Hello!

I was just wondering how you get points for style in your chorale exams. I seem to be choosing the right chords and such but I fall down on the style marks, usually only getting 1 out of 10. Does anybody have any tips? Thankyou!

Great way to pick up style marks is just to keep it as close to a Bach chorale as possible - you can do this by flicking through the chorale book, do you have one? Great purchase if not, and then taking a look at what chords Bach uses, or passing notes, suspensions etc. and using them in your answers [ Am I right in thinking IIb - V7 - I is a very familiar Bach progression (been a while) - something like that]

Hope this helps, at least a little!

Your teacher needs to get hold of a marking scheme or Teachers' Handbook and it says in there how marks are awarded. Sorry I can't look at one for you, I no longer teach in the age range.
You may be surprised how marks are awarded. As I recall, once you have lost a mark for a fault (e.g. consecutives) you can't lose more marks on that beat, or something like that.
You should be looking to use a flowing bass line and standard progressions but the examiners are not necessarily looking for diminished 7ths and funky progressions, although they rejoice when they see them.
Have a look http://website.lineone.net/~webduck/alevel/chorale281.htm and see if it helps.

The best way you can develop this aspect is by playing through or listening to ALOT of bach chorales. After a while you start to pick up how Bach harmonises certain cadences, ideas on voice leading, modulations etc. Get a riemenschneider and try to play through a few chorales a day,its a very good habit.

I've found that "A Student's Guide to Harmony and Counterpoint" by Hugh Benham to be useful!

Have you tried palying them through? Look they don't give you a piano in the exam, but in the meantime play you answers back to yourself and see what is going wrong. I did this for a seminar paper (I read it out loud before submitting it) and am so glad I did. I learnt so much. Hope the same approach works for you.

That's ok if you can play for the piano, but if you're like me and have limited piano skills, it's hard!

You can play them slowly!!

You could put it in Sibelius and let the computer play it for you!

No-one is expecting you to play them as a virtuoso. However it is worthwhile playing Bach Chorales through however bad a pianist you are. You can learn so much through aural feedback.

When I did harmony and counterpoint at A2 (3 years ago) we were allowed a keyboard in the exam... don't know if that still applies or if it was just for wjec. Either way, my piano skills are limited and as long as you can get through playing it - even if it is at a snail's pace - it really helps because you notice anything that sounds funny
I got 85 out of 90 on that paper and I have no idea how, but our teacher really drilled the importance of memorising all the funny chords that Bach used in to us, making the most of the notes we were given and practising a lot (I must have done about 20 in the week before the exam alone) I think I was just very lucky

ps. it's worth mentioning that while I got 85 through practising a lot, the guy who got full marks was an organist and knew chorales inside out

I think we can use a piano also (Edexcel)

What funny chords did Bach use?

What kind of notes did you have?


Err...I'm really, really terrible


I do, but all the same it's not the same as playing it for yourself I guess.

I think in the exam we got a couple of bars to start and then just the bass line with some figured bass but not much and I think we had to put in our own figured bass...but the ones we used to practise gave us a bit more (like some melody and some inner notes, usually most of the figured bass and sometimes no bass line just to keep us on our toes!) The kind of things we were told to use were 'typical Bach cadances' and their variations, something we liked to call 'contrary motion, 2 little birds' (accompanied by much arm flapping ) which I think normal people call use of chord 7-6, things like augmented 6ths, Neopolitan 6ths, passing notes, making sure we resolved 7ths, and probably some other stuff that I can't remember! It feels like such a long time ago now

Contary motion, 2 little birds What's that?

Yes, I don't know how to do things like augmented/Neopolitan 6ths without making it seem like I don't have a clue what I'm doing.

Our exam sounds similar to yours

I still giggle thinking about my music teacher trying to demonstrate what he meant by flapping his arms
It's where you have the 2 outer parts going in contrary motion (notes 1-2-3 of the scale or vice versa) and the 2 inner parts going note-note lower-note in a bird flapping it's wings sort of manner (I did not explain that well!) the chords are 1, 7 in first inversion and 1 in first inversion and I think it's one of the only times you can use 7-6. Someone who can actually remember might have to correct me

Oh how things have changed since the dark ages of 1987. You get a keyboard in your harmony exam - a real luxury!

Quips aside use it. No-one is examing you as a pianist. They just want to know if you can harmonise Bach Chorales.


Get yourself a good edition with the figures in and play them through so you can get an idea about what the real McCoy sound like.

I will probably use Sibelius instead, it would take me ages to play through a chorale on a piano. My standard is probably high grade 1, OK, I had 3-4 years of keyboard lessons, then 2 months of piano but this was about 3 years ago, and I am so incompetent. For me, it would be more beneficial to use Sibelius