AP Music Theory – Take the test without the class?

My school doesn’t offer AP Music Theory, but I’m interested in taking the AP exam.

I would go for it, but definitely take several months to prepare.

With your strong background in piano theory and piano playing, you should already be familiar enough with scales, keys, modes, chords, intervals, (and so on), so that preparing for the more advanced concepts is much easier.

I took the AP Music Theory exam in a similar situation as yours, and it turned out well, so I know it’s something you can certainly do. What I did is I significantly used a computer program that my high school music teacher had available, called « Practica Musica ». It’s an incredible computer program for AP Music Theory preparation, as it had aural training, visual/reading training and even dictation/sight singing training (which is only a little bit of singing). What made the program exceptional was the fact that it also had a complete practice course to become familiar with EVERY aspect of the actual AP test, step by step and at your own pace, so that there are no surprises and you know what the questions will ask for and how you will be expected to answer them. Here’s a link for it, you might be able to find other sites that carry the program too:

http://www.computermusicshop.com/product-p/arspm1.htm

I would ask your music teacher and see if he/she can get the school to buy it for you, like I did, so that you don’t have to buy it yourself.

From there you just need an understanding of the various structures of music and how to spot it all in actual pieces of music: things like segments, sequences, phrases, cadences, periods, period structure, etc…

You also need to practice and learn a little bit of four part voice leading, as well as Roman Numeral chord/harmony analysis. There are a lot of preparation/practice books for them and you’ll definitely catch on after a good bit of practice.

Don’t worry about the singing part if you feel uncomfortable about it. Just prepare for it a bit and remember it’s a small part of your score.

Hope that all helps. Just give yourself time to prepare. I highly recommend that program I was talking about, « Practica Musica », and get some practice books as well. With your already strong background in music, preparing for the AP exam without the class is very doable and I encourage you to try it. Best of luck! Again, I hope this all helps.

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