AP Music Theory
2009 – 2010
Mr. Moore
SYLLABUS
Course Overview
A major component of any college music curriculum is a course introducing the
first-year student to musicianship, theory, musical materials, and procedures. Such a
course may bear a variety of titles. It may emphasize one aspect of music, such as
harmony; more often, however, it integrates aspects of melody, harmony, texture,
rhythm, form, musical analysis, elementary composition, and, to some extent, history and
style. Musicianship skills such as dictation and other listening skills, sight-singing, and
keyboard harmony are considered an important part of the theory course, although they
may be taught as separate classes.
The student’s ability to read and write musical notation is fundamental to such a
course. It is also strongly recommended that the student will have acquired at least basic
performance skills in voice or on an instrument.
Course Goals
The ultimate goal of an AP Music Theory course is to develop a student’s ability
to recognize, understand, and describe the basic materials and processes of music that are
heard or presented in a score. The achievement of this goal may be best promoted by
integrated approaches to the student’s development of:
? aural skills through listening exercises
? sight-singing skills through performance exercises
? written skills through written exercises
? compositional skills through creative exercises
? analytical skills through analytical exercises
Course Content
In order to realize the ultimate goal of an AP Music Theory course, the following content
areas will be addressed:
The course will first seek to instill mastery of the rudiments and terminology of music,
including hearing and notating:
? pitches
? intervals
? scales and keys
? chords
? meter
? rhythm
After this foundation is established, the course will progress to include more
sophisticated and creative tasks, such as:
? melodic and harmonic dictation
? composition of a bass line for a given melody, implying appropriate harmony
? realization of a figured bass
? realization of a Roman numeral progression
? analysis of repertoire, including melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, and form
? sight-singing
Like most first-year college courses, the AP course will emphasize aural and visual
identification of procedures based in common-practice tonality:
? cadences
? melodic and harmonic compositional processes
? standard rhythms and meters
? phrase structure
? small forms
? modulation to closely related keys
Students in the AP Music Theory course will be required to read, notate, write, sing, and
listen to music. Students will engage in activities that integrate and foster these abilities.
Resources
Adams, Ricci. http://www.musictheory.net.
Clendinning, Jane Piper, and Elizabeth West Marvin. The Musician''s Guide to Theory
and Analysis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Clendinning, Jane Piper and Elizabeth West Marvin. The Musician’s Guide Workbook.
New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Finale 2009. Computer Software. Make Music, 2009.
Ottman, Robert W. Elementary Harmony: Theory and Practice, 5th ed. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Ottman, Robert W. and Nancy Rogers. Music For Sightsinging. 7th ed. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
Philips, Joel, Jane Piper Clendinning, and Elizabeth West Marvin. The Musician’s Guide
to Aural Skills vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Practica Musica. Computer Software. Ars-Nova Software, 2009.
SmartMusic. Computer Software. Make Music, 2009.
Technology Resources
Piqua High School has multiple computer labs. One of which will have all above-
mentioned software installed for use exclusively by the AP Music Theory class. Each
student will have access to a Korg nanoKEY 25-key midi controller for use with all
software. In addition to the midi controllers, there are 6 88-key piano/electronic
keyboards, and several keyboard orientation tools for students to use in their studies.
Students will have access to a SMARTboard interactive white board with an integrated
sound system for listening.
COURSE PROGRESSION
The primary text resource for this course will be The Musician’s Guide To Theory And
Analysis. Concepts covered in this text will be supplemented by the companion texts in
the “Musician’s Guide” curriculum (especially The Musician’s Guide To Aural Skills),
teacher created exercises and drills, and appropriate exercises in above-mentioned texts.
While success on the AP Music Theory exam is the ultimate goal of the course, the
course will move as quickly as student comprehension and mastery allow. In order to
assure that all students in the course are on equal footing with the fundamentals of music,
the class is meeting on 6 separate occasions during summer break in order to learn or
review basic concepts that are vital to success in the course.
