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Introduction

Welcome to the AP Music Theory review articles at FiveHive! These articles are designed to start at the very basics of music theory and cover all of the topics you could see on the AP exam. But first, a brief introduction...

Everybody in the world experiences music. For some, it's part of their personal, spiritual or religious practices. For others, it's something to cheer up their Monday morning commute. But for everybody, music has the capacity to deeply move on an emotional level.

Who wouldn't want this superpower? Perhaps that's why there were over 25,000 degrees in music awarded in the US in 2022 alone. And maybe that's why more than half of all American households have someone who plays an instrument.

So, what's the key to understanding how to make this music? The subject of music theory, of course! If this is the start of your musical journey, welcome! If you are already an experienced musician, I hope these articles can offer a valuable new perspective on some topics you already know about and introduce you to others you don't. 

Specifically, this course will cover the syllabus for the AP course, AP Music Theory. You can find the CED, which will be strictly followed, here. In my experience, I find this course to be a fairly comprehensive first step in many students' music theory pathway (approx. equivalent to Music Theory I and II in a standard 4-course undergraduate theory sequence). But, with this comprehensiveness comes a lot of material. Unlike other academic courses, music takes practice to master. I hope that these articles can give you the tools to develop the necessary skills to ace the AP exam, and begin to appreciate just how magical the field of music theory can be!

Pitch and Pitch Notation

What is Pitch?

One of the foundational building blocks of music is called pitch. Pitch is simply the note content within a piece of music. More specifically, pitch is the frequency of sound you hear.

For example, hum your favorite pop tune. Yes, seriously, hum your favorite pop tune to yourself right now (there will be a lot of little activities like these!).Perhaps your favorite pop song is Dua Lipa's Levitating. 

As you can hear, the chorus of Levitating changes or repeats notes on every syllable. Thus, each syllable has a pitch. Complete the activity by searching for your favorite pop song on YouTube and comparing the pitches you hummed to the song. Were you accurate?

How many pitches are in music? While it may seem like a lot, there are actually only 12. Try starting at any place on the piano, and play the first twelve notes (white and black). Then, play the 13th. You can hear that the 1st and 13th sound the same, but the 13th sounds 'higher' than the 1st. This sensation is called octave displacement, and all this means is that the 13th note is simply an octave higher than the first. Why is this distance called an
'oct-'ave (8)? It may seem counterintuitive at first, but take a look at how many white notes were in between the 1st and 13th notes (inclusive): 8!

Knowing this, we can assign names to these eight white notes. Find a note that is immediately to the left of the 3rd black note in a set of 3. For simplicity's sake, let's call this note A. Let's call the next white note B, and then C, D, E, F, and G. This is how we name notes!

Now, what about the black notes? Well to name these, we need to introduce something called an accidental. These will allow us to alter the pitch we are on by moving one note on the keyboard (including black notes). There are three types of accidentals (flats, sharps, and naturals):

Thus, if we want to name a black note, all we need to do is use an accidental. For example, to name the 3rd black note in the group of 3, we can say A# or Bb. Here is a full diagram:

Note that every black note has two naming options (for example Bb and A#). These two notes have the same pitch, but are spelled differently according to their musical context. For example, if we wanted to write every note from B down to A, would write: B, Bb, A. If we wanted to write every note from A up to B, we would write A, A#, B. Bb and A# are an example of enharmonic equivalents.

Notating Pitch: Staffs and Clefs

Let's say we have just composed a brand new, super catchy melody. We want our friend to sing or play this melody, so we have two options: First, we could sing the melody to him, and he could sing it back by ear. Or, second, we could write this melody down and our friend could read the notated sheet music. Neither option is better; there are plenty of stellar musicians that cannot read music, particularly in the jazz idiom. However, this course is focused on the practices of classical music in 18th-century Europe, so being able to read notated music the preferred option here.

All music (in the Western tradition) is written on a staff. A staff is simply five lines stacked on top of each other, and it looks like this:

To put a pitch on the staff, all we have to do is draw a circle. Let's say we want to put a note on the bottom line of the staff, like this:

This is great, but we still don't know what pitch we are trying to convey here. That's because the staff is like a camera: it requires one of many lenses to operate. In other words, we need something called a clef to define what subset of pitches we are referring to when we write notes on the staff. There are 4 different types of pitched clefs: the treble clef, bass clef, alto clef, and tenor clef. These are often called the G clef, F clef, and C clefs, respectively. Let's examine each one separately.

Treble Clef

The treble clef is the most common clef. It is shown above, with four notes after it (don't worry about the shape of the notes just yet, only where they are placed on the staff). The first space on the treble clef corresponds with the white note F. The next note on the treble clef, ascending, would actually be on the line right above it. This note is, predictably, G. The next note is on the space after it, and it is called A (remember, after G we restart at A). Then, the next note is on the line after it and is called B. Then C, D, E, and back to F on the top line of the staff. The rule of alternating space-line-space-line is constant and will hold true for every clef.

