Advanced Placement Music – Syllabus
M.J. Cotton – School Year 2010-2011
Course Description:
The Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory course enables highly motivated students to
do college level work in the areas of reading and analyzing notated music and aural training.
Particular emphasis will be placed upon developing listening skills, sight singing ability and
knowledge of rhythm, melody, harmony, form and other compositional devices. The
successful student will be endowed with the skills necessary to function intelligently in any
musical situation. The work of the course will emphasize preparation for the advanced
placement music theory examination.
Course Objectives:
The ultimate goal of the Advanced Placement Music Theory course is to develop a student’s
ability to recognize, understand, and describe the basic materials and processes of music
that are heard or presented in a score. The achievement of this goal may be best promoted
by integrated approaches to the student’s development of:
· Aural skills – through listening exercises
· Sight-singing skills – through performance exercises
· Written skills – through written exercises
· Compositional skills – through creative exercises
· Analytical skills – through analytical exercises
The AP Music Theory Exam
This course is designed to prepare you for the AP Music Theory Exam in May 2011.
The AP Examination in Music Theory tests the student's understanding of musical structure
and compositional procedures through recorded and notated examples. Strong emphasis is
given to listening skills, particularly those involving recognition and comprehension of
melodic and rhythmic patterns, harmonic functions, small forms, and compositional
techniques. Most of the musical examples are taken from standard repertoire, although
some examples of contemporary, jazz, or vernacular music, or music beyond the Western
tradition are included for testing basic concepts. The examination assumes fluency in
reading musical notation and a strong grounding in music fundamentals, terminology, and
analysis.
The AP Music Theory Exam is about two and a half hours long and consists of two sections.
Section I consists of 75 multiple-choice questions, some of which are based on aural
stimulus. Section II consists of written free-response questions and sight-singing exercises.
Many of our in-class assignments and homework will be drill and practice types of
assignments (formative) offered to help you master new skills. These will be graded on a
pass/fail type of point system. Other assignments and tests will be standard assessment
style assignments given to measure your level of mastery (summative). These will be
graded using a four point “mastery learning” scale.
Classroom Management
The classroom rules are as follows:
1. Follow directions the first time they are given.
2. Respect all people and property
3. DO NOT lose materials you are provided.
In the event you choose to not follow a classroom rule, you are subject to the following (not
in any order of severity): isolation, detention, cleaning crew, and administrative referral.
If you are asked to go out side for a moment, this is not necessarily a bad thing. This gives
you and I the time to reflect before we tackle the real problem at hand. Please DO take the
time to think about why I sent you out and be ready to have a conversation about ways we
can fix these problems in the future.
Computer Guidelines
Students have the privilege, not the right, to use computers at STERN Mass. If you are
caught using computers or adjusting the settings of a computer, you will be banned from the
use of the computer for the entire semester. This is your ONLY warning about this.
MAKE-UP WORK - It is YOUR responsibility to find out what you missed when you were
absent. Homework is due the next class day after the date of absence. All exams missed due
to excused absences must be made up within a week of the date of the absence. Written
portions of exams will be administered only during office hours. Portions of the test
requiring performance or listening will be administered by appointment after school.
NO LATE WORK, NO RETAKES. PERIOD.
Office Hours
Students is AP Music Theory may come by my room Wednesday or Thursday after school
from 3:30-4:30 by appointment for help. My e-mail address is mcotton@laalliance.org.
Email is the BEST way to communicate with me. AIM: sternmassmusic
CLASS ORGANIZATION
Classes will be divided weekly into the following blocks:
Monday
Theory (1h 30m)
Ear Training (ET) and
Sight Singing (SS) 30 Min
Wednesday
Theory (1h 30m)
ET and SS 30 Min
Friday
ET and SS Lab
AP Music Class Standards (Links to National Music Standards [NMS])
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Musical Terminology (NMS 5)
A. Terms for intervals, triads, seventh chords, scales, and modes
B. Terms pertaining to rhythm and meter, melodic construction and variation,
harmonic function, cadences and phrase structure, texture, small forms, and musical
performance.
