Music History and Literature Study Guide

The music history and literature examination for all entering graduate music students is divided into seven sections:

1. Listening: Multiple choice (six examples, one for each era). Identify the genre and the probable composer.
2. Medieval: Multiple choice (16 questions) composers, theorists, forms, plus one score identification (choose the genre and probable composer)
3. Renaissance: Multiple choice (16 questions) composers, forms, instruments, schools, etc., plus one score identification (choose the genre and probable composer)
4. Baroque: Multiple choice (16 questions) composers, compositional techniques, forms, etc., plus one score identification (choose the genre and probable composer)
5. Classic: Multiple choice (16 questions) composers, styles, forms, opera, etc., plus one score identification (choose the genre and probable composer)
6. Romantic: Multiple choice (16 questions) composers, forms, instruments, terms, etc., plus one score identification (choose the genre and probable composer)
7. Modern: Multiple choice (16 questions) composers, terminology, compositional techniques, works, plus one score identification (choose the genre and probable composer)

Suggested materials to study

• A comprehensive list of terms and composers on the graduate entrance exam for music history
• WMU's undergraduate history program uses the textbook, Score Anthologies and Recordings for A History of Western Music by Donald Grout & Claude Palisca (published by W.W. Norton)
• The Harvard Dictionary of Music, edited by Don Michael Randel (Harvard University Press) is the best single-volume reference book on music, and is quite useful for studying style, eras, composers, genres and terms.

Sample exam questions

This set of 96 pieces is the first collection of polyphonic music printed entirely with moveable type.

1. Old Hall Manuscript
2. Orchesographie
3. Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music
4. Odhecaton A
5. None of these

A type of Italian opera that blends comic and tragic elements:

1. Ballad opera
2. Reform opera
3. Dramma giocoso
4. Singspiel
5. Opera buffa

He has been associated with the compositional principles of total serialism and mathematics:

1. Glass
2. Bartok
3. Ives
4. Copland
5. Babbitt

For information about graduate studies in music at WMU contact the graduate advisor at music-grad@wmich.edu.