AP Music Theory

[Toocrazy!!]

Anyone have experience with an online, or self-study class for AP Music Theory? Or other music theory classes?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[GoodGrief]

My daughter did it with PA Homeschoolers. Tough class, despite the fact that she had studied two instruments since her preschool years. She is not a singer and that part was a particular challenge.

[Toocrazy!!]

Thanks, I'll look into that one. He doesn't have NEARLY that much experience. 

[RootAnn]

One thing to think about is why that particular class? Music majors will likely not be able to get out of it via the AP score (from what I understand). I haven't had a kid take it, but I have seen others mention how tough it is.

[Roadrunner]

I believe PAH is the only place online. I decided to have my child take this class without the exam and just label it Music Theory (not AP). Our goal is knowledge only. 

I read here that quality of recording can be terrible on the exam. 

[Toocrazy!!]

7 hours ago, RootAnn said:

One thing to think about is why that particular class? Music majors will likely not be able to get out of it via the AP score (from what I understand). I haven't had a kid take it, but I have seen others mention how tough it is.

 He thinks he is interested in music technology / production as a college major, but he doesn't have a lot of music experience.  He has self taught himself a lot, but this sounds like it is way  more advanced than his knowledge. 

I'm trying to find a way to show him he needs more musical knowledge for this type of career, but I know NOTHING about what he needs to know, study, or what kind of talent he needs in order to study this. 

We thought this might be a way to legitimize his studying, but it sounds like it's way too advanced for him. 

Thanks for the feedback! 

[mumto2]

I am going to link this more as an FYI than a suggestion because it is music theory exams with smaller steps.  We aren’t a musical family but all of the kids friends have been intensely involved with these exams.  The grade eight is super hard.  https://gb.abrsm.org/en/our-exams/

[J-rap]

My ds took this when he was in high school.  He was mostly homeschooled but took a couple classes at the public school.  He was allowed to study homeschool classes at the public high school if he wanted to.  It was an unusual arrangement.  We were able to talk a friend of ours -- who is the high school choir teacher -- into teaching this one-on-one to our ds at the public school.  The teacher had never taught AP music theory before and it was a challenge even for him.  Our ds had just a little music background.  He took piano lessons until 7th grade, and he was in some children's choirs and really enjoyed it.  He had a particular interest though in classical music and just really, really wanted to have a better understanding of the theory.  It was a tough class, but he loved it.  The teacher did too.  In fact, after that year, the teacher decided to make it an open class at the high school.  To this day I'm amazed that he agreed to take his study time between classes to work with our ds.  They didn't actually meet every day, but probably 2-3 days/week.  My ds did a lot of work on his own.

[Dicentra]

Dd took AP Music Theory in Grade 10 and received a 5 but she already had a fairly strong background in music and music theory.  At that point, she was working on Level 10 Royal Conservatory Piano and the theory that goes along with it.

If you're interested in the Royal Conservatory program, it has branches in both Canada and the US.  Here's the main theory page on their website - it has lots of sample pages to help you figure out what level your student is at:

https://www.rcmusic.com/about-us/rcm-publishing/celebrate-theory

This is the link for the bookstore where you can buy their theory books (look to the upper right to switch to USD):

https://bookstore.rcmusic.com/books2-59/theory.html?product_list_limit=30

The levels don't correspond with school grade levels so don't worry if your student needs to start in a lower level, don't panic. ?

Here's a PDF of their entire theory syllabus that explains what's done at each level:

https://www.rcmusic.com/sites/default/files/files/S44_TheorySyl_2016_ONLINE_RCM_V2_F.PDF

They have some free apps, too, up to Level 4:

https://www.rcmusic.com/learning/digital-learning/music-theory-apps

Your student doesn't have to take the corresponding exams from the Royal Conservatory but they could if they wanted to.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.  Dd has done a LOT of exams through the RCM and I even did some myself when I was young - I know the program quite well. ?

[Roadrunner]

3 minutes ago, Dicentra said:

Dd took AP Music Theory in Grade 10 and received a 5 but she already had a fairly strong background in music and music theory.  At that point, she was working on Level 10 Royal Conservatory Piano and the theory that goes along with it.

