Diagnostic Exam in Music History and Literature

The history review exam is made up of three parts: 1) short answer identification of terms and names; 2) short essays; and 3) listening examples. The identification part involves important terms and names in Western music, from early medieval times to the present (e.g., organum, fauxbourdon, basso continuo, the Art of the Fugue, Modeste Mussorgsky, tone cluster, Louis Armstrong, metric modulation, Peter Grimes). Students can prepare for this by studying the glossary and marginalia in such texts as Grout-Palisca's A History of Western Music.

The short essays part largely involves questions about some of the prominent genres of music history, such as motet, mass, art song, symphony, opera, or ballet; or some prominent movement in music, such as Ars Nova, Romanticism, Neoclassicism, modern jazz, or minimalism. Students can prepare for this by consulting either a history of music as mentioned above, or a shorter handbook that gives an overview of Western music.

The listening part asks that students attempt to identify the composer and approximate year of various musical examples from the Middle Ages to the present. The readers of this portion are not so concerned with the student's ability to actually identify such pieces as to make educated guesses as to the composer and century. The student can prepare for this by consulting the recorded examples for one of the major textbooks on Western music history, such as the Grout-Palisca text.

View a sample music history and literature placement exam.