AP Music Theory: Curricular Requirements

• The teacher has read the most recent AP Music Theory Course Description.
• The course enables students to master the rudiments and terminology of music: notational skills, intervals, scales, keys, chords, meter, and rhythm.
• The course progresses to include more sophisticated and creative tasks:
  • Writing a bass line for a given melody or harmonization of a given melody in four parts
  • Realization of a figured bass
  • Realization of a Roman numeral progression
  • Analysis of repertoire, including analysis of motivic treatment and harmonic analysis 
• The course includes the following scales: major, minor, modal, pentatonic, and whole tone.
• The course covers the following concepts or procedures based in common-practice tonality:
  • Functional triadic harmony in traditional four-voice texture including non-harmonic tones, seventh chords, and secondary dominants.
  • Modulation to closely related keys
• The course also teaches:
  • Phrase structure
  • Small forms (e.g., rounded binary, simple ternary, theme and variation, strophic)
• Musical skills are developed through the following types of musical exercises:
  • Listening (discrete intervals, scales, etc.; dictations; excerpts from literature)
  • Sight-singing
  • Written exercises
  • Creative exercises
• The course includes, but is not limited to, study of a wide variety of vocal and instrumental music from the standard Western tonal repertoires.

Resource Requirements

• The school ensures that each student has access to his or her own copy of a recently published college-level music theory textbook (or equivalent materials approved by the AP Music Theory Development Committee).
• The school provides access to audio equipment and materials that facilitate listening practice for the students throughout the course. This equipment can include cassette or compact disc players.
• The school ensures that each AP Music Theory classroom includes a piano or electronic keyboard and sound reproduction equipment (such as a stereo or boom box). (CDs played on a computer do not enable students to hear the bass, so such sound reproduction is not acceptable for this course.)