All Students preparing for Grade exams are recommended to use the Hofnotes on-line training pages to practise for the aural tests. 

At higher grades  you must be able to discuss with the examiner musical features such as texture, form, style, and period of a piece of music.  My own  web pages to help with these parts of the test at Grade 5+ and at GCSE are available here!

Medieval musicians (a vielle)

Medieval 476 - 1400

Medieval style

At the start of the era, the notated music is presumed to be monophonic with no instrumental support.

We know that instead of major and minor scales that sound 'normal' to modern, Western ears, medieval music was primarily modal.  The rhythms used in performance are not notated and can really only be guessed at.  In the church, plain chant (also known as Gregorian chant) was most common.

Alleluia, Angelus Domini, recorded by Dominique Vellard on harmonia mundi HMC905261

Polyphony develops during the later period.  Harmony centres on, at first, consonant intervals of perfect fifths and  octaves, although in later music, perfect fourths will be introduced.  Once rhythmic notation started to happen, songs could be more easily recorded and repeated.

Miri it is, recorded by the Dufay collective on chandos records CHAN9396
 

Renaisance 1400 - 1600

Renaissance instruments (a consort)

Renaissance music gradually came to rely more on consonance than elaborate polyphony, enjoying the concordance of thirds and fifths, and thus carrying music into the tonal era.

Masses and motets were composed for voices in churches and cathedrals.  Of secular song forms the madrigal was prominent, and composers such as Byrd and Dowland in Britain, or Gabrieli and Gesualdo in Italy, generally produced music for both contexts.

Instrumental music was in the form of a dance suite - often including a basse dance, pavane and galliard - or a consort.

Last updated on: 10/10/2011