I just passed California CM advanced test and want to take the AP music theory test next year. My school doesn’t offer AP music theory. Is there an online course to take? How about use Barron’s AP Music Theory book without taking the course?
The AP Music Theory test is very practical and relies very heavily on sightsinging and listening skills instead of actual book knowledge. Unless you have a good ear and a lot of previous knowledge, I wouldn’t recommend self studying it.
I know this is a late reply, but what I think is that if you’ve had prior theory knowledge and/or any experience with an instrument, it’ll be a great course to take. I didn’t have a very good teacher this year, but it wasn’t hard to do well on the exam because it’s really just a huge vocab test. You can find vocabulary lists on Quizlet for free for the AP Theory Exam. For example, you’ll need to know non-chord tones, such as an escape tone. You would need to know that it’s a note that is approached by step and skipped to in the opposite direction. And you’ll need to be able to recognize that in actual sheet music. I received 5’s on both the aural and non-aural parts.