Week 3 — Drill Plan · The Divided Beat, Heard
Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 3 of 15 (Week 3) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 3 · SLO 4
Sessions: session 1 · session 2 (Skills Check 3 in the last quarter hour of session 2)
Instructor-facing. This file is excluded from the student cartridge. Every stimulus named below is notated, with its performance script, in
_keys/KEY-stimulus-sheet-week-03.md— nothing musical is spelled out here.
Named in Music Theory I: compound meter, 6/8 · 9/8 · 12/8, the dotted beat unit, "1 la li" counting and "1 ta la ta li ta", tuplets, syncopation, shuffle feel.
First time teaching this
The point of the LU: the beat can split in twos or in threes, and the ear tells them apart before the page does. The theory class spent this morning proving 6/8 is not 3/4 on paper; an hour later the room proves it in bodies — the same pulse, divided two ways at once, by two halves of the class.
The one thing that must land: the room split. A student who has clapped one pulse while half the room speaks "1 &" against the other half's "1 la li" owns the simple-versus-compound distinction for life; every ID drill and check item this week is that moment replayed.
The most common way it goes wrong: counting the eighths. A student who hears 6/8 as six little beats will call it 3/4 forever. Keep the big beat — the dotted quarter — in the feet at all times: walk it, tap it, never let the eighths become the pulse. Second trap: the shuffle. Someone will ask how to write the long–short lilt down. The honest answer, said out loud: this week we don't — it's an ear skill, the notation stays straight, and no counting string exists for it in this course.
Pitched singing stays on "loo" one more week; solfège arrives at Unit 4 with the theory handoff.
The do ritual
Every session opens with it, as always: I–IV–V–I in C at 76 BPM, sing "do," the class sings the home-tone arch back on "loo" (defined in full in Unit 1's plan). Neutral weeks run through this LU — next week the response gains its syllables.
Drill sequence
Session 1 — minute markers, stimuli by keys-sheet name, tempi, repetitions, words to say.
| Time | Segment | Stimulus / tempo | Reps | Words to say |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:03 | The do ritual | ritual, 76 BPM | 1 cycle | "Same door, every session." |
| 0:03–0:12 | Pulse walk + the two splits demo | RS-1 then RS-2, 76→84 BPM | 2 hearings each | "Walk the beat. Now listen INSIDE it — does it break in two, or in three? Don't count the little notes; feel the big beat carry them." |
| 0:12–0:25 | The room split (the centerpiece) | RS-1 / RS-2 shuffled, 84 BPM | 4+ rounds, halves swap | "Left half: clap the beat, say '1 &'. Right half: same clap, say '1 la li'. I'll play — which half does the pattern agree with? Point at them." |
| 0:25–0:40 | Compound echo ladder, rungs 1–4 | CE1–CE4, 63–66 BPM | 2 play–echo cycles each | "I play, you clap it back and COUNT it out loud. The eighth after the quarter is 'li' — let it fall late, not in the middle." |
| 0:40–0:48 | Spoken subdivision echo | speech only, 50→63 BPM tapped beat | 4 call–response rounds | "No page for this. Tap the big beat, speak after me: 1 ta la ta li ta, 2 ta la ta li ta. Six even syllables riding two beats." |
| 0:48–1:00 | Real tunes in 6/8 | PD1, PD2, 54–63 BPM | sing 2×, clap-and-count 2× | "You've sung this since childhood — Row Row is 6/8. Sing it on 'loo,' then clap it and count it. 'Your' is the li." |
| 1:00–1:08 | Which split is it? | RS/CE items shuffled, 84 BPM | 1 hearing per answer | "Two fingers for twos, three for threes. One hearing. Commit." |
| 1:08–1:15 | Close + assignments | — | — | "The practice page has the daily loop; the tutorial before session 2 sharpens the counting. Ten minutes a day, as always." |
Session 2 — the ladder's top, syncopation, shuffle by ear, dictation, then the check.
