AP Music Theory!

kakaolo99
Sun, 11 May 2008 18:59:22 +0000

My son took the test last year and got a 5,he self-studied for it. Here’s what he wrote in a similar thread,hope it helps:
I took it this year and got a 5 on both parts.

The singing isn’t really stupid; it’s more of a practical demonstration of your skill and knowledge. You don’t need to be a good singer to do well, as long as your rhythm, pitch, and intervals are right. You can even transpose the music if your range isn’t high/low enough.

The listening parts are easy enough if you can focus on the music. Sometimes you won’t get definite answers, so you just have to put down an educated guess. Do the ones that are the easiest first so that you can get easy points.

I actually thought the written theory part was more difficult. There’s a lot of chord progression analysis that you have to do, which I think is more difficult than the listening.

The aural section is easy enough if you have a good ear. Do all the note dictation first, then the chords. As for the dictation, there’s nothing you can really do except learn to recognize intervals and their qualities (major, minor, diminished, augmented).

The hardest part for me was the composition and the voice leading. Just study that heavily and check as many times as you can.

Elbart, I remember the Indian song with the sitar on the background; it was my favorite piece of the test. I hate the opera and vocal pieces. And there weren’t any jazz songs! Once time on a practice test I actually knew the jazz piece that was played, so I could do it without listening to the track.