Final mini-test

1. What should come before reharmonization?

2. What are the two most important outer voices?

3. Why should you reduce complicated harmony before arranging it?

4. How do you decide where to add fills?

5. What makes a secondary dominant effective rather than arbitrary?

6. What should you often design before choosing chromatic chords?

7. What is the role of a climax?

8. Why should an arrangement become simpler again after a climax?

9. What is the most important test of a sophisticated arrangement?

10. What is Level 16 supposed to be?

Answers

1. A clear melody, harmonic skeleton, phrase structure, and stylistic direction.
2. Melody and bass.
3. Because function and voice leading are easier to understand before extensions and decorations obscure them.
4. Use spaces, sustained notes, and phrase gaps where a fill can answer or prepare rather than compete.
5. It clearly points toward its destination and usually has meaningful voice leading, such as G♯→A in E7→Am.
6. A melodic, bass, or inner chromatic line.
7. It provides the arrangement's major point of intensity or arrival.
8. Release creates contrast and lets the climax actually feel significant.
9. Does it make the melody and musical story more convincing, rather than merely displaying techniques?
10. Your edited personal arrangement—using only the techniques that genuinely serve the tune.