AP Music Theory with almost no prior knowledge?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Hi, I’m taking an online class next semester (which starts tomorrow) through Georgia Virtual School, and I don’t know if APMT would be a good fit. I took some piano lessons a few months ago, but stopped when school started back up, and I thought that by enrolling in AP Music Theory I would have an excuse to focus on practicing and learning how to play my piano an hour or two each day. I’ve never taken any other music theory class, and I know how to read basic sheet music.

How much of a challenge would the class be? I’m in the top 2 of my class and have gotten 5’s on Calculus BC, Statistics, and Chemistry (math and science utilize the same part of the brain that plays instruments, if I remember correctly), so that might give me some advantage to learning the material proficiently. And tomorrow will be the start of the second semester of my senior year, so I can’t take any preparatory music classes or anything. And I’m used to doing a few hours of homework every night, if that counts for anything.

It’s either this or AP Computer Science A. So would it be a very strenuous feat but not impossible? Or should I not even attempt this?

2

If you’ve had some prior experience with music, I don’t think AP Music Theory will be impossible. I’m taking it this year, and although I’ve had 10 years of piano and 7 years of violin, I’ve never done any formal theory training. The beginning of the course is very basic note reading, scales, intervals, and triads. All can be learned pretty easily if you’re familiar with reading music. I have found piano especially to be very helpful in visualizing different intervals.
The core of the course, four-part choral writing, was completely new to me. I am also a math person, and I have found it to be very logic-based and fun for that reason. If you enjoy math and problem solving I think you will enjoy applying those things to AP Music Theory.