEASE GIVE ME INSIGHT ON HOW YOU DO IT RUIACE, GOD of the PIANO. :O
2017 HSC:
English Standard 91
Biology 90
Earth and Environmental Science 89
Music 1 97
Visual Arts 92
General Mathematics 2  85

ATAR : 95.15

2018-2020: Bachelor of Oral Health @ USYD

RuiAce

  • ATAR Notes Lecturer
  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 8814
  • "All models are wrong, but some are useful."
  • Respect: +2575
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #106 on: July 05, 2017, 11:39:30 pm »
0
TRU :P
OMGGG SO ADVANCED :OOOO and yeah it is :((( My teacher told me that it's caused I keep doubting myself lol... I kinda practice weirdly, I usually point my wrist and elbow to the direction I need to go to then suddenly place my fingers where they need be. And faster practice, I would my wrist and elbow lead the way and my fingers would be situated where they need to be. IF  I GET THEM WRONG, I scream. And also, see if I went to back or too foward and keep practicing the leap until they are perfect!!!!
PLEASE GIVE ME INSIGHT ON HOW YOU DO IT RUIACE, GOD of the PIANO. :O
I'm no god I'm only on Grade 8

I actually sort of work the other way around. In the long run, I do hope that my fingers will find themselves to the correct position by themselves (and they do). But in the short run I spend more time focusing on getting the notes right to begin with.

Because jumpy sections are so annoying in that the elbow must move with the wrist more drastically, in the long run that's going to be something you need to be do at performance speed. That being said, elbow problems only occur once you speed up. Fingering problems can occur when you're playing fast or slow, and they need to be attended to first.

Of course, if you've already ensured that your fingers land on the right keys at a moderate speed (not necessarily the performance speed), then you might want to employ the strategy of focusing on sections. Believe me when I say this; I hate this strategy because it's so repetitive, but it works. Slowly speed up by focusing on that one section only, and build your way up to the performance speed.

Also, I find that when I can focus on the piano I play better. Piano isn't just about your hands and any potential muscle memory; you do have to think. When you put the time into thinking about what your hands are doing you'll just naturally feel improvement.

DalvinT

  • Trendsetter
  • **
  • Posts: 188
  • We can always improve, right?
  • Respect: +3
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #107 on: July 06, 2017, 12:09:59 pm »
0
I'm no god I'm only on Grade 8

I actually sort of work the other way around. In the long run, I do hope that my fingers will find themselves to the correct position by themselves (and they do). But in the short run I spend more time focusing on getting the notes right to begin with.

Because jumpy sections are so annoying in that the elbow must move with the wrist more drastically, in the long run that's going to be something you need to be do at performance speed. That being said, elbow problems only occur once you speed up. Fingering problems can occur when you're playing fast or slow, and they need to be attended to first.

Of course, if you've already ensured that your fingers land on the right keys at a moderate speed (not necessarily the performance speed), then you might want to employ the strategy of focusing on sections. Believe me when I say this; I hate this strategy because it's so repetitive, but it works. Slowly speed up by focusing on that one section only, and build your way up to the performance speed.

Also, I find that when I can focus on the piano I play better. Piano isn't just about your hands and any potential muscle memory; you do have to think. When you put the time into thinking about what your hands are doing you'll just naturally feel improvement.

OMG WOW :O Thanks for your input RuiAce!!
2017 HSC:
English Standard 91
Biology 90
Earth and Environmental Science 89
Music 1 97
Visual Arts 92
General Mathematics 2  85

ATAR : 95.15

2018-2020: Bachelor of Oral Health @ USYD

isaacdelatorre

  • HSC Lecturer
  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 303
  • Respect: +74
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #108 on: July 07, 2017, 12:03:20 am »
+3
Hey there!