Part Ia: Building a SUMMER Music Vocabulary
? Chapter 1: Pitch and Pitch Class
? Chapter 2: Beat, Meter, and Rhythm: Simple Meters
? Chapter 3: Pitch Collections, Scales, and Major Keys
Part 1b: Building the REST of Your Music Vocabulary
? Chapter 4: Minor Keys and the Diatonic Modes
? PART VI, Chapter 30: Modes, Scales, and Sets (to address whole tone
collections)
? Chapter 5: Beat, Meter, and Rhythm: Compound Meters
? Chapter 6: Pitch Intervals
? Chapter 7: Triads and Seventh Chords
Ear Training
After students attain mastery of basic musical concepts introduced in Part I of The
Musician’s Guide To Theory And Analysis, we will begin a more intense ear training
portion of the course. The companion text, The Musician’s Guide To Aural Skills, will
provide students an integrated approach to ear training by supplementing “academic”
musical concepts with “practical” application of those concepts as they are being learned.
Additional ear training will begin with basic interval and rhythmic recognition, then
continue through progressively more difficult exercises and drills in Music For
Sightsinging. Since ear training is essential to the complete musician, it will occur
concurrently with concepts being taught in The Musician’s Guide To Theory And
Analysis. Additional assessments through www.musictheory.net and Practica Musica
will be used to track student comprehension.
Part II: Linking Musical Elements in Time
? Chapter 8: Intervals in Action (Two Voice Composition)
? Chapter 9: Melodic and Rhythmic Embellishment in Two-Voice Composition
? Chapter 10: Notation and Scoring
Part III: The Phrase Model
? Chapter 12: The Basic Phrase Model: Tonic and Dominant Voice-Leading
? Chapter 13: Embellishing Tones
? Chapter 14: Chorale Harmonization and Figured Bass
? Chapter 15: Expanding the Basic Phrase: Leading-Tone, Predominant, 6 chords
4
? Chapter 16: Further Expansions of the Basic Phrase: Tonic Expansions, Root
Progressions, and the Mediant Triad
? Chapter 17: The Interaction of Melody and Harmony
? Chapter 18: Diatonic Sequences
? Chapter 19: Intensifying the Dominant
? Chapter 20: Phrase Rhythm
Part IV: Further Expansion of the Harmonic Vocabulary
? Chapter 21: Tonicizing Scale Degrees Other Than V
? Chapter 22: Modulation to Closely Related Keys
? Chapter 23: Binary and Ternary Forms
? Part V: Musical Form and Interpretation
? Chapter 26: Popular Song and Art Song
? Chapter 27: Variation and Rondo
? Chapter 28: Sonata-Form Movements
? Chapter 25: Chromatic Approaches to V: The Neopolitan Sixth and Augmented
Sixths
Grade Categories
The curriculum will be divided into 2 semesters, each consisting of 2 quarters. At the end
of each quarter, there will be a midterm exam assessing student mastery of skills
presented during that quarter. On even numbered quarters, a semester final will also be
administered.
Midterm I: 10%
Midterm II: 20%
Assignments: 40%
Semester exam (cumulative): 30%
For the midterms and the semester exam, I will use the following grading scale:
A = 90 – 100%
B = 80 – 89%
C = 70 – 79%
D = 60 – 69%
F = Below 60%
At the end of the semester I use a 1,000-point scale to determine semester grades. The
point total for each grade category will be calculated on this scale, that is, Midterm I will
ultimately be worth 100 points, Midterm II – 200, assignments – 400, and the semester
exam – 300. Notably, bear in mind that what is important is not the letter grade, but the
number grade, since that is what I consider in my final calculations. Each semester grade
is equally weighted, 50% each, to determine the final course grade.
For the assignments, of which there will be on the order of 20 per quarter (including pop
quizzes), I will use a system of checks with plus or minus signs:
√ + : A → A- (10 points)
√ : B+ → C (8 points)
√ - : C- → D (6 points)
NC : No Credit (0 points)
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