<p>Hi guys! This is my first post on here, so sorry if I mess anything up.
I'm currently a Freshman in High School and I've been playing piano for 8 years now. I plan on taking the RCM9 Advanced Rudiments test in May and I think I have all of the material down. I'm wondering how hard it would be to self-study AP Music Theory in 2 months in order to take the AP exam in May. (and score well on it)
Unlike most of the people starting these APMT discussions on here, I do NOT have perfect pitch, sadly :(. Since I'm only a Freshman, I have tons of free time and I'm willing to work my booty off with Barron's and the CollegeBoard practice tests. My piano teacher has also agreed to help me with it.
I'm also confused about the application process. They don't offer the course at my school, so how do I sign up?
Thank you EVERYONE in advance! Any help (past experiences, tips, tricks, predictions, etc.) is greatly appreciated <3</p>
<p>There are lots of websites where you can practice rhythmic dictation and harmonic dictation. Since the RCM program also includes lots of theory, you should be fine.</p>
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<p>Talk to whoever the AP Coordinator is at your school. They can still order the test for you even if the school does not offer the course.</p>
<p>Your AP Coordinator should be able to set you up. As long as your school offers ANY ap classes, he or she should be able to order the test for you to take on the designated day and time.</p>
<p>At one point, I was thinking about taking the AP Music Theory test as well. Both my band and choir directors warned me that most schools don’t accept AP Music Theory credit, since they prefer you take a placement test to start at a level of music theory if you intend to major in it in college. But it does show determination to college admission officers. </p>
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<p>If I don’t plan on majoring in music in college, can the AP Music Theory credit count towards an elective/humanities credit? </p>
<p>The AP Music Theory exam is in two sections (ear training and written). And since you don’t have perfect pitch, I might suggest taking ear training lessons with a private teacher who is familiar with the exam, or at a CC, so you can at least develop some relative pitch. Also, while RCM theory will help, no doubt, AP Music Theory mostly focuses on diatonic theory, so you’re going to be tested on tons of figured bass, suspensions, choral dictation, and a lot of other elements that are not covered in regular keyboard theory. I remember the ear training section being really hard, but part of what I learned in my AP class was how to get partial credit on these exercises i.e if you get the bass line down, they give you half credit (which totally saved my butt). Overall, I’ve always been pretty good at theory, but looking back, there’s no way I would have passed the AP Music Theory exam without taking the class first…</p>