Incoming Student Placement Exams

Keyboard Skills Assessment is mandatory for BFAs only.

Students must record and submit online a brief video of themselves playing stipulated scales (2 octaves ascending and descending, major and minor, hands separately), triads in inversions, I-IV-V-I progressions (major or minor) with 3 notes in the right hand and the root alone in the left hand, and reading one or two passages of provided music. If the student knows a piece from memory, they are invited to play it, but this is not required.

The video must comprise a single unedited take. It must first show the student’s face, and then clearly show both of the student’s hands at the keyboard while they play. An assistant or phone tripod may be useful.

The specific tasks to be demonstrated on this video keyboard assessment will be announced—please watch your CalArts email account.

The only students exempt from undertaking this keyboard assessment are (1) piano majors and (2) transfer students with college transfer credit for a keyboard class. All other incoming BFA students must undertake this keyboard assessment.

The Music Theory Placement Examination is two hours in duration and comprises four sections corresponding to four successive courses within CalArts’ undergraduate Core Theory Curriculum: MTHY-001, MTHY-111, MTHY-112 & MTHY-210. To exempt from a given course, your score on the corresponding exam section must be near-perfect.

A single textbook suitable for use in preparing for all four sections of this examination is Stefan Kostka & Dorothy Payne, Tonal Harmony with an Introduction to Twentieth-Century Music, 6th Ed. (or later), McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 2008. For the exam’s MTHY-001 (Fundamental Musicianship) section, some students may benefit from preparation using the interactive online drills at teoría.com.

PRACTICE Music Theory Placement Examination

Although its specific content is different, this practice examination is intended to roughly indicate the level of difficulty of the various sections of the official placement examination administered during CalArts’ Orientation Week. It does not, however, exhaustively represent every topic that may appear on that official exam. For a complete listing of such topics, and for a description of the separate Musicianship Skills Placement Exam, see below.

Exam Content: MTHY-001 Section (Fundamental Musicianship)

Writing Key Signatures: The examinee writes the key signatures of stipulated keys. Major and minor keys with up to seven sharps or flats are included.

Writing Intervals: The examinee writes notes that are stipulated intervals above or below a given notes using the correct enharmonic spelling. Intervals (perfect, major, minor, augmented and diminished) both ascending and descending between a Perfect Unison and a Perfect Fifteenth are included.

Writing Scales: This task involves the writing of major, melodic minor and harmonic minor scales with up to seven sharps or flats. The use either of appropriate key signatures or of accidentals without key signatures may be required.

Chord Identification and Construction: Examinees must be able to identify and construct any diatonic triad or seventh chord in any inversion with any given root or bass note.

Meter: The examinee’s understanding is tested regarding note and rest values, dots, ties, measures, duple and triple meters, simple and compound meters, time signatures, triplets, duplets, and syncopation.

Fluency with the following fundamental concepts and skills will also be tested: notation in bass and treble clefs, the circle of fifths, relative and parallel major/minor keys, and enharmonic equivalence.

Exam Content: MTHY-111 Section (Tonal Theory A)

• chord construction and independent voice leading
• cadences
• phrase groups
• four-part harmonization starting from a bass or melody with or without specified harmonies (i.e., Roman numerals) and using all diatonic triads and seventh chords in all inversions
• diatonic pivot-chord modulations
• harmonic analysis using Roman numerals (including modulation to closely related keys) of music notated in a piano score or a lead sheet
• non-chord tones
• diatonic sequences

Exam Content: MTHY-112 Section (Tonal Theory B)

This section of the exam is not required for MTIID students, who should skip forward to the next section (’Non-Tonal Theories’).

• analysis of chromatic tonal harmonies appearing in a piano score or a lead sheet
• 4-part chromatic voice-leading and harmonization
• secondary functions and tonicization
• extended and altered tertian chords
• tritone substitutions, augmented sixth chords, and Neapolitan chords
• mode mixture
• embellishing chords
• chromatic or enharmonic modulations to distantly related keys
• chromaticized sequences

Exam Content: MTHY-210 Section (Non-Tonal Theories)

• early modernist idioms (e.g., Debussy, Bartok, Stravinsky) and associated techniques (planing, diatonic modes, pentatonic/whole-tone/octatonic/hexatonic scales, polyharmony, quartal and secundal harmony)
• free atonality
• pitch-class set theory (pc numbers, interval class, interval-class vectors, normal form, pcset transposition and inversion, set class, prime form)
• twelve-tone techniques (matrix construction, doing a “twelve-count”)
• integral serialism

The Practical Musicianship Skills Placement Exam will determine placement into Practical Musicianship A, B, C, or D. The course content of Practical Musicianship A, B, C are tonal where D is largely atonal. This exam will include only tonal melodies and chords. It will not include atonal melodies or chords. The exam will be in 2 parts. The first part will be a written dictation exam and the second part will be a 1-on-1 singing exam.

Exam Content: Part 1 - Written dictation portion

- Identify and notate intervals: Intervals up to a major 9th will be played 3 times with a given bass note.

- Identify and notate chords: Triads and seventh chords will be played 3 times with a given bass note. Triads will include major, minor, diminished, and augmented and will be in root position, 1st, or 2nd inversion. Seventh chords will include dominant, major, minor, diminished, and half-diminished, and will only be in root position.

- Transcribe a tonal melody: The melody will be tonal in either major or minor including note values as short as eighth notes and dotted rhythms. Starting note and time signature will be given. Key signature will not be given. You can pause and repeat the track as you like within a given time limit.

- Transcribe a 4-part excerpt complete with Roman numeral analysis and lead-sheet symbols. The starting note will be given. Time signature and key signature will not be given.

Exam Content: Part 2 - Oral singing portion 

(If possible, tell the examiner what your range is. Otherwise the examiner will determine it for you.)

- Sing a scale, ascending and descending. (Major, harmonic/natural minor, all other modes except Locrian)

- Sing intervals, ascending and descending. (All intervals up to a major 9th)

- Sing root position triads, ascending. (major, minor, diminished, augmented)

- Sing root position seventh chords, ascending. (dominant, major, minor, diminished, half-diminished)

- Sing the chord tones of a chord with a particular function. Ex: “If this is the I chord (triad will be played), sing a IV chord.”

- Sight-read a rhythm. A rhythm will be shown on your screen. with a given pulse of about 60 quarter notes per minute. You will be asked to either clap through it or say a syllable like “tah”. You will be given a few seconds to look over it. Once you start, stopping or pausing will result in a lower score.

- Sing a melody. A notated tonal melody with some chromaticism will be shown on your screen. The melody may contain dotted rhythms and note values as short as 16ths. The examiner can provide one note of your choosing only once. You can sing it using a different tonic than written to suit your range. You will be given 1 minute to work through it aloud, pausing, repeating as you like. You will then be asked to sing through it without stopping.