Module 23 mini-test

1. What is the main purpose of an intro?

2. What is a fill?

3. What is a turnaround?

4. What is one of the easiest ways to create an intro?

5. Why should fills usually be short?

6. What is the classic I–vi–ii–V turnaround in C?

7. What is a richer version using a secondary dominant?

8. Why can C6/9 be a particularly satisfying final tonic?

9. What is a tag ending?

10. What is the most important rule when adding fills around a melody?

Answers

1. To establish key, mood, tempo/style, and prepare the melody's entrance.
2. A short musical response played in space left by the main melody.
3. A short progression that redirects the harmony toward the next phrase or another cycle of the form.
4. Use the song's final two or four bars/cadence before starting.
5. Because they should support and answer the melody rather than compete with it.
6. Cmaj7 → Am7 → Dm7 → G7
7. Cmaj7 → A7 → Dm7 → G7
8. It gives major tonic color without the leading-tone tension of the major 7th and has an open, settled sound.
9. Repeating the final phrase or progression, often with variation, before the final cadence.
10. Leave room for the melody and its next entrance.

The central lesson of Module 23 is:

An arrangement is not only what you play during the melody. It is also how you invite the melody in, how you answer it, how you move between its ideas, and how you let it leave.

Next comes Module 24 — Jazz Ballad Style. We’ll take all of this material and finally use it as a unified style: spacious left-hand bass, guide-tone and extended voicings, rubato intros, melody-on-top voicing, fills, delayed resolutions, reharmonization, and a complete jazz-ballad treatment of a simple tune.