RCM Level 4 ear tests: clapback, intervals, chords and playback

Listen twice to the rhythm of a short melody (2–4 measures, 3/4 or 4/4 or 6/8), then clap or tap it back.

Two to four measures in 3/4, 4/4 or — new — 6/8, where each beat is a dotted quarter split into three eighths. The dotted eighth and sixteenth also arrive: a long-short figure that's much snappier than the dotted quarter and eighth. The examiner names the time signature, counts one measure and plays twice. One honest note: our Level 4 rhythms can occasionally include a pair of sixteenths, which goes slightly beyond RCM's list — harmless extra practice, so don't be thrown if the exam is simpler.

Name an interval played once, up and then down.

The full Level 1–4 list: minor and major thirds, perfect fourth, perfect fifth and the octave, each played once up and then down. The octave is the same note name, higher or lower — think of the leap at the start of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. Because every interval is heard in both directions, practice naming them downward too: a falling fourth (do to the sol below) and a falling fifth (sol to do) are easy to mix up.

Name a solid major or minor triad, then say whether a single note is its root, third or fifth.

Unchanged from Level 3: name a solid major or minor triad, then hear the triad broken followed by one of its notes and say whether that note is the root, third or fifth. Both questions share 2 marks, and our trainer asks them together as one item. If the broken chord slips away, map its three notes onto do, mi and sol and sing the single note on its syllable: do is the root, mi the third, sol the fifth.

Sing back a melody of six to eight notes, starting on the tonic, mediant or dominant.

Six to eight notes from the first five notes of the scale, starting on the tonic, mediant or dominant, in D major, A major, G minor or C minor. The examiner names the key, plays the tonic chord once and the melody twice. With eight notes, memory matters more than at earlier levels, so remember the tune as two short phrases. Our trainer has you sing or hum it back rather than play it, and checks each note in any octave.