Music Theory
AP 551.100 | Online | Joel Phillips
This online course is designed to maximize the learner experience, providing relevant AP content and pedagogy through meaningful engagement – all focused on best practices for preparing your AP students for success. Specifically, participants will examine in detail the AP Music Theory Course and Examination Description (CED) and relevant materials to develop strategies to improve classroom instruction and delivery. These resources will include AP Classroom unit guides, personal progress checks, and the AP question bank. Participants will analyze selected problem types typical of first-year college music theory, infer their construction and solutions, learn to create comparable questions for their own classroom use, and learn ways to evaluate student responses to these problems. Ultimately, participants will be able to develop or refine their own AP Music Theory course, complete the digital activation process, and meet the new deadline for exam enrollment.
Joel Phillips
Westminster Choir College faculty member Dr. Joel Phillips is a former Chief Faculty Consultant for the AP Examination in Music Theory. In addition to sitting with the committee of examiners that creates these tests, he was responsible for setting the scores, reviewing the applications of those who wish to be readers for the examination, and managing the scoring of the examination each summer. Dr. Phillips is recipient of the Rider University Distinguishing Teaching Award and co-author of three music theory textbooks published by W. W. Norton—The Musician’s Guide to Aural Skills: Ear-Training, The Musician's Guide to Aural Skills: Sight Singing, and The Musician's Guide to Fundamentals. The AP edition of The Musician’s Guide is the most widely used text by AP music theory teachers. Phillips’s compositions have received a number of awards and are published by G. Schirmer, Inc., Transcontinental Music Publications, GIA, and Mark Foster Music (Shawnee Press).