If you're interested in the Royal Conservatory program, it has branches in both Canada and the US.  Here's the main theory page on their website - it has lots of sample pages to help you figure out what level your student is at:

https://www.rcmusic.com/about-us/rcm-publishing/celebrate-theory

This is the link for the bookstore where you can buy their theory books (look to the upper right to switch to USD):

https://bookstore.rcmusic.com/books2-59/theory.html?product_list_limit=30

The levels don't correspond with school grade levels so don't worry if your student needs to start in a lower level, don't panic. ?

Here's a PDF of their entire theory syllabus that explains what's done at each level:

https://www.rcmusic.com/sites/default/files/files/S44_TheorySyl_2016_ONLINE_RCM_V2_F.PDF

They have some free apps, too, up to Level 4:

https://www.rcmusic.com/learning/digital-learning/music-theory-apps

Your student doesn't have to take the corresponding exams from the Royal Conservatory but they could if they wanted to.

If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.  Dd has done a LOT of exams through the RCM and I even did some myself when I was young - I know the program quite well. ?

Is here one comprehensive book?

I can teach it, so solutions manual isn’t an issue.

[Dicentra]

1 minute ago, Roadrunner said:

Is here one comprehensive book?

I can teach it, so solutions manual isn’t an issue.

Not that has all the levels together, no.  If you look at the syllabus, it will give you an overview of what's taught in each level.

This is an older book that covers what used to be called Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Music Theory:

https://bookstore.rcmusic.com/elementary-rudiments-of-music-2nd-edition.html

I think that would take a student roughly up to Level 8 or so.  But the new program (with books for every level) incorporates history and listening in each level and the older book doesn't.  It's just straight, dry music theory. ?  The first edition of that book is what I remember learning music theory from. ?

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, Dicentra said:

Not that has all the levels together, no.  If you look at the syllabus, it will give you an overview of what's taught in each level.

This is an older book that covers what used to be called Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Music Theory:

https://bookstore.rcmusic.com/elementary-rudiments-of-music-2nd-edition.html

I think that would take a student roughly up to Level 8 or so.  But the new program (with books for every level) incorporates history and listening in each level and the older book doesn't.  It's just straight, dry music theory. ?  The first edition of that book is what I remember learning music theory from. ?

 

I am tempted to get a college text and work through it. He has perfect pitch, which makes ear training/dictation easy (thankfully), but we need a more thorough approach on harmony. Thanks for this recommendation. My fallback is an AP course without exam. 

[Arcadia]

18 hours ago, Toocrazy!! said:

 He thinks he is interested in music technology / production as a college major, but he doesn't have a lot of music experience.  

We thought this might be a way to legitimize his studying, but it sounds like it's way too advanced for him. 

 

My DS13 is interested in music technology as a hobby. We are planning on him taking some music technology courses at the community college to satisfy the fine arts credit for high school and for him to have fun. He has taken rudimentary music theory and music composition classes at the art and music center and find he likes music composition a lot more. He would learn music theory for the sake of music composition but he has no interest in learning music theory to pass an exam unless it happens to be a prerequisite for a course he wants to take.

[Dicentra]

5 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

 

I am tempted to get a college text and work through it. He has perfect pitch, which makes ear training/dictation easy (thankfully), but we need a more thorough approach on harmony. Thanks for this recommendation. My fallback is an AP course without exam. 

 

I didn't know he had perfect pitch - my daughter does, too! ?  It does make ear training easier but it really messes her up when she is sight singing a piece, particularly with a choral group, and the conductor decides to transpose it but still give the singers the original score.  Everyone else is singing intervals so as long as they are given a starting note, they're fine but she's used to singing each note as written so now she has to transpose in her head on the fly. ?  I told her that that's why she still needed to learn intervals even though she had perfect pitch!  Dd did the whole RCM harmony program so he could work through Levels 9, 10, and ARCT Harmony (10 and ARCT are called Harmony and Counterpoint) or however many levels he wanted to get some harmony knowledge.  Dd did Keyboard Harmony for ARCT and she liked it much better than the written Harmony program.

He posted a recording of a recital he did in his introduction for the chem course.  He plays beautifully! ?

[Roadrunner]

19 minutes ago, Dicentra said:

 

I didn't know he had perfect pitch - my daughter does, too! ?  It does make ear training easier but it really messes her up when she is sight singing a piece, particularly with a choral group, and the conductor decides to transpose it but still give the singers the original score.  Everyone else is singing intervals so as long as they are given a starting note, they're fine but she's used to singing each note as written so now she has to transpose in her head on the fly. ?  I told her that that's why she still needed to learn intervals even though she had perfect pitch!  Dd did the whole RCM harmony program so he could work through Levels 9, 10, and ARCT Harmony (10 and ARCT are called Harmony and Counterpoint) or however many levels he wanted to get some harmony knowledge.  Dd did Keyboard Harmony for ARCT and she liked it much better than the written Harmony program.