How many Music 2 students have we got on this forum? Would anyone be willing to share notes on their pieces for the extended response if there are any overlaps? Most of my notes are on paper but would definitely look to typing them up and sharing if there was enough interest  :D

I really think this would be a great place to share our ideas because personally, Music 2 isn't often taught in the best way so why not help each other out? :)

Hey there,

Sorry for this late reply!! I did Music 2 and Music Extention up until trials so I have notes and responses to different questions if you want to have a look or need to bounce around a few ideas :)

 I found it extremely difficult, I felt my teacher wasn't the greatest and I wasn't totally gelling with him which is why I decided to drop it after sitting the trial exam.
What electives are you doing? I did all performance and did performance for extension - was a LOT of work though.

Let me know how you are going with it!!
HSC 2016:   ATAR: 99+
Mathematics - 97    Economics - 96     Legal Studies - 95     Advanced English - 91    Business Studies - 95

2017: B Commerce/B Law @ UNSW  

bsdfjnlkasn

  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 417
  • Respect: +28
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #109 on: July 07, 2017, 10:58:09 am »
0
Hey there,

Sorry for this late reply!! I did Music 2 and Music Extention up until trials so I have notes and responses to different questions if you want to have a look or need to bounce around a few ideas :)

 I found it extremely difficult, I felt my teacher wasn't the greatest and I wasn't totally gelling with him which is why I decided to drop it after sitting the trial exam.
What electives are you doing? I did all performance and did performance for extension - was a LOT of work though.

Let me know how you are going with it!!

Hey no worries, thanks for getting back to me :) :)

Yeah, music is a bit of a struggle if i'm being honest because I haven't been taught a proper approach to the questions and so it really just ends up being a lot of guess work. I struggle with melodic dictations heaps but am sort of practicing with a music program to help me - have you got any general strategies for getting at least something down?
I'm doing a performance elective from 1945 - last 25 years (1992) and it hasn't been too bad. But I agree it's such a massive workload. The piece's we're studying are listed below, if you have ANY notes or advice I would really love to hear from you. Trials are just around the corner so hearing from you could literally save me for the exam.

Mandatory topic:
Nigel Westlake - Penguin Ballet
Paul Stanhope - Morning Star III
Brett Dean - Twelve Angry Men
Graham Koehne - High Art
Sarah Hopkins - Reclaiming the Spirit

Additional Topic: 1945 - 1992

John Adams - Short ride in a fast machine
Arnold Schoenberg - A survivor from Warsaw

Thanks again, hoping to hear back soon :D

stripeyducks101

  • Fresh Poster
  • *
  • Posts: 1
  • Respect: 0
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #110 on: July 12, 2017, 11:35:57 pm »
0
Hi, my trial aural exam is coming up soon, and I'm kind of confused about how I would approach a question to tick all the boxes and get the marks.

So with the majority of subjects you can look at the directive term and see what you need to write down to get each mark, but music has always puzzled me. How can I analyse the question to find what I need to include to maximise marks??

Thank you

jamonwindeyer

  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 10149
  • The lurker from the north.
  • Respect: +3108
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #111 on: July 12, 2017, 11:45:18 pm »
+1
Hi, my trial aural exam is coming up soon, and I'm kind of confused about how I would approach a question to tick all the boxes and get the marks.

So with the majority of subjects you can look at the directive term and see what you need to write down to get each mark, but music has always puzzled me. How can I analyse the question to find what I need to include to maximise marks??

Thank you

Hey, welcome to the forums! ;D

Tough question there - I wrote this guide on Music 1 Aural Exams you can read if it helps! Essentially all questions come back to the concepts of music - Know them like gospel. Beyond important.

