Song ardent student discovered round capital (8)
I believe the answer is:
madrigal
'song' is the definition.
(madrigal is a kind of song)
'ardent student discovered round capital' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'student' could be 'dr' (Dr is an example) and 'dr' is found within the answer.
'capital' could be 'ai' (resembles 'A1', old-fashioned term for excellent) and 'ai' is located in the leftover letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for madrigal that I've seen before include "Elaborate part song" , "Part song for unaccompanied voices" , "Part-song" , "Drag Liam around to hear an unaccompanied song" , "Unaccompanied harmonised part song" .)