Graduate Division
Admission Requirements
Proficiency Examinations
All new graduate degree students, including graduates of Indiana University, are required to take a number of examinations that serve as proficiency tests or prerequisites for entrance to certain graduate courses. These examinations include music history and literature, music theory, and keyboard proficiencies. Visiting students, as well as students in M.S. degrees (except M.S. in Music Education) and diploma programs, are not subject to these proficiency examinations. Students whose major field is not music performance also take a music performance proficiency examination.
Music Theory Entrance Proficiency and Music History and Literature Entrance Proficiency
The music theory and music history and literature proficiencies may be satisfied in the following ways:
- Students may take and pass the graduate entrance exams. Students must take the exams at the beginning of their first semester of enrollment; they may take them for a second time in their second semester. They may not take them again, nor may they take them after their second semester of enrollment. (Note that this includes summer sessions in which students are enrolled.) Exams are ordinarily given in the week before classes begin each semester.
- Students may enroll in and pass the graduate review courses, as listed in the following section.
Music Theory
These examinations assume that each candidate has had at least two years of training in music theory at the undergraduate level. There are three examinations. The first examination covers written work and analysis, the second covers dictation and aural analysis, and the third covers sight singing. Details are available in the Music Theory Office and on the Music Theory Department Web site: see “Academics,” and then “Graduate Entrance Exams.”
The following High Pass degrees have different standards for passing the examinations and the proficiency courses: M.M. in composition, computer music composition, conducting (choral, orchestral, and wind), and music theory; D.M. in composition, conducting (choral, orchestral, and wind); and Ph.D. in music theory.
The sight-singing exam is graded on a pass/fail basis. A grade of C or higher (B or higher for High Pass degrees) is required in the written theory and aural theory examinations.
Students who do not achieve a passing grade (or High Pass, where required) in their two permitted attempts, or who do not take the examinations, must complete the appropriate proficiency course(s): T508 Written Music Theory Review for Graduate Students (minimum grade C, or B for High Pass degrees), T509 Sight-Singing Review for Graduate Students (minimum grade C), and T511 Aural Music Theory Review for Graduate Students (minimum grade D, or B for High Pass degrees, C for musicology majors—M.A. and Ph.D. degrees).
Music History and Literature
This examination covers music history and literature from antiquity to the present. Questions deal with historical fact, identification of literature, and style recognition. Students who fail to meet minimum requirements on the examination are required to enroll in M541 Music History Review for Graduate Students I and/or M542 Music History Review for Graduate Students II and earn a grade of C or higher in the course.
Keyboard Proficiency Examination
All music graduate students, including those whose principal or proficiency instrument is piano, must pass a keyboard proficiency examination or its equivalent. M.S. candidates (except M.S. in Music Education) do not need to take the exam. Most students will take the examination on piano. Early music majors may take the examination on the harpsichord or lute, guitar majors on the guitar, organ majors on the organ, and harp majors on the harp. Musicology, music theory, and jazz studies students take a departmentally administered exam.
The keyboard proficiency requirement is designed to ensure the student’s ability to use the keyboard as a tool within the framework of professional activities, and the requirements vary according to level and area of music study. Entering students must play a keyboard placement hearing during the orientation period. Students who achieve a superior level at this hearing will satisfy the proficiency requirement. Keyboard proficiency examinations are normally offered in the latter part of each semester or in summer session II. For details, see the secondary piano coordinator or the departmental chairpersons (for early music, guitar, organ, musicology, harp, and jazz studies). Information is also available at www.music.indiana.edu/som/sec_piano.
When keyboard proficiency requirements are identical for two degrees, a student seeking both degrees need not repeat the keyboard proficiency examination if it has been passed for one of the degrees. Students who fail the keyboard proficiency examination may register, with the advice of the secondary piano coordinator or the chairperson, for appropriate courses to assist in developing the required skills.
Students who are candidates for music graduate degrees for areas other than performance and whose performance proficiency instrument (see “Music Performance Proficiency” below) is piano must also complete the keyboard proficiency requirement.
Music Performance Proficiency
All candidates for music graduate degrees in areas other than music performance (composition, conducting, music education, musicology, and music theory) are required to demonstrate in person to a faculty auditioning committee a minimum level of music performance ability equivalent to the end of the fourth year for concentration undergraduate students in that area. Students should consult the appropriate performance department chair for detailed information on the required level.
Proficiency may be demonstrated in any of three ways:
- in person before a faculty auditioning committee, one voting member of which shall be a faculty member in the student’s major area;
- by completion of performance study as a graduate outside area or minor; or
- by two semesters of performance study as a graduate elective. The grade in each semester of performance study must be B or higher.
The performance area must ordinarily be one in which instruction is offered at the 400 level in the Jacobs School of Music. With the support of the departmental chair of their major area, students may petition the director of graduate studies to be allowed to demonstrate this proficiency in another performance area. If the petition is approved, the director of graduate studies will appoint an examination committee of three members of the Jacobs School of Music faculty qualified to judge the student’s performance, including at least one member of a performance department and one member of the student’s major area.
In all cases, failure to meet the required level will automatically indicate probationary status and will require additional music performance study or other remediation in each period of enrollment as a prerequisite to the desired degree.