Week 4 — Skills Check · Major on Solfège
Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 4 of 15 (Week 4) · two sessions per week
Objectives tested: SLO 2 (notate what a single performance sounded — here matched, not written out) · SLO 3 (identify by ear, without notation)
Points: 8 (8 × 1) · Group: Skills checks (lowest 2 of 13 dropped) · In class, session 2, live stimulus, closed to AI. Answers go in through the Canvas quiz tool on your own device; every stimulus is performed live in the room.
The import-ready item file is rendered by the build system from
_build/banks/lu-04.json; that bank also holds this unit's six pool items, which test the same skills with different stimuli and never appear on the weekly check. This page describes the check — the stimuli themselves exist only as session 2's live sound.
What it is
Eight questions, all ears, about fourteen minutes at the end of session 2's studio. Every stimulus begins the way every drill this week began: the do ritual plants the key, then the sound you're asked about. For the melody items, do is established and you match what you heard to its syllable or degree string — the same inner move as dictation, with the writing done for you. You'll have practiced every one of these moves in the studio the same morning.
Blueprint
The table below maps the item families to what your ear does and the outcome each serves.
| Items | Family | What your ear does | Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Melody match | Do established, a two-bar melody plays three times; choose the solfège or degree string that matches it | SLO 2 |
| 2 | Degree ID | Do established, one note sounds twice; name its scale degree | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Shape and slip | Trace a melody's contour, or catch where a second performance plants its one wrong note | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Counting match | A rhythm with sixteenth-note pairs is performed; choose the counting string that matches | SLO 3 |
Wrong-answer options come from the real ways ears slip this week — a leap mis-sized, do parked on the wrong pitch, subdivision lost mid-phrase. If you did the studio and the daily loop, this check is confirmation, not a hurdle.
Ground rules
Closed to AI, closed to notes, closed to neighbors. Phones face-down except for answering. Nothing is written or answered during a hearing; listen first, answer after the final hearing. The check is group-administered — everyone answers the same live hearings at the same moment — so it runs identically whether the room holds four or forty.
Absent for session 2?
The primary make-up is a live administration in office hours — same script, same hearings, performed for you by Professor Hemsworth. Email her to schedule it within the week.
Self-administered variant (only where scheduling truly cannot work): the check has a parallel stimulus set held by Professor Hemsworth for exactly this case. Recruit a musician who can play short melodies accurately from a card. Your partner contacts Professor Hemsworth directly and receives the performance cards (they never pass through your hands); your partner performs each stimulus per its script — key established first, the scripted number of hearings, pause, answer — while you take the parallel items through the same Canvas tool; your partner signs the attestation line confirming the stimuli were performed as scripted and unseen by you. Process and honesty are the graded substance; the ear it certifies is still yours. If no partner is available, arrange an office-hours make-up hearing instead — the late-work policy's standing path.
Canvas placement block
canvas_object = classic assessment, delivered via the Canvas quiz tool
title = "Unit 4 Skills Check — Major on Solfège"
assignment_group = "Skills checks"
points_possible = 8
allowed_attempts = 1
access = opens in session 2; live administration only
published = true
F-skills-check-week-04-qti.xml) ships inside the course's .imscc package — it lands in the Canvas gradebook on import.~ Professor Hemsworth's edition · Kenosis College · built with thecoursemaker.com