Week 4 — Drill Studio · 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: SLO 1 · SLO 2 · SLO 3
Drill Studio 4 · 20 points · Drill-studio group · In session, both meetings (session 1 and session 2) · documented make-up path below, full credit, submit by the end of the week
Format: voice, ears, pencil, and — for the first time — a page with a staff on it. Bring your Tutorial 4 conversion work; the studio stands on it.

Named in Music Theory I: the major scale and its W/H pattern, all fifteen major keys, key signatures, the circle of fifths, scale degrees ^1–^7, movable-do solfège. An hour later, the sounds you have made for three weeks get their names — and you start reading and writing them.

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Part 1 — The big picture

Three weeks of singing on "loo" were on purpose: the sounds came first. This morning the theory class handed over the naming system — movable-do solfège — and this studio is where it attaches to your ear. Three firsts happen this week: you sing the full major scale on syllables, you sight-sing — sing a melody you've never heard, from notation alone — and you take the course's first melodic dictation, writing pitches on a staff for the first time in this room. The keys are the four the theory class just spelled: G, F, D, and C major.

One idea carries the whole week: do travels. The syllables aren't new note names — they're distances from home. Do is F today, G tomorrow, and the ladder above it sounds the same. That's the movable part, and it's why this system fits an ear like yours.

Sidebar, for the curious: many conservatories use fixed do — do is always C, whatever the key. This course uses movable do because ear players carry tunes, not absolute pitches: do travels with the key, the way your ear already works. Fixed do is never drilled or assessed here.

Part 2 — What we do

The do ritual, upgraded (every session, from now on). Same chord pattern, same sung answer you've given since Unit 1 — but now the answer has words: do–mi–sol–mi–do. Same shape, new names.

The scale ladder (both days). The full octave, up and back, on syllables, in all four keys. Described in prose and printed for practice below: eight even quarter notes up, eight back down. Listen for the two small steps — mi–fa and ti–do; they're what makes major sound like major, exactly the W/H pattern the theory class spelled this morning.

KEY: C major    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| C4/q D4/q E4/q F4/q | G4/q A4/q B4/q C5/q | C5/q B4/q A4/q G4/q | F4/q E4/q D4/q C4/q |

The do–mi–sol shape (both days). The home-tone arch from the ritual, echoed in every key. It's a sound you've owned since Unit 1; it gets its official name in Unit 9, and until then we call it what it is — the do–mi–sol shape. The card below is the shape as you'll sing it; skips in this week's melodies stay inside it.

KEY: C major    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| C4/q E4/q G4/q E4/q | C4/w |

Degree orientation (both days). Professor Hemsworth plants do, then calls numbers: "Sing 3. Now 5. Now 2." You go straight to the target — no climbing the ladder under your breath (at first everyone climbs; by session 2, fewer). Degrees are distances from do, not finger numbers.

First sight-singing (both days). The four melodies below are the week's set. The non-negotiable move: hear it in your head before you sing it. Establish do, read the first bar silently, and only then make sound. That silent second is the actual skill — everything else is delivery.

SS1 — stepwise in C, the gentlest opener; every move is a neighbor step except one small skip up to mi:

KEY: C major    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| C4/q D4/q E4/q E4/q | D4/q E4/q F4/h | E4/q D4/q C4/q E4/q | D4/h C4/h |

SS2 — G major, in three, and the dotted-quarter-plus-eighth rhythm enters; the long note leans forward into the short one:

KEY: G major    METER: 3/4    CLEF: treble
| G4/q. A4/e B4/q | A4/q G4/q B4/q | D5/q. C5/e B4/q | A4/h G4/q |

SS3 — F major, and the do–mi–sol shape becomes melody: the first bar rides the shape itself, then steps fill it in:

KEY: F major    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| F4/q A4/q C5/q A4/q | Bb4/q A4/q G4/q F4/q | G4/q A4/q Bb4/q A4/q | G4/q F4/h. |

SS4 — D major, with the week's last first: a pickup. One note of ti leans in before the bar begins, exactly the anacrusis the theory class named in Unit 2 — now you sing one:

KEY: D major    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| C#4/q | D4/q. E4/e F#4/q A4/q | F#4/q G4/q F#4/q E4/q | D4/q E4/q F#4/q D4/q | E4/q D4/h |

First melodic dictation (both days). Two bars, stepwise, played three times — with do and the key signature already printed on your paper. The protocol extends Unit 2's hear–tap–count–write ritual by one layer: hearing one, hands tap and catch the rhythm; hearing two, sing the line inside on syllables; hearing three, write. Pencils stay down during hearing one — the protocol beats memory, every time.

Sixteenths, spoken (session 2). The quick subdivision arrives in the mouth before the hand: "1 e & a" at speed, against a steady clap. In this week's dictation, sixteenth notes only ever travel in pairs.

Solo hearings. The rotation continues inside orientation and sight-singing: 6–8 solo turns per session, so at a full section of 36 every voice is heard about once every two and a half weeks; in a smaller room, everyone, every time.

Part 3 — Before session 1 (the prep step)

Run Tutorial 4 first. It drills the conversion this whole week runs on — syllable ⟷ letter ⟷ degree, in G, F, D, and C — so that in the studio your voice isn't waiting on arithmetic. The studio assumes it.

Part 4 — What counts, and how

Criterion weights: perception 50 · realization 35 · labeling 15

A student who sings the right pitches with the wrong syllables loses only the labeling points. A student who sings the right syllables on the wrong pitches fails the item.

That sentence is the whole philosophy of this week. The syllables are scaffolding for the ear — never the point.

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Perception — dictation attempts track what actually sounded; degree calls and error-spotting show real listening (10)	9–10	5–8	0–4
Realization — scale, shape, and sight-singing land in tune and in time, any octave that fits, sung or played (7)	7	4–6	0–3
Labeling — syllables, degree numbers, and counts correctly attached to what you sang and heard (3)	3	2	0–1

Part 5 — Missed a session? The make-up path

Full credit, no penalty, by the end of the week. At home: (1) run the practice page's daily loop for the missed days; (2) record the scale in two of the week's keys and one melody from the sight-singing set, audiation pause included; (3) write three sentences naming, in the error classes, what went right or wrong. Submit clips + sentences in Canvas under this studio's make-up assignment.

Why this makes you a better musician

Sight-singing is the musician's superpower this course is named for: given a starting pitch and a page, you can sing a tune nobody sang to you first. This week you did it for the first time — four melodies, four keys, one movable do. From here every week widens what your eye can hand your ear.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Unit 4 Drill Studio — Major on Solfège"
assignment_group = "Drill studios"
points_possible  = 20
grading_type     = points
submission_types = [on_paper]        # graded in session; make-up: online_upload (clips + sentences)
due              = in session, both meetings; make-up by the end of the week
published        = true

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