Dr. Terry Eder, College Board Endorsed Consultant for AP Music Theory
This session is being offered during Event 2: June 18-21, 2024
Terry Eder is a retired choral conductor and music teacher with over 40 years of experience at both the college and secondary levels. He remains active as a teacher and currently teaches AP music theory at Lovejoy High School in Lucas, Texas.
He is a College Board Consultant and has presented at many AP summer institutes and one and two-day workshops and has served as a reader and question leader in the reading of the AP Music Theory exam for the past eighteen summers. He has also developed a one-day workshop on vertical teams in music theory for the College Board, has written an article on strategies for dealing with the sight-singing portion of the AP exam, and has presented an online professional development session entitled, “Sight Singing and Its Influence on Melodic and Harmonic Dictation.”
He is past co-chair of the College Board AP Music Theory development committee and served as a member of the Music Writing Team for the 2014 National Standards in the Arts. Before his retirement from full time teaching, he was named Plano Senior High School Teacher of the Year. He is also the primary author along with Akira Sato of the AP Instructor’s Manual published in 2018 to accompany the third edition of The Musician’s Guide by W. W. Norton and is currently revising and updating the manual for the upcoming fourth edition.
During the spring of 2020 he served as one of two AP Music Theory teachers with the College Board AP Live project to help students prepare for the AP Exam.
During the 2020-21 school year he served as lead teacher for AP Daily, a College Board project which enlisted the talents of experienced AP Music Theory teachers to create short videos for each of the topics in the Course and Exam Description. He also created AP Live Review videos to help students prepare for the 2021 AP Exam.
He holds Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music Education degrees from Texas Christian University and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from the University of Oklahoma.
APSI Session Description and agenda
The AP Music Theory summer institute will present instruction on the AP resources available. These resources will help teachers plan and focus instruction and give them feedback throughout the year on the areas where individual students need additional focus. Participants will develop specific understandings by the end of the professional development experience, which will include the following categories:
Understanding the Course
Planning the Course
Teaching the Course
Assessing Student Progress and Understanding
Becoming a member of the AP Teacher Community
This workshop will help participants understand what instructional resources will be available to them, and how they can use these resources to focus their instruction, give meaningful and actionable feedback, and make the most of the limited time they have with their students.
Topics will include the following:
Visual and aural analysis, sight-singing, melodic and harmonic dictation and composition
Synthesis of musical knowledge into practical and usable musical understanding, especially with regard to music of the common practice period
Day 1: Overview of the AP Music Theory Exam and the Course and Exam Description (CED)
Creating Lessons using a Structured Approach to Listening and a Visual Approach to Analysis
Aural Skills: Solfège Warm-Up and Foundations
Teaching Music Fundamentals: Scales, Keys, and Key Signatures
Day 2: Understanding Intervals, Triads and Seventh Chords,
Rhythm and Meter
Music Exploration: Discovery, Application and Understanding
Teaching Techniques for Multiple Choice Questions with Aural Stimuli
Day 3: Identifying and Teaching Common Patterns in Sight-Singing and Melodic Dictation
Introduction to Part-Writing
Understanding Secondary Function
Days 4: Strategies for Dealing with the Free Response Questions
Tips for Taking the AP Music Theory Exam