GCSE Music – Revision – Harmony, Form and Structure

Harmony, Form and Structure

The GCSE Music Specification includes many terms that students need to know, and be able to identify, but which aren’t covered by many of the styles of music studied.

Many students struggle with recognising musical elements, especially cadences, chord inversions, and other elements of harmony, form and structure, so this resource comprises 17 short extracts of music, five of which have skeleton scores, as in the exam.

Each extract has four questions attached, covering all the terms associated with Harmony, Form and Structure:

HARMONY

• Primary chords
• Secondary chords
• Inversion
• Diatonic
• Tonic
• Subdominant
• Dominant (7th)
• Perfect cadence
• Imperfect cadence
• Plagal cadence
• Interrupted cadence
• Chord progression/chord
• sequence
• Harmonic rhythm
• Drone
• Pedal
• Dissonance
• Power chords

FORM AND STRUCTURE

• Binary
• Ternary
• Rondo
• Minuet and Trio
• Repetition
• Contrast
• Theme and variations
• Strophic
• 32 bar song form/AABA
• 12 bar Blues
• Call and response
• Ostinato
• Bridge
• Break
• Loop
• Improvisation
• Verse
• Chorus
• Middle 8
• Fill
• Introduction
• Outro
• Coda
• Riff
• Regular phrasing
• Irregular phrasing

The extracts cover a wide range of music, featuring the likes of Joan Jett, Mahler, Primus, Jimmy Rushing, Mel Tormé, Carly Simon, Henry Mancini, Katrina & the Waves, and Blu Cantrell.

The resource comes with a link to FREE audio, running for 38’20”.

The bundle includes the full paper and mark scheme, plus the PDF question paper and mark scheme separately, in case you want to set it remotely.

Please have a look at my shop for a wide variety of resources to support the GCSE Music course.
www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/NPTJ