The visual guide to
AP® Music Theory
8 units, 100 topics. Each topic is explained in writing, drawn as a lesson you can watch, and checked with practice questions.
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The units, in the order they're taught.Filled: topics you've opened.
Unit 1Music Fundamentals I: Pitch, Major Scales and Key Signatures, Rhythm, Meter, and Expressive Elements
- The Staff, Lines, Spaces, and Ledger Lines
- Clefs and the Grand Staff
- Octave Designation and the Keyboard
- Accidentals and Enharmonic Equivalence
- Note and Rest Values
- Dots, Ties, and Beams
- Half Steps and Whole Steps
- Building the Major Scale
- Scale Degrees and Their Names
- Major Key Signatures and the Order of Sharps
- The Circle of Fifths
- Simple and Compound Beat Division
- Time Signatures and Meter Types
- Beat Strength and the Metric Grid
- Rhythmic Patterns, Beaming, and Anacrusis
- Syncopation and Off-Beat Accents
- Tempo Markings and Tempo Change
- Dynamics and Dynamic Change
- Articulation Markings
Unit 2Music Fundamentals II: Minor Scales and Key Signatures, Melody, Timbre, and Texture
- Natural, Harmonic, and Melodic Minor
- The Minor Step Pattern and Its Scale Degrees
- Relative Major and Relative Minor
- Notating Minor Key Signatures
- Parallel, Closely Related, and Distantly Related Keys
- Chromatic and Whole-Tone Scales
- Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales
- Interval Size: Counting Lines and Spaces
- Interval Quality: Major, Minor, Perfect, Diminished, Augmented
- The Tritone
- Interval Inversion
- Compound Intervals
- Transposing Instruments
- Timbre and Performing Media
- Melodic Features: Contour, Range, and Motion
- Melodic Transposition
- Texture Types
- Texture Devices
- Rhythmic Devices
Unit 3Music Fundamentals III: Triads and Seventh Chords
- Building Triads as Stacked Thirds
- Triad Qualities: Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented
- Diatonic Triads in a Major Key
- Diatonic Triads in a Minor Key
- Roman Numerals and Chord Symbols
- Triad Inversions and Figured Bass
- Reading and Realizing Figured Bass
- Seventh Chords and Their Qualities
- Diatonic Seventh Chords in Major and Minor
- Seventh Chord Inversions and Figures
Unit 4Harmony and Voice Leading I: Chord Function, Cadence, and Phrase
- Soprano-Bass Counterpoint
- Parallel Fifths and Parallel Octaves
- SATB Ranges, Spacing, and Voice Crossing
- Chord Spelling and Doubling
- Connecting Chords with Common Tones
- Tonic, Predominant, and Dominant Function
- Harmonic Rhythm
- Cadence Types
- Phrase Endings and the Picardy Third
- Voice Leading with the Dominant Seventh
- Voice Leading with Seventh Chords in Inversion
Unit 5Harmony and Voice Leading II: Chord Progressions and Predominant Function
- Predominant Function: IV and ii
- The ii6 Chord and Predominant Bass Lines
- The vi (VI) Chord
- The iii (III) Chord
- The Circle Progression
- Predominant Seventh Chords
- IV7, vi7, and Other Predominant Sevenths
- Cadences with Predominant Function
- The Cadential Six-Four Chord
- Passing, Pedal, and Arpeggiated Six-Four Chords
- Metric Placement of Six-Four Chords
Unit 6Harmony and Voice Leading III: Embellishments, Motives, and Melodic Devices
Unit 7Harmony and Voice Leading IV: Secondary Function
- Tonicization and Secondary Dominants
- Spelling Secondary Dominant Chords
- Which Chords Can Be Tonicized
- Part Writing Secondary Dominants
- Chains of Secondary Dominants and Irregular Resolutions
- Secondary Leading-Tone Chords
- Spelling and Hearing Secondary Leading-Tone Chords
- Part Writing Secondary Leading-Tone Chords
- From Tonicization to Modulation
Unit 8Modes and Form
- The Seven Modes
- Identifying a Mode by Its Signature Degree
- Ordering the Modes from Bright to Dark
- Phrases and Phrase Endings
- Phrase Relationships and Letter Labels
- Periods: Antecedent and Consequent
- Parallel and Contrasting Periods
- Common Formal Sections
- Binary, Ternary, and Larger Forms
- Imitative Entries, Canon, and Fugue