| Time | Segment | Stimulus / tempo | Reps | Words to say |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:03 | The do ritual | ritual, 76 BPM | 1 cycle | "Home first." |
| 0:03–0:15 | Echo ladder, rungs 5–6 | CE5–CE6, 66–72 BPM | 2 cycles each | "Rung five has a hole in it — keep the silence honest. Rung six rings across the barline: no new attack on the downbeat." |
| 0:15–0:25 | Syncopation echo | SY1–SY2, 76→84 BPM | 2 cycles each | "Foot on the beat, hands off it. The held note fights your foot — let it." |
| 0:25–0:37 | Shuffle vs straight game | SH1–SH2, 88–92 BPM | 6+ rounds | "Even pairs, or long–short? Nobody writes anything — this one lives in the ear. Call it: straight, or shuffled." |
| 0:37–0:52 | Compound dictation | D1 then D2, 60 BPM | 3 hearings each | "Same ritual as last week, new meter: hear, tap-and-count, write, check. Beat one is a dotted quarter now — anchor there." |
| 0:52–0:55 | Check setup | — | — | administration script, keys sheet |
| 0:55–1:09 | Skills Check 3 | Stimuli 1–8 per script, 60–88 BPM | scripted | script only — identical administration matters |
| 1:09–1:15 | Close | ritual, once, all together | 1 | "Two weeks ago you could keep a beat. Now you can hear inside one. Recordings and practice close at the end of the week." |
When they miss it
Per drill: what the miss sounds like, and the immediate corrective — a specific next sound, never a re-explanation.
| Drill | Error mode — what it sounds like | Immediate corrective |
|---|---|---|
| Room split | 6/8 heard as 3/4 — a student counts the six eighths as beats and calls threes "three beats of two" | Put the big beat back in the body: they walk the dotted-quarter pulse while you play RS-2; the feet find two beats per bar, and the argument settles itself. |
| Room split | Side collapse — one half drifts into the other half's syllables | Split smaller: six students per side, one round, then rebuild the halves. The smaller group can hear itself. |
| Compound echo | The li rushes — the quarter–eighth figure comes back as two even notes | Play CE2 with the eighth exaggeratedly late twice, then normally; echo just the one figure before rebuilding the rung. |
| Spoken subdivision | Smear — the six syllables start even and turn to mush | Halve the tempo, halve the length: one beat's worth, then two, at 50 BPM, then climb back. |
| Syncopation echo | Pulled onto the beat — the held off-beat attack migrates to the beat | You clap the pulse loudly through their echo once; then they clap the pulse themselves while speaking the pattern's counting. |
| Shuffle game | "How do I write the lilt?" — a student tries to notate or count the swing | Say the scope decision plainly: straight on the page, swung in the hands, no counting string — then play the same line both ways twice so the ear files the difference where it belongs. |
| Dictation | Freeze at the barline — bar one lands, bar two is blank | Fall back one step: play bar two alone, echo it clapped, THEN write it. Echo-then-write is always the bridge. |
Escalation path
If a drill fails room-wide: the echo ladder drops to CE1 (the bare beat), the room split drops to the two-splits demo (you demonstrate both against one walked pulse), dictation drops to echo-then-write one bar at a time. Re-establish the pulse the same way every time: stop, walk eight dotted-quarter beats together in silence, resume. Abandon criterion: a segment still failing after two escalated attempts gets banked — "the seed is planted; your ear will own this by Unit 9" — and logged. The named pick-up hooks: the dotted-quarter-plus-eighth figure returns inside Unit 4's first melodic dictation rhythms; compound meter itself returns at full width in Unit 9, when 9/8 and 12/8 enter the drills; the shuffle ear returns every time a chart says "swing" for the rest of these students' lives, which is the point.
Tempo table
| Drill | First pass | Target |
|---|---|---|
| The do ritual | 76 BPM | 76 BPM (never varies) |
| Room split RS-1/RS-2 | 76 BPM | 84 BPM |
| Compound echo CE1–CE4 | 63 BPM | 66 BPM |
| Compound echo CE5–CE6 | 66 BPM | 72 BPM |
| Spoken subdivision | 50 BPM | 63 BPM |
| Syncopation SY1–SY2 | 76 BPM | 84 BPM |
| Shuffle game SH1–SH2 | 88 BPM | 92 BPM |
| Dictation D1–D2 | 60 BPM | 60 BPM (fixed by script) |
| Skills-check stimuli | as scripted, 60–88 BPM | fixed by script |
Rotation note (P states it to students): solo hearings continue inside the echo ladder and the which-split drill — 6 to 8 students heard individually per session keeps every voice heard solo roughly every two and a half weeks at a section of 36; in a small room, everyone, every session. Keep the ledger current; the Unit 7 check assumes the rotation has touched everyone twice.
~ Professor Hemsworth's edition · Kenosis College · built with thecoursemaker.com