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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, structure, 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!

Find me on www.musicteachers.co.uk

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Texture means the way a piece "feels" in terms of how thickly clustered or thinly spread the notes are, how they are woven together.

Think of different fabrics.  Some are light and thin, others heavy and chunky. 

Listen to these pieces of music—do they have light texture?  Or are they thicker and heavier? 

How many parts can you hear?  Do they move independently, weaving around each other, or together in chords?

Try to think of your own words to describe the textures here.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Example 4:

Questions about texture are not asked in ABRSM practical grade exams until Grade V. There are four main textures to listen for:

• contrapuntal - like Couperin's Les Barricades Mysterieuses in the first example above

• chordal or harmonic - like the choir in Handel's Hallelujah Chorus

• melody with accompaniment - like the music depicting the cat in Prokovief's Peter and the Wolf

• arpeggios or broken chords - like Burgmuller's Angelic Harmonies

Click the links on the left to learn more about each texture.

Last updated on: 08/05/2013