At the beginning of each semester, the department offers a series of placement exams for incoming students. The department uses these placement exams to determine your current skill level upon entering SFCM, thus enabling us to place you accurately within the undergraduate or graduate curriculum.

Here are descriptions of those exams, together with some tips for preparation, where appropriate.

For undergraduates (both Freshman and Transfer)

Undergraduate Eartraining and Dictation Exam (required of all incoming undergraduate students)
Undergraduate Music Theory Exam (for transfer students)
Undergraduate Keyboard Skills Exam (required of all incoming undergraduate students not majoring in a keyboard instrument or composition)

For graduate students

Graduate Eartraining and Dictation Exam (required of all incoming graduate students)
Graduate Music Theory Exam (required of all incoming graduate students)

Preparing for the Exams

Undergraduate Eartraining and Dictation Exam

The exam is in three parts: fundamentals, solfège, and dictation. It is required of all incoming undergraduate students.

Fundamentals: this is a short (20-minute) written test, administered during the same session as the dictation exam, covering the most basic of fundamental musical skills--the writing of key signatures, scales, simple intervals, and basic chord types. It determines whether or not you will need a semester of musical basics before entering the main-sequence Musicianship and Theory curriculum.

Dictation: this is a progressive exam beginning with extremely simple dictation challenges (simple rhythms and melodies), and progressing through increasingly difficult examples, including intervals, chords, advanced melodic dictation, harmonic dictation, and chorale dictation. At the most advanced level, you are asked to take down a Bach-style chorale with harmonic analysis on four hearings. You are encouraged to continue only as far with the exam as you are comfortable, to take down only what you hear, and to avoid guesswork.

Singing: you are asked to sight-sing a number of musical compositions, both melodies and single-voice rhythms, ranging in difficulty from very simple to extremely complex. The musical selections may be in any of four clefs (treble, bass, tenor, and alto), major and minor modes as well as the standard Church modes, and at the more difficult level may be selected from the 12-tone or atonal literature. The instructor administering the examination will determine which selections to ask you to sing, depending upon your prior experience with solfège. You may sing the examples in any solfège system with which you are familiar, including using a neutral syllable. You are also asked to conduct during your performances, if at all possible.

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Undergraduate Music Theory Exam

The Music Theory placement exam is designed for those students who have already taken college-level music theory courses prior to entering SFCM. You should take this exam only if you think you may be able to receive advanced placement credit in the four-semester Music Theory sequence (221-224); you should not take it if you are an incoming freshman, or you have not had any prior college-level experience with music theory.

The exam covers two broad areas: harmony and formal analysis. The exam for first-year placement concentrates primarily on harmony, while the second-year portion of the exam is oriented more towards formal analysis.

In the harmonic portions of the exam, you will be asked to write four-voice settings to either a given bass line or melody; you are expected to write idiomatically and to demonstrate a solid grasp of voice-leading and chord construction principles. You will also be asked to perform harmonic analysis of examples. The easier portions of the exam focus entirely on diatonic harmony, with chromatic harmony covered at the more advanced levels. The exam does not cover any twentieth-century or non-Western harmonic practices.

In those portions of the exam which focus on formal analysis, you will be asked to demonstrate skill in the analysis of musical forms, including simple phrases, phrase structures such as periods, simple two- and three-part forms, compound forms, rondo forms, sonata-allegro form, basic aria forms, and polyphonic genres such as fugue. The exam will include questions involving terminology, and will include at least one full-scale composition for which you are asked to provide a formal analysis.

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Undergraduate Keyboard Skills Exam

The undergraduate Keyboard Skills exam determines your placement in the Keyboard Skills PRF 150-151 sequence.

The exam consists of a short interview with the instructor, sight-reading piano compositions, and playing through basic scales and chord progressions, if possible. It is not necessary to prepare a composition for the exam, although if you have had extensive prior training in piano, you should be prepared to demonstrate your skill for the examiner.