Notational Skills (NMS 4, 5)
A. Rhythms and meters
B. Clefs and pitches
C. Key signatures, scales, and modes
D. Intervals and chords
E. Melodic transposition
Basic Compositional Skills (NMS 4, 5)
A. Four-voice realization of figured-bass symbols and Roman numerals
B. Composition of a bass line (with chord symbols) for a given melody
Score Analysis (with or without aural stimulus) (NMS 6)
A. Small-scale and large-scale harmonic procedures, including:
1. identification of cadence types
2. Roman-numeral and figured-bass analysis, including nonharmonic tones,
seventh chords, and secondary-dominant chords
3. identification of key centers and key relationships; recognition of
modulation to closely related keys
B. Melodic organization and developmental procedures
1. scales (e.g., major, minor, pentatonic, whole-tone, modal)
2. motivic development and relationships (e.g., inversion, retrograde,
sequence, imitation)
C. Rhythmic/metric organization
1. meter type (e.g., duple, triple, quadruple, irregular) and beat type (e.g.,
simple, compound)
2. rhythmic devices and procedures (e.g., augmentation, diminution,
hemiola)
D. Texture
1. types (e.g., monophony, homophony, polyphony)
2. devices (e.g., imitation, canon)
E. Formal devices and/or procedures
1. phrase structure
2. phrases in combination (e.g., period, double period, phrase group)
3. small forms
Aural Skills (NMS 1, 2, 6, 7)
A. Sight-singing (major and minor modes, treble and bass clefs, diatonic and chromatic
melodies, simple and compound meters)
B. Melodic dictation (major and minor modes, treble and bass clefs, diatonic and
chromatic melodies, simple and compound meters)
C. Harmonic dictation (notation of soprano and bass lines and harmonic analysis in a
four-voice texture)
D. Identification of isolated pitch and rhythmic patterns
E. Detection of errors in pitch and rhythm in one- and two-voice examples
F. Identification of processes and materials in the context of music literature
representing a broad spectrum of genres, media, and styles
1. melodic organization (e.g., scale-degree function of specified tones, scale
types, mode, contour, sequences, motivic development)
2. harmonic organization (e.g., chord function, inversion, quality)
3. tonal organization (e.g., cadence types, key relationships)
4. meter and rhythmic patterns
5.
6.
7.
instrumentation (i.e., identification of timbre)
texture (e.g., number and position of voices, degree of independence,
presence of imitation, density)
formal procedures (e.g., phrase structure; distinctions among literal
repetition, varied repetition, and contrast; small forms)
AP MUSIC COURSE CALENDAR (Monthly Calendars will be more detailed and may
reflect adjustments to the following):
September
Theory:
Unit 1: Physics of Sound: Overtone series, Properties of Sound, Vibration Elements of
Music
Unit 2: Fundamentals of Melody, Timbre, Meter, Harmony, Texture, Rhythm
Unit 3: Rhythm and Pitch: Meter, basic notation, clefs, accidentals, enharmonic
equivalents, grand staff, writing music manuscript
Unit 4: Scales and Modes: Major, minor, modal, pentatonic, whole-tone scales, others,
relative keys, parallel keys, tonality, circle of 5ths
Unit 5: Intervals and inversions
ET: Melodic and harmonic intervals, rhythm patterns
SS: Learning Solfege
October Theory:
Review Units 1-5
Unit 6: Harmony, chord spelling, triads and inversions, roman numerals, scale degree
names, figured bass, analysis symbols, seventh chord symbols
Unit 7: Cadence types, non-harmonic tones
ET: Chords and Chord Inversions
SS: Introduction to melody and chords
November Theory:
Review Units 6-7
Unit 8: Voice Leading in Two Voices, Species Counterpoint
Chapter 9: Texture and texture types
Chapter 10: Melodic Organization: Motive, Sequence, Phrase, Period, Melodic
Structure
ET: Cadences, Simple progressions
SS: Simple chord progressions, more complex or longer melodies including
skips and more advanced rhythms by group and individually
December Theory:
Review Units 8-10
Unit 11: Voice leading rules, soprano/bass lines, four-part texture, doubling,
parallelism, 6/4 chords, common chord progressions, realization of a Roman numeral
progression and harmonic analysis
Unit 12: Harmonic progressions, root relationships, descending 5th relationships,
harmonization of melody, realization of a Roman numeral progression.
ET: Melodic and harmonic intervals, rhythm patterns
SS: Simple chord progressions, more complex or longer melodies including
skips and more advanced rhythms by group and individually
January Theory:
Review Units 11-12
Unit 13: Seventh chords and resolutions, realization of Roman numeral progressions.
ET: More Melodic dictation and chord progressions
SS: More melodies including minor
February Theory:
Review Unit 13
Unit 14: Modulation, pivot chords, other types of modulation
Unit 15: Secondary Dominants, secondary leading tone chords
ET: More Melodic dictation and chord progressions
SS: More melodies including minor
March Theory:
Review Units 14-15
Unit 16: Form
ET: Samples from Previous AP Tests.
SS: Samples from Previous AP Tests.
Take Sample AP Exam
April Theory:
Review Unit 16: Form
ET: Samples from Previous AP Tests.
SS: Samples from Previous AP Tests.
Take Sample AP Exam
May Theory:
Review for and Take the AP Music Test
Major Analysis Project
ET/SS: June Concert Music
June Theory:
Composition Project and Performances @ CSULA
ET/SS: June Concert Music