He posted a recording of a recital he did in his introduction for the chem course.  He plays beautifully! ?

 

Did having perfect pitch make the exam any easier? We don’t need the score at all. He wants to do some composing and it would really help to have some serious grounding in theory, but I do wonder sometimes if it’s worth attempting the exam. 

And thank you ? I wish he would put in more time.  

[Dicentra]

15 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

 

Did having perfect pitch make the exam any easier? We don’t need the score at all. He wants to do some composing and it would really help to have some serious grounding in theory, but I do wonder sometimes if it’s worth attempting the exam. 

And thank you ? I wish he would put in more time.  

 

I think it probably did.  She's always done extremely well with ear tests and sight singing and the perfect pitch definitely helped with those.  She did say that the AP exam is very... specialized.  Like, she needed to learn to do things in a very specific way in order to get the marks.  In terms of overall knowledge, I don't know how helpful that is.  But I suppose the same could be said for lots of the AP exams. ?

She composes, too, and theory/harmony knowledge has been very beneficial.  I think one of the best things she did in terms of becoming a better musician/composer was to learn to improvise.  Knowing the 1) structure of music from her studies of theory and harmony and 2) also knowing her keys/chords (plus inversions) so well as to have them be second-nature were the two things that really helped her composing take off.

He's young and there's so much to do when one is young - he may put in more time someday. ?  Even so, his clarity of tone is wonderful!  And he posted his performance of a Chopin piece.  I love Chopin. ?

[Dmmetler]

A good music theory/ear training background is always useful for a music major. AP theory is much less so-most schools don’t give credit for it for music majors, and for non-majors, it’s a really, really hard way to get a general Ed requirement that can be met in much easier and more fun ways. Most schools have their own placement tests. I believe there is a good online theory class available through Berklee either on EdX or Coursera. 

[Roadrunner]

13 hours ago, dmmetler said:

A good music theory/ear training background is always useful for a music major. AP theory is much less so-most schools don’t give credit for it for music majors, and for non-majors, it’s a really, really hard way to get a general Ed requirement that can be met in much easier and more fun ways. Most schools have their own placement tests. I believe there is a good online theory class available through Berklee either on EdX or Coursera. 

 

Berklee offers a ton of theory courses online, but they are $1200+ for each. 

Are you referring to their 6 week free course? That seems too short.

[Roadrunner]

And OP, if you decide on self study without the class, I once posted a thread on music theory texts and got some recommendations, which led me to buy and use the Norton programmed text. We have only used volume 1 and it is very easy to use and has answers right there as you work along. It covers the basics in a very light way. So you might want to take a look at it. It won’t have any ear training though. 

 

This is the link to vokume 1

https://www.amazon.com/Scales-Intervals-Triads-Rhythm-Meter/dp/0393951898/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1540744267&sr=8-14&keywords=Norton+music+theory

 

 

[GoodGrief]

I think my earlier post on the topic sounded too discouraging, so I want to follow up and say that ultimately my daughter did get a 5 on the exam. However, it's not like you can just waltz into this course and expect that it will be a piece of cake, even with a music background. The course did have value for her because it allowed her to touch on topics in music that had not come up in her various experiences. It's good to go into the course being aware that this may pose some challenges.

[Toocrazy!!]

I appreciate all the links and advice. I admit, I don't know anything about music and I'm pretty sure he has no clue how much musical knowledge you really need to be involved in a musical career of any sort. He has no experience other than a year of piano lessons through the high school and what he has learned trying to teach himself on his computer. He's smart and a quick learner, so I think he's completely underestimated how hard this will be for him. 

I'm not really sure where to go with him on this. He did one of the free berklee classes online last year, but it wasn't exactly what he wanted either.

I have only found one college that has something similar to what he wants to do that doesn't require a music submission of some sort. Of course, he is a sophomore and who knows what he'll want to do when he gets to college! This is certainly not a life long obsession, although looking back I can tell that he has always had a natural instinct and interest in music. 

I think the local CC classes might be a good idea. I'll look around and see what we have that might fit. I'd like him to get more exposure somehow. I don't want to ruin his dream, but I would like to open his eyes.