Why do you think it is also sometimes called the G clef? Well, the answer lies in the clef itself. Notice how the circle near the bottom is encircling the second line, which is the note G. This can be a helpful trick to remember the notes on the staff in treble clef.

Now consider going below the F shown in the picture. The next note below it would be on the line, and is called E. Then, the note below would be on the space below the staff, and is called D. But we've run out of space. If we want to go down further, what do we do?

Well, we still need to obey our line/space rule, so we will add a ledger line, a small line that goes through the note, but isn't part of our staff.This note is called middle C, and is an important reference point for us as musicians. Part of the reason it is so important is because it connects the treble and bass clef.

Bass Clef

This is called the bass clef, and its the second most common clef in music. The notes shown on the bass clef are lower than those shown on the treble clef. The first space is the note A, and then the following line is B, then space is C, then D, then E, and so on. This clef is also called the F clef because it encircles the line on which F is written, like how the G clef encircles the G.

What happens when we get to the C above the one shown in the picture? We'll need to use a ledger line! It looks like this:

This is middle C, the same exact note as the one shown in treble clef above. Thus, the reason why middle C is so important is because it can connect the two clefs. For example, if we consider the D above middle C, we could write it above the first ledger line in the bass clef or on the space below the staff in treble clef. Likewise, the E above that could be written with two ledger lines above the bass clef or on the first line of the treble clef. This conversion between clefs work going down, too.

So, let's consider the G shown in the bass clef picture, and the G within the treble clef. Are they the same note? If so, how do you know? If not, what is their relationship? How do you know?

The answer is no, they are not the same pitch. But, their relationship is that of a singular octave displacement. In other words, they are one octave apart from each other. We know this because if we were to move the G in the treble clef down one octave, we would have this pitch:

If we were to convert this G to bass clef using the middle C reference pitch, we see that it is the same as the G in the bass clef. Thus, the original two notes are displaced by an octave.

Note: Converting between treble and bass clef is a tricky concept that often confuses students, but mastering it will set you ahead in later concepts in the course, especially part-writing. I'd recommend practicing it until you master it before learning about the other two clefs.

Alto Clef

The alto clef is another clef that you could see in music, particularly for the viola or trombone. Middle C is denoted on the middle line of the staff. As you can see, this clef can be a good bridge between treble and bass clef as it sits exactly in the middle of the two.

Tenor Clef

The tenor clef is the last major clef used with pitches, and middle C is denoted on the fourth line of the staff.

The tenor and alto clefs are sometimes grouped together and called the C clefs because they encircle middle C.

Notating Pitch: Accidentals

If, for example, we don't want to simply write the white notes of the piano, but include the black notes in our notation, too, we can use the accidentals we talked about previously. Thankfully, these translate directly into the music. They are placed on the left side of a note, and look like this:

The first note in the example would normally be called A, but with the added sharp symbol, we call it A-sharp. This is the note that falls between A and B that we talked about previously. It is enharmonically equivalent to B-flat.

The second note in the example would normally be called D, but with the added flat symbol, we call it D-flat. This note falls between C and D and is enharmonically equivalent to C-sharp.

The next two symbols we haven't touched on yet, but are pretty simple. The third note in the example would normally be called F. But the accidental that is applied is called a double-sharp, and simply raises it two notes on the piano instead of one (like a normal sharp). Thus, the resulting note would be called F-double sharp. What do you think it would be enharmonically equivalent to (use the piano diagram above if needed)? The answer is it would be enharmonically equivalent to the note G!

The fourth note in the example would normally be called B, but has a double-flat applied to it. Thus, we call it B-double flat, and it is enharmonically equivalent to the note A. This means that the fourth note is actually lower than the first note, even though it may look higher. Weird!

The fifth note in the example is called A-natural because of the natural accidental that is applied.

Important: Accidentals continue to be applied to a note until one of two things happen:

1. It is canceled by a natural sign.

2. A new measure is hit. Measures will be discussed further in the next section.

Notating Pitches you Hear

An important aspect of this course is being able to hear a pitch and write it down. You aren't expected to simply be able to hear a pitch and know it. However, given a starting pitch, you are expected to be able to hear the following pitches and write them down based on the intervals between them. This is a skill that takes lots of practice.

Try it out! Listen to this YouTube video, and write the pitches you hear, knowing the first one is written as a G. Don't worry about the note lengths, as that will come in the next section.

Error Detection

Another important skill for this class is being able to detect errors in melodies. Let's practice by doing three error detections in pitch. Listen to the excerpts as many times as you need to feel confident about the answer. For an extra challenge, only listen a maximum of 3 times. For the excerpts that do not have answers listed, work them out at the piano to find the answers yourself. First, listen to the following audio example. The score below is printed correctly, but the audio has five errors. Find the errors and circle them below.

Next, listen to the following audio example. The score below is printed correctly, but the audio has at least one error. Find all the errors and circle them below.

Finally, listen to the following audio example. The score below is printed correctly, but the audio has at least one error. Find all the errors and circle them below.

Answer:

Note: These are likely really difficult right now! But that's ok, we are introducing the activities that you'll eventually need to be familiar with very early, so that you get exposure to them as soon as possible!