Music is very different to the other subjects because it is basically "What do you hear?" for every single question. This means, basically, knowing what to include means knowing your concepts well enough that you can draw on the correct things to listen to. For Pitch, for example, you'd be listening for melodies and harmonies, caring less about the rhythm or the use of dynamics. If you know what you are listening for, that's 90% of the work - The other 10% is just getting it all down ;D

isaacdelatorre

  • HSC Lecturer
  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 303
  • Respect: +74
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #112 on: July 14, 2017, 12:14:32 am »
+2
Hey no worries, thanks for getting back to me :) :)

Yeah, music is a bit of a struggle if i'm being honest because I haven't been taught a proper approach to the questions and so it really just ends up being a lot of guess work. I struggle with melodic dictations heaps but am sort of practicing with a music program to help me - have you got any general strategies for getting at least something down?
I'm doing a performance elective from 1945 - last 25 years (1992) and it hasn't been too bad. But I agree it's such a massive workload. The piece's we're studying are listed below, if you have ANY notes or advice I would really love to hear from you. Trials are just around the corner so hearing from you could literally save me for the exam.

Mandatory topic:
Nigel Westlake - Penguin Ballet
Paul Stanhope - Morning Star III
Brett Dean - Twelve Angry Men
Graham Koehne - High Art
Sarah Hopkins - Reclaiming the Spirit

Additional Topic: 1945 - 1992

John Adams - Short ride in a fast machine
Arnold Schoenberg - A survivor from Warsaw

Thanks again, hoping to hear back soon :D

Hey man,

Sorry for the super late replies - definitely trying to be a bit more active on the forums, feel free to send me a PM any time!!

In terms of performance, there's not much advice I can give you without seeing you perform it live, literally all I can say is just the generic things of practice, make sure you time it properly so that your repertoire fits within the time but mostly make sure your pieces show off enough technique and diversity of style to all of the marking criteria.

In terms of the Aural exam, this was incredibly challenging - I too felt the pain of melodic dictation; was always the hardest section of the whole paper and we all secretly hated that one kid who had perfect pitch and breezed through these 6 marks. For this part, the best way I found was to firstly notate the rhythm using the first playing and get a sense of the melody then use each subsequent playing to do each new bar. I just focused on it bar by bar, then slowly i could do 2 bars at a time. Realistically the bar gets lost in the whole piece so I would remember two bars and hum that continuously until the excerpt was over then notate it - easier said than done. This required great knowledge of intervals, throughout year 9 and 10 we did interval training a LOT, we had to recognise most of the intervals. If you've never done this, you use songs you know to find the interval, so the start of twinkle twinkle little star is a perfect 5th etc. then when you get more familiar with them you can start to be able to recognise them faster.

Other tips for melodic dictation - look at the excerpt as a whole, cos quite often they repeat sections - if you hear a section repeated then you dont have to waste time figuring out the intervals.

In terms of the other parts of the Aural exam, let me know if you struggle with other bits - the essay was always a killer!! But I can definitely mark any answers you have and answer any questions :)

B sharp mate!! (lamest pun to end on but was the best I could think of)
HSC 2016:   ATAR: 99+
Mathematics - 97    Economics - 96     Legal Studies - 95     Advanced English - 91    Business Studies - 95

2017: B Commerce/B Law @ UNSW  

bsdfjnlkasn

  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 417
  • Respect: +28
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #113 on: July 14, 2017, 11:26:35 pm »
0
Hey man,

Sorry for the super late replies - definitely trying to be a bit more active on the forums, feel free to send me a PM any time!!

In terms of performance, there's not much advice I can give you without seeing you perform it live, literally all I can say is just the generic things of practice, make sure you time it properly so that your repertoire fits within the time but mostly make sure your pieces show off enough technique and diversity of style to all of the marking criteria.

In terms of the Aural exam, this was incredibly challenging - I too felt the pain of melodic dictation; was always the hardest section of the whole paper and we all secretly hated that one kid who had perfect pitch and breezed through these 6 marks. For this part, the best way I found was to firstly notate the rhythm using the first playing and get a sense of the melody then use each subsequent playing to do each new bar. I just focused on it bar by bar, then slowly i could do 2 bars at a time. Realistically the bar gets lost in the whole piece so I would remember two bars and hum that continuously until the excerpt was over then notate it - easier said than done. This required great knowledge of intervals, throughout year 9 and 10 we did interval training a LOT, we had to recognise most of the intervals. If you've never done this, you use songs you know to find the interval, so the start of twinkle twinkle little star is a perfect 5th etc. then when you get more familiar with them you can start to be able to recognise them faster.

