Harmonic Dictation

This collection of four-part harmonic dictations is divided into three levels of increasing difficulty. All dictations are in C major or A minor and begin with the tonic triad in root position. Level 1 is completely diatonic and always ends with an authentic cadence (V-I) or deceptive cadence (V-VI). Level 2 introduces the Neapolitan chord (bII6) and applied dominants to closely related keys (i.e., maximum one accidental away from the main key). In Level 2, each exercise ends with an authentic, deceptive, or half cadence. Level 3 contains 42 harmonic progressions, each of which is given in all three starting positions (i.e., octave, third, or fifth position, referring to the starting interval of the outer voices), making 126 exercises in total. In Level 3, Italian, French, and German augmented 6th chords and augmented triads (I+ and V+) are introduced, and the exercises go from 9 chords each in Levels 1 and 2 to 13 chords in Level 3. Audio files are provided in mp3 format with stereo pan between the upper voices and the bass in Levels 2 and 3, which allows the listener to make the bass louder. The solutions are provided in PDF, Sibelius, and musicxml formats.