Week 5 — Drill Studio · Minor, Three Ways, by Ear

Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 5 of 15 (Week 5) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 1 · SLO 2 · SLO 3
Drill Studio 5 · 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: voices, ears, and this page. The scales and melodies below are your singing material for the week — bring the page or pull it up on your phone.

Named in Music Theory I: relative and parallel minor, the three minor forms, minor key signatures, scale-degree names, subtonic vs leading tone, do-based minor solfège with raised 6 and 7. An hour later those names become three colors your ear can tell apart in two bars.

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Part 1 — The big picture

You have been able to hear minor your whole life — every ballad, every minor-key worship set, every film score that turns the lights down. This week you learn what your ear was actually reacting to: the same do with three notes lowered. Because tonic is always do in this course, minor is not a new alphabet. Sing a tune you know in major; keep do exactly where it is; flip mi→me, la→le, ti→te. That flip is the week's centerpiece, and it is the reason do-based minor pays rent.

Then the fork: minor comes in three forms. Natural is what the key signature spells. Harmonic lifts the seventh — te becomes ti — so the note under do pulls home by a half step instead of strolling by a whole step. Melodic climbs la–ti on the way up and relaxes back to te–le on the way down. Same do, three colors.

Part 2 — What we sing

The do ritual, now in minor (every session). Same door chords, darker room; the response arch is now do–me–sol–me–do. Home has not moved.

The flip game (session 1). Professor Hemsworth plays a line in major; the room sings it back, then flips it to parallel minor on the same do — starting with the tune the whole world knows (Twinkle, or as the registry has it, Ah! vous dirai-je, maman), then shorter flip lines that isolate each moving syllable. Only three syllables ever move. Hear which ones.

The three forms, on solfège (both days). Our home key for the forms is d minor. Sing them until each corner is a place you recognize, per this morning's tables (the pack's do-based minor page, THEORY_PACK §9, is the law: natural do re me fa sol le te do; harmonic raises 7 to ti; melodic ascends la ti and reverts to te le coming down; §3 has each form's spelling).

The natural form is the key signature, sung honestly — one flat, no surprises, te and le exactly where B♭-to-D-minor's signature puts them:

KEY: d minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| D4/q E4/q F4/q G4/q | A4/q Bb4/q C5/q D5/q | C5/q Bb4/q A4/q G4/q | F4/q E4/q D4/h |

The harmonic form lifts one note in each direction of travel: C becomes C♯ — te becomes ti — and that sharp is written, because the signature will not write it for you. Feel the pull under do, both climbing and falling:

KEY: d minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| D4/q E4/q F4/q G4/q | A4/q Bb4/q C#5/q D5/q | C#5/q Bb4/q A4/q G4/q | F4/q E4/q D4/h |

The melodic form climbs bright — la, then ti — and comes down the natural way, te then le. Up is not the same road as down, and your ear can hear the difference by session 2:

KEY: d minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| D4/q E4/q F4/q G4/q | A4/q B4/q C#5/q D5/q | C5/q Bb4/q A4/q G4/q | F4/q E4/q D4/h |

Sing to the name (session 2). The theory class handed over the degree names this morning, so they are legal out loud: ^1 is the tonic, ^5 the dominant; a seventh a half step under do (ti) is the leading tone, and the whole-step seventh of the natural form (te) is the subtonic. Professor Hemsworth calls a name; you sing stepwise from do to it. The ladder below is the drill's spine — up to the dominant and hold:

KEY: d minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| D4/h E4/h | F4/h G4/h | A4/w |

Mode ID, then form ID (both days). Short lines, played twice: major or minor? Then, for the scales: which minor? The tell for harmonic is ti — a lifted, pulling note the natural form does not own. Votes are public (thumbs), revised by re-listening, never by neighbor-checking.

Guided dictation (session 2). Two bars, three hearings, do given. New ritual on top of the Unit 4 protocol: name the form first, then notate — and if you heard ti, write its accidental. In this room, a raised seventh without its sharp is a wrong note on the page, however right it sounded in your head.

Real music (session 2). Two spirituals from the registry — Wayfaring Stranger and Go Down Moses — heard for mode, form, and the exact moment the leading tone lifts.

Sight-singing set. Four short melodies, one per key this week (a, g, e, d minor — signatures the theory class just spelled). Audiate first, then sing, any octave that fits. SS1 stays in the natural form all the way:

KEY: a minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| A4/q. B4/e C5/q B4/q | A4/q G4/q F4/h | E4/q F4/q G4/q A4/q | B4/q C5/q A4/h |

SS2 moves to g minor and 3/4 — two flats in the signature and a waltz count, still natural form, te sitting a friendly whole step under do:

KEY: g minor    METER: 3/4    CLEF: treble
| G4/q A4/q Bb4/q | A4/q G4/q F4/q | G4/q A4/h | G4/h. |

SS3 is harmonic: watch bar four — the D♯ is written on the page because e minor's signature only promises F♯. Sing the pull, don't smear it:

KEY: e minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| E4/q F#4/q G4/q A4/q | B4/h C5/h | B4/q A4/q G4/q F#4/q | E4/q D#4/q E4/h |

SS4 is melodic in miniature: it climbs sol–la–ti–do with both accidental-raised notes bright, then falls the reverted way, te and le restored:

KEY: d minor    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| A4/q B4/q C#5/q D5/q | C5/q Bb4/q A4/h | G4/q A4/q Bb4/q A4/q | F4/q E4/q D4/h |

Solo hearings. The rotation continues inside the three-forms handover and the sight-singing circle: 6–8 solo turns per session means every voice is heard about once every two and a half weeks at a full section of 36; in a smaller room, everyone, every time. Twenty seconds each, ordinary by now.

Part 3 — Before session 1 (the prep step)

Run Tutorial 5 first. It drills the conversion this week runs on — letter ⟷ syllable ⟷ degree in the four minor keys — and hands you the le/la and te/ti logic in words, so studio time goes to sound instead of spelling.

Part 4 — What counts, and how

Show up, sing, flip, vote, miss out loud, fix it. 20 points, graded in session across the two meetings. The standing lens:

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.

This week that inversion has teeth: me sung on the right pitch with "mi" accidentally attached costs a labeling point; "me" recited confidently on a major third fails the item. The sound is the point. And the standing rule from Unit 1 holds: any octave that fits your voice, sung or played if today the voice won't cooperate.

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Perception — mode and form calls, te/ti and le/la calls, dictation form-first calls show real listening; wrong votes revised by re-listening (10)	9–10	5–8	0–4
Realization — flips land with do held; forms sung with corners in tune, in any octave; dictation pages match what sounded, accidentals included (7)	7	4–6	0–3
Labeling — the week's words (me, le, te, la, ti; natural, harmonic, melodic; dominant, leading tone, subtonic) used rightly (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 two clips — the three forms in d minor from this page, and the flip drill (Twinkle line major, then parallel minor, same do); (3) write three sentences diagnosing your clips with the error classes — wrong mode is live this week, use it honestly. Submit clips + sentences in Canvas under this studio's make-up assignment.

Why this makes you a better musician

Every set list mixes major and minor, and most players find out which is which by trainwreck. After this week you hear the third of the key before the first phrase ends, flip any riff between bright and dark on demand, and know — by ear, not by chart — whether the song's seventh strolls or pulls. That is the difference between playing at a minor tune and playing in it.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Unit 5 Drill Studio — Minor, Three Ways"
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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