<p>First of all, my school does not offer a music theory class. that said, i been a devoted jazz student since 7th grade, and am very competent in the area of jazz theory and composition. However, i realize that the music theory AP test is a lot different (classical theory), and it would take a lot of work on my part to get a 5 on it. Recommendations/Comments are appreciated. Oh, and are there any good AP MT books?</p>
<p>Ok, first off the AP music theory exam has no area of content that covers jazz theory and composition. The hardest thing about the exam is the fact that there are actually two entirely different sides of theory that are tested: aural and nonaural. (see the collegeboard.com description of theory for additional info.) The grade breakdown on the test, just FYI, is 45% aural, 45% nonaural, and 10% sight singing. The aural part consists of around 40-50 multiple choice questions, two melodic dictations and two harmonic dictations. (though technically, sightsinging is aural as well, though it is a separate 10% of the score). The nonaural section consists of MC questions without aural stimuli as well as FRQs 5-7. While this section is easier than the aural section, it is still comprehensive in form, covering many topics. The book I used, tonal harmony, is very thorough in its coverage of various topics ( a little too much so for the AP exam). sadly there are no review books for theory like PR or barrons, so i got stuck rereading the textbook. It would take a concerted effort on your effort to make a five. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>AP:</a> Music Theory</p>
<p>This should help a lot for self studying purposes.</p>
<p>thanks for the reply, Puma</p>
<p>So how much ear training did you have to do previous to the exam? Could you explain the melodic/harmonic dictations a bit more? How hard do you think it would for me to turn my knowledge of jazz theory into a solid foundation to help me on the AP? (harmony and stuff is pretty much the same, except for tritone subs, etc.</p>
<p>i know it's a lot of questions, but i really want to know a bit about this test, and how realistic it would be for me to get a 5 before committing. thnx!</p>
<p>ah, thnx for the link. a lot of good info. also, for sight-singing. is the main focus pitch or rhythm? or perhaps they have the same weight?</p>
<p>Thanks for your help on my thread, btw! Anyway, to answer your questions, I was the exception in my class in the area of ear training. Everyone else had a lot of trouble with the melodic dictation but I have good relative pitch and found it easy. I would say we did about ten practice melodic dictations before the exam; however, make sure you can dictate in both simple (4/4) and compound (6/8) time signatures as well as in major and minor keys. The melodic dictations are played using various instruments or a voice (last year it was a bassoon and a voice, year before a cello and a trombone). For the harmonic dictation, a four part harmony will be played on a poiano and you must notate the soprano voice, the bass voice and the chord progression. The following link has better info on the scoring guidelines for the harmonic dictation (<a href="http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_questions/2006.html)%5B/url%5D">http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_questions/2006.html)</a>.
Your jazz knowledge can at best be considered rudimentary knowledge for the exam. The topic list is quite comprehensive, including composing a bass line, a four part harmony using 18th century voice leading techniques, hemiolas, cadences, voice leading errors, chords and their roman numerals in the key, inversion, intervals, etc. (the list goes on.......). The best way to enhance your knowledge would be to use a text book and consult a past AP music theory exam available for 25 dollars via collegeboard. I forgot to mention that the exam has two subscores, one in aural and one in nonaural, that will each recieve a score of 1-5. These scores together compose your composite score.
Regarding your sight singing question, both rhythm and pitch are tested equally. The graders award points to half measures that are correct in both pitch and rythym. However, if all pitch is off but the rhythym is right, it is possible to get 2 out of 9 points, just FYI. For responses that are sung in a confident manner, an extra point is awarded (flow point).
Basically, the nonaural portion of the exam is very suited to self studying while the aural section depends on you and your aural skills. hope this helps!!</p>
<p>thanks for that really helpful post! Just looking at the material covered, (non-aural), it looks like i could get half of it right. the only problem is what you said with the 4-part harmony and how i have to write it out on staff paper. If you only get it played to you once, i see how it can be very hard to pick out every part of the harmony. hm... better get working on that. I don't think the theory looks that hard, the terminology is just slightly different than jazz. The sight singing might be a problem, my rhythm is perfect but my pitch, alas, is not. i'm interested in buying a test online, but i wanted to know if it comes on a CD or something, because obviously there are parts that are played for you and also parts that you need to record. once again, thanks muchly for the help!</p>
<p>You only need to write the soprano and bass parts of the 4 part harmony, and you hear it more than once. Ive played piano for like 7 years, saxophone for 9, guitar for 3, and sung for 5 with voice lessons. I self studied and got a 5 with a 4 on the nonaural. You just have to learn the vocab: most of it is stuff you already know if youve been playing music for awhile. For example, anacrusis means pickup. Then you have to know a bit about voice leading and Roman numeral chords and stuff like that. I had some help with this because Ive been arranging vocal music for a couple years. My suggestion on that would be to not worry about every last specific voice leading rule, because theres a ton of them and theyll just throw you off if you havent learned them in the classroom. Just write stepwise following the chords, keep some common tones when you can, and dont write any of the forbidden intervals (parallel 5ths, octaves, unison), and you should be fine on it.</p>
<p>Youre right that its an entirely different type of music tested, but you can learn the vocab and stuff. The part that everybody finds hard, the ear training parts, you should probably have down if youve played for so long.</p>
<p>my ear training isn't that great, unfortunatly. most of the time i have to play around on my guitar a little bit to figure out the exact notation. and also what you say about the "forbidden intervals" worries me a bit. playing jazz, there are it is actually ok to use all of those intervals you mentioned (even tritone). i'm not saying that i can't do it, i just don't know if the time spent self studying would be worth the result.</p>
<p>For the four-part harmony, all you have to do is memorize the set of rules (there's about 9) and remember them when writing the parts. Getting a book or finding a good website would be useful for this.</p>
<p>I think it's definitely worth the result. Even if you don't get a great score, you will have expanded your knowledge of music theory.</p>
<p>The only problem with AP Music theory is that no one will recognize it in the end. You'd be better off doing some official music exam, a conservatory equivalent, depending on where you live.</p>
<p>so, as i understand it, taking music theory AP is good for not much else than a slap on the back and bragging rights about taking a music theory exam... i think it would be much more beneficial to me at this point to keep at jazz, as i don't think classical theory is very relevant once you get into jazz a bit.</p>
<p>Well if you're talking about admissions to colleges, not conservatories, then taking the AP certainly has merit. If you get a solid score on it, it shows how intense your lessons were: some kids write down "piano for 12 years" because they took lessons when they were 5 and can play Heart and Soul. If you've aced the Music Theory final without taking the class, you obviously know more than that kid and have had a more fruitful extracurricular music career. Whether you know it or not, your previous music training helps a ton on the exam; you're more prepared than you'd think.</p>
<p>im gonna take this my senior year because i dont wanna spend big bux</p>
<p>on the books</p>
<p>do you think it would still be beneficial if i took the test senior year? i'm going to be a junior next year and i'm already swamped with APs/Standardized tests... idk anymore. i really want to take the test, but i really don't know if i have the time for it...</p>
<p>yeah thats what im gonna do</p>