These exams take place in a
classroom setting with a supervisor. The most common written exams are “theory”, “history”, and “harmony”.
1. Theory – these exams test students’ knowledge of the building blocks of music and include topics such as major and minor scales, chords, intervals, rhythm, transposition, etc.
2. History – as the name suggests, history exams test students’ knowledge of important dates, musical eras and developments associated with each one, biographical information of well-known composers, etc. Expect to do plenty of memorizing here.
3. Harmony – harmony is what happens when many sounds come together. On this exam, students are tested on their knowledge of concepts such as counterpoint, chord progressions, harmonization, cadences, modulations, phrase structures, compositional techniques, and more.