Onward & Upward...A Commitment to Excellence!
CHEROKEE BLUFF BANDS
  • Home
  • About
    • Our Mission & Values
    • Our Programs >
      • Middle School Bands
      • The Marching Bears >
        • Band Camps 2025
        • Band Camp Dinners
        • Band Camp Volunteers
        • Marching Band Schedule 2025
        • Pre-Game Meals 2024
        • Marching Band Resources
      • Concert Bands
      • Percussion
      • Color Guard / Winterguard
      • Jazz Ensembles
      • Music Theory >
        • Music Theory I
        • AP Music Theory
      • History of Rock
      • Honor Band Ensembles beyond the Classroom
    • Staff
    • Student Leadership
    • Our History >
      • Through the Years
      • Student Awards History
      • Major Performances
      • Marching Band Shows
  • NEWS
    • This Week in Band
    • District/All-State Band Etude Resources
    • Honors, Hoorays, and Happenings
  • CBBA
    • General Meeting Minutes-Records
    • Executive Board
    • CBBA Committees
    • FANS Program
  • Policies and Forms
  • CUT TIME
  • Calendar
  • Contact
  • Fundraisers
    • Fruit Fundraiser
  • Resources
  • Playing Test Procedures/Submitting Work
  • Band Blog
  • Why Music Education?
  • CBMI
  • Links
  • Community Sponsorship Progam
Picture

Picture
Picture

AP MUSIC THEORY

2nd PERIOD: ROOm 3406

Syllabus / Course Calendar
Music Interval Song Reference Chart
Instructor:      J. Craig Cantrell                             Office Phone:          770-967-0080 ext. 748
​Email:              [email protected]             Conferences/Tutorials: Before School / By appointment

OVERVIEW

The AP Music Theory course emphasizes advanced study of musical structure, form, analysis, part-writing, and advanced terminology.  This college level course is fast-paced and rigorous, which is designed to prepare students to take the Advanced Placement Exam for college credit.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this course, students should have a mastery of the rudiments and terminology of music, including hearing and notating: pitches, intervals, scales and keys, chords, meter, rhythm.  Also, the student should be competent in melodic and harmonic dictation, composing using specific part-writing rules, realizing a figured bass and Roman numeral progressions, analysis of repertoire, and sight-singing.

TEXTBOOK

Kostka, Stepfan, and Dorothy Payne. Tonal Harmony: With an Introduction to Twentieth-Century Music. 5th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2004

REQUIRED CLASS MATERIAL

All students are required to have the following materials daily:
*Pencils (all work & exams submitted to the instructor MUST be written in pencil unless your work is completed in a music notation program)
*Notebook Paper
​*Standard 1" 3-ring Binder

Recommended Class Material

Clipboard
​Manuscript Paper

Major projects and exams

  • Unit Tests (Affirmation of Knowledge) - at least two each nine-weeks
  • Class Recital
    • A test grade for the first nine-weeks will be a recital for your classmates and invited guests.  All students will be expected to participate.  More information will be given in ample time to prepare for the recital.
  • Concert Attendance 
    • Another one of your Affirmation of Knowledge grades will be based on your attendance at a concert.  Beginning after the Class Recital, each student is required to attend four (4) live performances of classical/mainstream music over the course of the year.  There are five categories that must be fulfilled.  You must attend a concert:
      • Featuring a professional ensemble
      • Featuring a collegiate ensemble
      • One each of high school band or chorus concert
        • NOTE: You cannot count any concert in which you had a role, even a small role.  Middle School concerts do not count.  You can finish this requirement early, but you must have at least one or two categories filled each nine-weeks.   The procedure for filing these concerts and a rubric will be reviewed in class.

Grading

​Grades will be weighed as follows:
  • 45% Daily Assignments (Quizzes, Homework, In-Class Assignments)
  • 35% Assessments of Knowledge (Chapter Tests, Unit Tests)
  • 10% Compositions & Projects (two projects/compositions each semester)
  • 10% Concert Reports (two reports each semester)

Grading Penalties:
  • 1 day late = 25 points deducted from the grade
  • 2 days late = 50 points deducted from the grade
  • 3 days late = no credit 
Compositions & Project Assignments
  • Minus 20 points per day late
  • Assignment must be turned in no later than the nine-week grading period for 50% credit.

Classroom Expectations

As an AP Music Theory student you are expected:
  • To listen and pay attention
  • To be respectful while others are talking or working
  • To refrain from eating during class
  • To abstain from any cell phone use (cell phones should not be out or seen)
  • To raise your hand before asking relevant questions or leaving the room
  • To have your materials daily and take notes
  • To be accountable and responsible for your work and success
  • To be the BEST student you can be!
AP MUSIC THEORY INFORMATION SHEET

CURRICULUM MAP - PACING GUIDE - COURSE CALENDAR

​Course Outline & Timeline
Fall Semester (Units 1-4): August – December
Unit 1 {Week 1-4} Music Fundamentals I
  • Pitch and Pitch Notation
  • Rhythmic Values
  • Half Steps and Whole Steps
  • Major Scales and Scale Degrees
  • Major Keys and Key Signatures
  • Simple and Compound Beat Division
  • Meter and Time Signature
  • Rhythmic Patterns
  • Tempo
  • Dynamics and Articulation

Ear Training: simple step-wise diction up to 10 note patterns, emphasis will be placed on directional movement in diatonic settings (melodic dictation) (Skills 3.A).

