Can I pass an AP Music Theory Exam?

Summary by Krater

The creator takes the 2021 AP Music Theory exam free-response section and works through melodic dictation, harmonic dictation, and part-writing from figured bass, scoring 86 out of 91 total points.

From the video

Answers: How do you solve the free-response questions on the AP Music Theory exam?

• AP Music Theory exam
• melodic dictation
• harmonic dictation
• part-writing from figured bass
• eighteenth-century voice-leading procedures

What it concludes

• AP Music Theory is heavily steeped in the harmonic style of 18th-century Europe, utilizing a figured bass system that is largely archaic and rarely used by modern musicians.
• AP Music Theory teaches a very small portion of music theory, focusing on specific narrow rules of 18th-century European style rather than music theory as a broad language.
• The melodic dictation and part-writing from figured bass sections test practical, real-world skills that musicians use frequently, whereas harmonic dictation questions test highly specific and archaic conventions.