Musical Styles: SQA Higher Music concept overview

Styles is one of the SQA concept areas at the centre of Higher Music. Questions on styles in the Understanding Music question paper are answered by hearing the period, genre or idiom of a piece and its characteristic features, and naming the concept. This page is the index for the module; the dot points below cover the styles in depth.

The musical styles

The styles area divides into three groups, each with its own dot point.

Classical styles

The Western art music tradition: the baroque (ornate counterpoint, harpsichord, terraced dynamics), classical (clarity, balance, the piano, the sonata and symphony) and romantic (rich expression, rubato, large orchestra) periods, and forms such as the concerto, aria and recitative.

Popular, jazz and world styles

The blues, jazz, pop, rock and the musical (musical theatre), with features such as the riff, the walking bass, improvisation and the backbeat.

Scottish music

The Scottish dances (strathspey, reel, jig, march), the song types and forms (air, waulking song, mouth music, pibroch), and the features that mark them (the scotch snap and the drone).

How the styles connect to the other concepts

Style recognition draws on every other heading. A style is identified through its timbre (instruments), its rhythm (swing, snaps, compound time), its melody and harmony (blue notes, drones), its texture and its form. Strong listening uses the concepts from the other headings as evidence for the style.

How styles are examined

1. By ear, across an excerpt. Combine the features to place the style.
2. By naming, not describing. The mark is for the concept term (concerto, jazz, strathspey), never everyday description.
3. Features first. Identify the features, then let them point to the style.
4. Cumulatively. National 5 and Higher concepts are all examinable.

How to study this module

Listen widely and tie features to styles. Build a library of each style's sound and the features that identify it. Use SQA past papers, their audio and the marking instructions to meet the real range of excerpts, and name the features first.

For the official course specification

The SQA publishes the full Higher Music course specification, the question paper, marking instructions and listening excerpt lists at sqa.org.uk. Always revise from the current specification and SQA past papers, because the style list is board-specific.