AP Music Theory Analyze Notated Music is the skill of looking at a written score and using correct symbols and terms to describe what you see. You apply musical concepts and relationships to notation, not to sound. This is the written counterpart to aural analysis, and it shows up in Section I, Part B nonaural multiple-choice questions and in several free-response tasks.

In short, you read a score and label pitch, rhythm, harmony, form, and musical design with accurate vocabulary like Roman numerals, interval names, cadence types, texture terms, and rhythmic device terms.

This guide pulls examples from across the course so you can see how score analysis works from major scales all the way to secondary function and form.

What Analyze Notated Music Means

When you analyze notated music, you start with the printed page. You identify features and relationships using established music theory vocabulary and symbols. The goal is precision: the right Roman numeral, the right interval quality, the right cadence label, the right texture term.

The CED groups this under Skill Category 2: Analyze Notated Music. The description is simple: apply musical terms, concepts, and relationships to notated music in written form.

Compare it to Skill Category 1, Analyze Performed Music, which uses the same concepts but with sound as the stimulus. Same vocabulary, different input.

What This Skill Requires

To analyze a score well, you need to read fluently and label accurately. That means you can:

Read treble and bass clef, major and minor keys, simple and compound meter
Spell and identify chords, then assign Roman numerals and figured bass
Identify intervals by size and quality
Recognize cadences and harmonic progressions
Name nonchord tones and 6/4 chord types
Describe texture, timbre, instrumentation, and expressive markings
Spot motivic and rhythmic transformations like inversion, augmentation, and diminution

You are pulling from concepts taught throughout the course and applying them to whatever score is in front of you.

Subskills You Need

The CED lists seven subskills under this category. Here is what each one asks you to do.

2.A: Pitch features. Use symbols and terms to describe pitch patterns and relationships, melodic features, chords, harmonic progressions, and cadences. Example: identify a correctly notated natural minor scale, or label a progression like I to V⁶₅ to I.

2.B: Rhythm features. Describe meter, note values, and rhythmic patterns and devices. Example: recognize dotted rhythms, triplets, hemiola, or polyrhythm in a notated passage.

2.C: Combined relationships. Describe melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic relationships together. Example: identify a nonharmonic tone in the alto, label a 6/4 chord as cadential, or determine that an excerpt ends with a tonicization of the dominant.

2.D: Transformation procedures. Describe and apply melodic and rhythmic transformation. Example: recognize when a motive returns in inversion, augmentation, diminution, or exact repetition.

2.E: 18th-century voice leading. Describe and apply harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic procedures of 18th-century voice leading in up to four voices. Example: check spacing, doubling, and voice-leading connections in an SATB chorale texture.

2.F: Formal features. Describe motives, phrases, and phrase relationships. Example: identify a parallel period or label a repeated motive.

2.G: Musical design. Describe texture, timbre, instrumentation, and expressive elements like dynamics, articulation, and tempo. Example: label a texture as contrapuntal or chordal homophony, or read the dynamic and articulation markings in a score.

How It Shows Up on the AP Exam

Based on the CED, this skill category is assessed in both sections.

Multiple choice: Approximately 44% of MCQ assess Skill Category 2, using a written score in Section I, Part B (the nonaural questions, 35 minutes).
Free response: Assessed in FRQ 5, 6, 7 and the sight-singing tasks. These are the part-writing and harmonization questions plus sight-singing, where you read notation and apply your analysis.

Practical takeaway: notated analysis is nearly half of the multiple-choice section and a big part of the written FRQs. You read scores constantly on this exam, so score-reading speed matters.

Examples Across the Course

These examples come from different units to show how widely score analysis applies.

Course area	What you analyze in the score	Subskill
Minor scales (Unit 2)	Spot a correctly notated natural minor scale	2.A
Rhythmic devices (Unit 2)	Identify dotted rhythms, hemiola, or polyrhythm	2.B
Embellishing tones (Unit 6)	Label the alto nonharmonic tone as a neighbor tone	2.C
6/4 chords (Unit 5)	Classify a 6/4 chord as cadential, passing, pedal, or arpeggiated	2.C
Secondary function (Unit 7)	Analyze a boxed harmony as vii°⁶/V or identify a tonicization of the dominant	2.C
Texture and form (Unit 8 area)	Describe texture as contrapuntal or chordal homophony, and label phrase relationships	2.F, 2.G

Notice the range: a single notated-analysis question could test a Unit 2 scale, a Unit 6 nonchord tone, or a Unit 7 secondary leading-tone chord. The vocabulary is cumulative.

How to Practice Analyze Notated Music

Practical advice, not official rules:

Mark up the score first. Before answering, write the key, label the meter, and circle cadences. A quick analysis pass usually answers several questions at once.
Drill Roman numerals and figures. Practice spelling chords, then naming them with Roman and Arabic numerals, including inversions and seventh chords.
Build an interval reflex. Identify size and quality quickly so you do not slow down on pitch questions.
Memorize cadence and 6/4 types. Cadential, passing, pedal, and arpeggiated 6/4 chords come up often, as do PAC, IAC, half, and deceptive cadences.
Learn the transformation terms cold. Inversion, retrograde, augmentation, and diminution should be instant recognitions.
Sort texture and design vocabulary. Keep clear definitions for monophony, homophony, polyphony, contrapuntal, canonic, and heterophonic textures, plus articulation and dynamic terms.
Read full scores, not just snippets. Practicing with chorales and short excerpts trains your eye to track multiple voices at once.

Common Mistakes

Confusing aural and notated skills. Skill Category 2 uses the printed page. Do not assume you need to hear it; the answer is in the notation.
Forgetting the inversion in a Roman numeral. A V chord and a V⁶₅ are different answers. Always check the bass.
Misreading the clef or key signature. A bass-clef line read as treble will wreck every pitch label that follows.
Mixing up 6/4 types. Cadential, passing, pedal, and arpeggiated 6/4 chords are distinguished by context and bass motion, not just by the figure.
Mislabeling nonchord tones. Check the approach and resolution to tell a passing tone from a neighbor tone, suspension, or anticipation.
Naming a texture from a single chord. Look at how the voices move across the passage before choosing a texture term.

Quick Review

Skill Category 2 means: read a notated score and describe it with correct symbols and terms.
Seven subskills cover pitch (2.A), rhythm (2.B), combined relationships (2.C), transformations (2.D), 18th-century voice leading (2.E), form (2.F), and musical design (2.G).
About 44% of MCQ assess this category in the nonaural Part B; it also appears in FRQ 5, 6, 7 and sight-singing.
The vocabulary is cumulative across units, from minor scales to secondary function to form.
Best habit: mark up the score (key, meter, cadences) before answering.