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Graduate Eartraining and Dictation Exam

The Graduate Eartraining and Dictation exam determines whether or not you need to take a one-semester refresher course in dictation and solfège skills (Musicianship Review MMT 602). The exam is in two parts: dictation, and singing.

If you have very little prior experience with eartraining or solfège, it is possible that the department will strongly recommend that you take an undergraduate music fundamentals course prior to taking the one-semester graduate refresher course.

Dictation: this is a progressive exam beginning from extremely simple dictation challenges (simple rhythms and melodies), and progressing through increasingly difficult examples, including intervals, chords, advanced melodic dictation, harmonic dictation, and chorale dictation. At the most advanced level, you are asked to take down a Bach-style chorale with harmonic analysis on four hearings. You are encouraged to continue only as far with the exam as you are comfortable, to take down only what you hear, and to avoid guesswork.

Singing: you are asked to sight-sing a number of musical compositions, both melodies and single-voice rhythms, ranging in difficulty from very simple to extremely complex. The musical selections may be in any of four clefs (treble, bass, tenor, and alto), major and minor modes as well as the standard Church modes, and at the more difficult level may be selected from the 12-tone or atonal literature. The instructor administering the examination will determine which selections to ask you to sing, depending upon your prior experience with solfège. You may sing the examples in any solfège system with which you are familiar, including using a neutral syllable. You are also asked to conduct during your performances, if at all possible.

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Graduate Theory Exam

The Graduate Music Theory placement exam determines whether or not you will need to take a one-semester refresher course in the basics of music theory (Theory Review MMT 604).

If you have very little prior experience with music theory, it is possible that the department will strongly recommend that you take an undergraduate music fundamentals course prior to taking the one-semester graduate refresher course.

The exam covers both harmony and formal analysis. To demonstrate skill in harmony, you will be asked to write four-voice settings from either bass lines or melodies, as well as provide harmonic analysis of examples. The examples are progressive in difficulty, beginning with simple diatonic progressions and proceeding through more advanced chromatic practices. The exam does not cover twentieth-century or non-Western harmonic practices, nor does it cover counterpoint.

You will be asked to perform a formal analysis of a musical composition, which will be in a larger homophonic form—i.e., a compound form such as Minuet & Trio, a rondo form, sonata-allegro form, or something similar. You will also be asked to provide some terminology and to answer a number of questions related to the formal analysis of a particular musical composition.

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Preparing for the Exams

Eartraining and Dictation Exams

If you have had some prior training in solfège, it is a very good idea for you to go back over your solfège books and practice sightsinging both melodies and rhythms. Simple "rustiness" can sometimes affect your placement adversely, so a bit of prior practice can be helpful. Remember that we do not require you sing in a particular solmization system for your exam, although we use the fixed-do system here at SFCM. Review basic conducting patterns and practice singing while conducting--again, only if this is a skill in which you've already received training.

Dictation is a skill which really needs to have been acquired in a classroom or formal setting. It can be difficult to "practice" dictation on your own. However, sightsinging practice can be extremely beneficial in helping to freshen dictation skills.

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Theory Exams

A solid review of harmonic principles, especially voice-leading and chord construction, is encouraged for anyone planning on taking the Music Theory exams--either undergraduate (optional) or graduate (required). This website contains a substantial series of lecture notes covering classic Western harmony; those notes may be very helpful to you. They can be accessed by clicking here.

The standard textbook used for harmony at SFCM is:

Aldwell and Schachter: Harmony and Voice-Leading, 3rd Edition.

For formal analysis, this website offers substantial resources including lecture notes, audio lectures, and other materials. Please note that some of these resources may be password-protected (due to copyright restrictions) and cannot be accessed unless you are currently enrolled in a theory course at SFCM. However, most of the resources are freely accessible. You may access the analysis resources by clicking here.

Here are several textbooks you may find useful:

Wallace A. Berry: Form in Music
Leon Stein: Structure & Style

Keyboard Skills (Undergraduate)

If you have had some prior keyboard training, we strongly urge you to review your scales (major and minor) and basic chord progressions (cadences), and to sightread piano music at your level as often as possible.

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