AP Theory Syllabus

AP Music Theory Syllabus

West Iredell High School

Chad Evans – Instructor

Fall - 2019

Course Overview

AP Music Theory is designed for students who have an interest in furthering their study of music beyond a performance-based class, and for students that plan to continue music as a career. The course will focus on studying music of the Common Practice period (1600-1900). Students will be expected to take the AP Music Theory Exam administered in May.

General Course Content

• Review and mastery of basic music fundamentals, such as basic elements of pitches, intervals, key signatures, scales, chords, metric organization, and rhythmic pattern

• Build fluency in music notation skills

• Weekly music vocabulary activities

• Weekly drills focusing on note, key signature, interval, and chord identification

• Daily ear training exercises, including rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic dictation

• Regular sight singing practice in class

• Learn to compose an appropriate bass line for a given melody

• Practice in the realization of figured bass and Roman numeral chord progressions

• The study of modes

• Analysis of musical repertoire, including elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, form, and texture

• Composition of short songs complete with functional four-voice harmony in various small forms (e.g. simple binary, rounded binary, theme and variation)

Textbooks

Clendinning, Jane Piper, and Elizabeth West Marvin. The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. [SC8 & SC19]

Phillips, Joel, Jane Piper Clendinning, and Elizabeth West Marvin. The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills Volume 1. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. [SC16]

Required Course Materials

1. Music Theory Notebook: including ALL of the following

   1. Course Syllabus

   2. Ample supply of music staff paper

   3. Ample supply of notebook paper

   4. All handouts given in class

   5. Tests and quizzes

   6. Listening Log

2. Participation in online discussions through Canvas

3. School supplied laptop in order to communicate through email

4. School supplied textbook: The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis

5. School supplied textbook: The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills Volume 1

6. School supplied workbook: The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis Workbook

Expectations of Students

Students are expected to:

1. Participate fully in all classroom activities.

2. Complete all homework and classwork in a timely manner; Late submissions will result in a grade penalty. Not completing assignments is not an option.

3. Maintain their Music Theory notebook

4. Complete the AP Music Theory Exam in May

Grading

Homework – 35%

Daily homework is an expectation of the rigor of this class. There is a great deal of material to cover in a short amount of time. Homework will include assignments to improve abilities in clef reading, chord recognition, harmonic analyses, four-voice composition using figured bass notation, composition, and arrangement.

Tests and Quizzes – 35%

Each chapter in the text will end with a chapter review and test. These tests will include written and/or aural skills covered in the chapter and scaffold upon previously mastered skills.

Sight Singing Tests – 10%

There will be four sight-singing tests during the semester prior to the AP Music Theory Test. Students will be expected to sing a previously unseen melody given a starting pitch. Students will complete this individual assessment outside of class at a time agreed upon by student and instructor.

Class Notebook – 10%

Students are required to keep an organized notebook of music staff paper, notebook paper, handouts, worksheets, and tests throughout the semester.

Weekly Fluency Drills – 10%

At least once a week, there will be very short, timed fluency drills focusing on one specific skill. These exercises will consist of identifying 5-7 elements of various clefs, triads, seventh chords, intervals, key signatures, rhythmic counting, etc. The objective of said drills is to reinforce the concept that students need to work to read music notation fluently.

Course Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, students will be able to:

a. Notate pitch and rhythm according to standard practices.

b. Read and comprehend music written in treble, bass, and movable C clefs.

c. Write and sing major, all three forms of minor, modal, pentatonic, and whole tone scales.

d. Identify intervals found within an octave by sound and sight.

e. Understand common practice and acceptable guidelines of music composition including functional triadic harmony in traditional four-voice texture.

f. Understand tones not native to indicated key/chord and be able to identify said non-chord tones.

g. Harmonize a melody with appropriate chords using appropriate voice leading.

h. Analyze chords (including diatonic triads, seventh chords, and secondary dominants), and their inversions, of a musical composition by Roman numeral analysis.

i. Transpose a composition from one key to another.

j. Identify and compose a musical phrase that modulates between closely related keys.

k. Express musical ideas through composition and arrangement.

l. Recognize and understand basic musical forms and structure.

m. Write simple rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic dictation.

n. Sing a previously unseen melody.

At the end of the course, students will have the skills needed to take the AP Music Theory exam in May and, depending on the score achieved, place out of a first-year college music theory course.

Course Curriculum Map