AP Music Theory

Advanced Placement Music Theory (or AP Music Theory, AP Jams, AP Music, or even Music AP) is a course and examination offered in the United States by the College Board as part of the Advanced Placement Program to high school students who wish to earn credit for a college level music theory course.

The course

Some of the material covered in the course involves low sight reading, in-depth terminology, musical phrasing and composition, music history, chord structure and cadences, and other areas of music theory. This course is recommended for students with particularly strong abilities in music and college music majors.

The exam

The exam itself is divided into two broad sections: Section I, the multiple-choice section, and Section II, the free-response section. In turn, each section is divided into parts.

Section I - Multiple Choice

Section I of the exam consists of four-choice multiple choice questions; the total amount varies each year. The first half of the section is listening-based; the proctor will begin playing a provided CD, and the exam will begin. Each question or group of questions is based on a musical selection or an auditory stimulus. The selection or stimulus will be played, and the student must answer as many of the questions as possible. Each musical selection or auditory stimulus is usually played two or three times for each question or group of questions, though the exact number differs from question to question.

Music theory

Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. It generally derives from observation of, and involves hypothetical speculation about how musicians and composers make music. The term also describes the academic study and analysis of fundamental elements of music such as pitch, rhythm, harmony, and form, and refers to descriptions, concepts, or beliefs related to music. Because of the ever-expanding conception of what constitutes music (see Definition of music), a more inclusive definition could be that music theory is the consideration of any sonic phenomena, including silence, as it relates to music.

The present article is about music theory properly speaking, i.e. about theories, speculations and hypotheses made about the various aspects or music. It describes the elements of music only insofar as they give way to such theories; other informations about these elements will be found in other articles such as Aspect of music and the specific parameters of music described there. Textbooks, especially in the United States of America, often also include under the term "theory" elements of musical acoustics, considerations of musical notation, techniques of (often tonal) composition (Harmony and Counterpoint), etc., which will not be dealt with as such here, but only as they were the subject of theories and hypotheses.