Post by Steve Hopwood on Oct 3, 2006 9:44:23 GMT
Many of us are familiar with dragging unwilling students, kicking and screaming through the minutiae of the drivel the AB insists be included in grade 5 theory.
In my experience, the biggest minefield is transposing, especially when the interval is down. Even the best can get tangled up horribly, trying to work out which key to go into. Going up is fine; down has been the cause of many a horror, and more than a few lost marks over the years.
15 year old Kate (not Gobby Kate, a different one) showed me the solution yesterday.
Working a past paper, the exercise had to be transposed down a perfect 5th. Given that the texts are always chromatic, I tell them to: work out the key from the key signature and assume major; write an octave scale of the key; find the new key; write an octave scale of the new key directly under the original to facilitate checking.
Kate dutifully arrived at Bb major and wrote:
Bb C D Eb F G A
Starting on the Bb, she then counted backwards, through Bb,A,G,F,Eb.
She knew that Eb had to be correct, because the transposition interval was a perfect 5th. A quick check on her key chart confirmed this.
I had never thought of doing it that way. So simple. So obvious. So quick. So accurate.
"That was neat. Who taught you to work out the new key that way?" I asked. Her reply was devastating. "Nobody. It just seemed the obvious way to do it."
It wasn't bleeping obvious to me ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
To those of you reading this and thinking smugly, "Well. Fancy not thinking of that.": just don't say it, OK.
To those of you reading this and thinking, "Oh my God. Why didn't I think of that?": join the club.
And if I am in a club of one, then I do not want to know, okay?
In my experience, the biggest minefield is transposing, especially when the interval is down. Even the best can get tangled up horribly, trying to work out which key to go into. Going up is fine; down has been the cause of many a horror, and more than a few lost marks over the years.
15 year old Kate (not Gobby Kate, a different one) showed me the solution yesterday.
Working a past paper, the exercise had to be transposed down a perfect 5th. Given that the texts are always chromatic, I tell them to: work out the key from the key signature and assume major; write an octave scale of the key; find the new key; write an octave scale of the new key directly under the original to facilitate checking.
Kate dutifully arrived at Bb major and wrote:
Bb C D Eb F G A
Starting on the Bb, she then counted backwards, through Bb,A,G,F,Eb.
She knew that Eb had to be correct, because the transposition interval was a perfect 5th. A quick check on her key chart confirmed this.
I had never thought of doing it that way. So simple. So obvious. So quick. So accurate.
"That was neat. Who taught you to work out the new key that way?" I asked. Her reply was devastating. "Nobody. It just seemed the obvious way to do it."
It wasn't bleeping obvious to me ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
To those of you reading this and thinking smugly, "Well. Fancy not thinking of that.": just don't say it, OK.
To those of you reading this and thinking, "Oh my God. Why didn't I think of that?": join the club.
And if I am in a club of one, then I do not want to know, okay?