​Sight-singing
: Introduction to solfege syllables/match pitches on pentascales.
​Unit 2 {Week 5-10} Music Fundamentals II
  • Minor Scales: Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic
  • Relative Keys: Determining Relative Minor Key and Notating Key Signatures
  • Key Relationships: Parallel, Closely Related, and Distantly Related Keys
  • Other Scales: Chromatic, Whole-Tone, and Pentatonic
  • Interval Size and Quality
  • Interval Inversion and Compound Intervals
  • Transposing Instruments
  • Timbre
  • Melodic Features
  • Melodic Transposition
  • Texture and Texture Types
  • Texture Devices
  • Rhythmic Devices

Ear Training: pitch and rhythm recognition/accuracy (error detection) (Skills 3.E)

​Sight-singing:
 major scales with arpeggios (on numbers, solfege, and pitch names)

​Unit 3 {Week 10-12} Music Fundamentals III
  • Triad and Chord Qualities (Major, Minor, Diminished, and Augmented)
  • Diatonic Chords and Roman Numerals
  • Chord Inversions and Figures: Introduction to Figured Bass
  • Seventh Chords
  • Seventh Chord Inversions and Figures
Ear Training: simple diatonic melodies (leaps within triads) and chord recognition

​Sight-singing
: intervals ascending/descending {<P5}
Unit 4 {Week 13-16} Harmony and Voice Leading I
  • Soprano-Bass Counterpoint
  • SATB Voice Leading
  • Harmonic Progression, Functional Harmony, and Cadences
  • Voice Leading with Seventh Chords
  • Voice Leading with Seventh Chords in Inversions
Ear Training: diatonic melodies with semi complex rhythms and identifying correct/incorrect figures (rhythm & pitch) (error detection) (Skills 3.E)

​Sight-singing: Intervals ascending/descending {>P5}
 
“Original 8 phrase melody” project presentation & Mid-Term Review {Week 17-18}
 


Spring Semester (January - May)
Unit 5 {Week 19-22} Harmony and Voice Leading II
  • Adding Predominant Function IV (iv) and ii (ii°) to a Melodic Phrase
  • The vi (VI) Chord
  • Predominant Seventh Chords
  • The iii (III) Chord
  • Cadences and Predominant Function
  • Cadential 6/4 Chords
  • Additional 6/4 Chords
Ear Training: Cadence recognition, recognition of V and V7 chords (harmonic progressions I, IV, V, V7 with inversions (melodic/harmonic dictation and error dictation) (Skills 3.A, 3.B, 3.C, 3.D)

​Sight-singing: diatonic melodies with leaps of an octave or less.
​Unit 6 {Week 22-24} Harmony and Voice Leading III
  • Embellishing Tones: Identifying Passing Tones and Neighboring Tones)
  • Embellishing Tones: Writing Passing Tones and Neighboring Tones)
  • Embellishing Tones: Identifying Anticipations, Escape Tones, Appoggiaturas, and Pedal Points
  • Embellishing Tones: Identifying and Writing Suspensions; Identifying Retardations
  • Motive and Motivic Transformation
  • Melodic Sequence
  • Harmonic Sequence
Ear Training: simple harmonic progressions (looking for chord quality and recognition)
Sight-singing: diatonic with arpeggiations of I, ii, IV, V7, vi chords / arpeggios in 7ths

Unit 7 {Week 25-27} Harmony and Voice Leading IV
  • Tonicization through Secondary Dominant Chords
  • Part Writing of Secondary Dominant Chords
  • Tonicization through Secondary Leading Tone Chords
  • Part Writing of Secondary Leading Tone Chords
Ear Training: recognizing secondary dominants (melodic/harmonic dictation, error detection)

​Sight-singing
: melodies with chromatically altered notes (Secondary Functions)

Unit 8 {Week 28-29} Modes and Forms
  • Modes
  • Phrase Relationships
  • Common Formal Sections
Ear Training: recognition of the type of modulation; modulation listening examples (Bach Chorales Analysis); Tone Row discussion; & compositional activity.

​Sight-singing: modulation to closely related keys through secondary dominants or sequence.

​Additional Topics of Study:
Depending on Time and level of class, the following chapters may be covered as further enrichment.
  • Mixing the modes (borrowed chords) (Chapter 21)
  • Augmented 5th chords (Neapolitan Chord, Italian/German/French Augmented 6th chords) (Chapter 22 &23)
  • Resolution of Augmented 6th chords, and Enharmonic Spellings and Modulations 

​THEORY RESOURCES
www.openmusictheory.com
www.musictheory.net
​EAR TRAINING RESOURCES
www.good-ear.com
www.teoria.com
​SIGHT-SINGING RESOURCES
www.thepracticeroom.net

Location

Cherokee Bluff Band

Ever Onward and Upward...A Commitment to Excellence"
Cherokee Bluff Band Association
6603 Spout Springs Road
Flowery Branch, GA 30542
(770) 967-0080

Contact Us