OCR AS Level Music Past Papers

For the Listening and Appraising examination, precise musical vocabulary separates high-scoring from average responses. Avoid vague descriptors ('the music sounds happy') in favour of technical terminology: 'a rising major sixth motif in the melody, harmonised with a dominant seventh chord resolving to the tonic in root position, creates a sense of arrival and affirmation'. Train yourself to listen to set works while following the score, annotating key moments: modulations (which key, at which bar, by which chromatic alteration), structural landmarks (exposition, development, recapitulation in sonata form; A, B, A' in ternary; the return of the main theme in rondo form), and textural changes (from homophony to counterpoint, from full orchestra to solo passage). For questions comparing set works with unfamiliar comparators, listen to the unfamiliar extract first without preconceptions and identify: the period and genre (baroque counterpoint, classical sonata, romantic programme music, jazz, minimalism), the forces (the instrumentation or vocal ensemble), the principal melodic material (conjunct or disjunct, stepwise or leaping, diatonic or chromatic), the harmonic language (functional tonality with clear cadences; modal harmonies; extended tertian chords in jazz; pandiatonicism or atonality), and the rhythmic character (regular or irregular metre, use of syncopation, hemiola, or complex polyrhythms). These five observations provide the foundation for any comparative answer. For composing, the most common issue in student work is harmonic inconsistency — using functional tonal progressions in most of a piece but introducing chords that do not fit the established harmonic language at awkward moments. Decide on your harmonic language at the outset and apply it consistently: if you are writing in D minor, plan your modulations (to the relative major F, or to the dominant A minor), choose whether to use melodic, harmonic, or natural minor scales in different contexts, and ensure your cadences are idiomatic (perfect or imperfect in tonal music; Phrygian or plagal if a modal inflection is intended).