Other tips for melodic dictation - look at the excerpt as a whole, cos quite often they repeat sections - if you hear a section repeated then you dont have to waste time figuring out the intervals.

In terms of the other parts of the Aural exam, let me know if you struggle with other bits - the essay was always a killer!! But I can definitely mark any answers you have and answer any questions :)

B sharp mate!! (lamest pun to end on but was the best I could think of)

You're such a legend! Thank you so much - pun and advice is very appreciated :D

I might send you some practice responses (I take it that none of our pieces overlap :( ) since my trial is next Wednesday so I may memorise a few responses. We haven't been taught to write the essay (like at all) so it may take a few shoddy attempts before I start to get the hang of it - would you prefer I PM them to you?

Thanks again!!

jamonwindeyer

  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 10149
  • The lurker from the north.
  • Respect: +3108
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #114 on: July 14, 2017, 11:54:34 pm »
0
Didn't do Music 2 so don't know 100%, but I reckon a little feedback thread for Music 2*** responses would be good to setup? What do we think guys? No post requirement or anything, just a place to collaborate ;D

*** (Or is this an Extension thing? Pfft, don't even know) ;)

bsdfjnlkasn

  • Forum Obsessive
  • ***
  • Posts: 417
  • Respect: +28
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #115 on: July 15, 2017, 09:40:23 am »
0
Didn't do Music 2 so don't know 100%, but I reckon a little feedback thread for Music 2*** responses would be good to setup? What do we think guys? No post requirement or anything, just a place to collaborate ;D

*** (Or is this an Extension thing? Pfft, don't even know) ;)

Hey it's definitely for Music 2 - I don't think it would be a terrible idea, just think I would be the only one active in it! Haha :D

jamonwindeyer

  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 10149
  • The lurker from the north.
  • Respect: +3108
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #116 on: July 15, 2017, 01:29:36 pm »
+1
Hey it's definitely for Music 2 - I don't think it would be a terrible idea, just think I would be the only one active in it! Haha :D

Hey, I was the first properly active poster on ATAR Notes in NSW full stop! It is cool being a trendsetter ;)

Snew

  • Forum Regular
  • **
  • Posts: 54
  • Class of 2017
  • Respect: +1
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #117 on: July 20, 2017, 05:55:41 pm »
0
Hello! Just curious as to how people structure their responses for aural questions on all the concepts - did you use a table and divide them up, like pitch/duration etc?
HSC 2017:

Studies of Religion I
Advanced English
General Mathematics
Biology
Modern History
Music I

ATAR Goal: 85+
Course Wanted: Bachelor of Nursing at UTS

jamonwindeyer

  • Honorary Moderator
  • Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
  • *******
  • Posts: 10149
  • The lurker from the north.
  • Respect: +3108
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #118 on: July 20, 2017, 10:46:34 pm »
+3
Hello! Just curious as to how people structure their responses for aural questions on all the concepts - did you use a table and divide them up, like pitch/duration etc?

Hey! That's usually how I did it, alternatively I would set up headings for each section of the excerpt (verse/chorus) and just make my points under those headings! Then I'd make sure I had a bracketed term at the end telling the marker which concept(s) that related to (Pitch, Tone Colour) <---- Like that ;D

georgiia

  • Trendsetter
  • **
  • Posts: 191
  • Respect: +8
Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #119 on: July 21, 2017, 03:02:28 pm »
0
Hi, I have my Viva in my trials on tuesday and was wondering if someone would quickly look at my summary sheet and let me know anything you think or anything to be careful of? Which questions first pop into mind so that I know what they may ask?
Ive been marked on it twice before with my school teacher but Now I will obviously have a different marker so I was wondering what a different perspective would think?

Thank you!!