Week 7 · Lecture outline

Week 7 — Drill Plan · Intervals Outward II + The Mid-Course Check

Aural Skills I · MUS 155 Fictional sample

Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 7 of 15 (Week 7) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 1 · SLO 3 · SLO 4 · SLO 5
Sessions: session 1 (new material + check prep) · session 2 (THE MID-COURSE CUMULATIVE CHECK, Unit 1–7 — it replaces this week's skills check)

Instructor-facing. Excluded from the student cartridge. Every stimulus named below is notated, with its performance script, in _keys/KEY-stimulus-sheet-week-07.md; the check's full administration script — both parts, timing, rotation — lives at the end of that sheet.

Named in Music Theory I: compound intervals, the tritone (one sound, two spellings), consonance and dissonance, enharmonic-distinct intervals, interval reasoning as a transcription tool.

First time teaching this

The point of the LU: finish the interval family — the ear now owns every distance from the half step to the octave — and then certify seven weeks of hearing in one sitting. Session 1 completes the toolkit; session 2 administers it.

The one thing that must land: the check is the same drills, administered. Every one of the fourteen response items is a move the class has made weekly since Unit 1; the hearing is ninety seconds of what the rotation has been doing since Unit 1. Say that in session 1, twice. A student who believes it walks in relaxed and scores what they know.

The most common way it goes wrong: spending session 1 talking about the check instead of drilling. The prep IS the mock-check segment — run it at full check discipline (announced stimuli, two hearings, silence between) and the anxiety has nowhere to live. Second trap: over-explaining the tritone's two spellings at the piano. Play the resolutions; the pull teaches the spelling. Also say the quiet part warmly: the theory midterm is NEXT week — this check sits deliberately a week early so the two never stack on one morning.

The do ritual

As always, every session opens with the do ritual (defined in Unit 1's plan): play I–IV–V–I, sing do, the class sings do–mi–sol–mi–do back on syllables. Run it again in each new key session 1 (C, G, A minor, F, D minor) and before every pitched check stimulus session 2.

Drill sequence

Session 1 — new material, then check prep at check discipline.

Time	Segment	Stimulus / tempo	Reps	Words to say
0:00–0:03	The do ritual	ritual, 76 BPM	1 cycle	"Same door. Two big rooms behind it this week."
0:03–0:16	Wide-leap echo ladder	W1–W5, 76→80–84 BPM	2 play–echo cycles each	"One leap per rung. Name the reach, then let the steps carry you home."
0:16–0:21	Wide leap in minor	W6, 76→80 BPM (ritual in A minor first)	2 cycles	"Same distance, darker coat. Sol up to me."
0:21–0:31	The tritone's pull	TT1, TT2 at 66→72 BPM; then the clash played as a dyad	2 cycles each	"One restless sound, two spellings. Sing where it leans: ti pulls up into do, fa leans down onto mi. The resolution tells you which spelling you have."
0:31–0:38	Inversion pairs	INV1, INV2 at 72→76 BPM	2 cycles each	"Same two note names. What flipped? Sizes always add to nine."
0:38–0:42	Compound demo	fence 11, 60 BPM (played only)	2 hearings	"A tenth is a third in an octave overcoat. Name the simple interval, add seven. Your voice stays inside the octave; your ear doesn't have to."
0:42–0:52	Leap-mapping warm-ups	LM1, LM2 at 76 BPM, three hearings each	1 full protocol each	"Hearing one: find do and the meter. Hearing two: map the leaps by name. Hearing three: the intervals dictate the notes. This is the theory studio's race, run by ear."
0:52–1:08	Mock check + peer feedback	MK1, MK2 partner cards, 72–76 BPM; prepared patterns from P	2 rounds + swap	"Full check discipline: announce, two hearings, silence, answer. Then coach your partner with the rubric words — perception first, labels last."
1:08–1:15	Close + session 2 shape	—	—	"session 2: fourteen ears-only questions, all seven weeks, then ninety seconds of singing on the posted rotation. Same drills, administered. Tutorial's practice circuit before session 2; recordings close at the end of the week."

Session 2 — THE CHECK. Run the keys-sheet administration script verbatim; the summary below is for pacing only.

Time	Segment	Detail
0:00–0:03	The do ritual	76 BPM; calm the room with the familiar door.
0:03–0:08	Warm-up echo	W2, W5 once each — voices on before anyone is scored.
0:08–0:38	Response part	14 items, 2 per unit Unit 1–7, group-administered per the script; stimulus order and pairing table appended at assembly.
0:38–0:41	Reset	Submit on-screen; post the hearing order; start silent station work.
0:41–1:08	Hearing part	~90 seconds per student at the piano corner, changeover included — the on-deck chair keeps the next singer standing ready: one prepared pattern + one at-sight card (AS1–AS4); 18 heard at cap, remainder to office-hour slots.
1:08–1:15	Close	"Seven weeks certified. Next week is one meeting, and it's a release, not a rematch."

When they miss it

Drill	Error mode — what it sounds like	Immediate corrective
Wide-leap echo	Contour right, leap mis-sized — the sixth lands as a fifth or the octave undershoots to ti	Shrink to the two leap notes alone; sing do–sol–la ("that's the fifth, one more step is the sixth"), then rebuild the rung.
Wide-leap echo	Octave re-anchor — after the leap, the recovery steps drift as if do moved	Stop; re-sound do under their held note; have them sing the recovery scale-wise down to do before re-running.
Tritone pull	Resolved the wrong way — ti sags down instead of lifting into do	Play TT1's last two notes alone, twice, leaning hard on the arrival; then the full pattern. Never explain the spelling mid-drill.
Inversion pairs	"Same interval" verdict — the room hears repetition, not inversion	Play the pair with the shared pitch held by the pedal point of your voice: sing the common tone while playing both intervals. The flip becomes audible.
Leap-mapping	Map by guess, not by interval — pitches appear with no named leaps	Take away hearing three; require the leap names out loud after hearing two before anyone writes a note.
Mock check	Freezes under administration — a student who drilled fine goes silent when announced	Re-run the same card immediately, un-announced, as an echo; then re-announce it. The format, not the ear, was the obstacle — say so.

Escalation path

Room-wide failure on wide leaps: drop back one rung to the Unit 6 inventory (fifths and smaller) inside the same patterns, then re-widen one rung per pass. Tritone chaos: retreat to plain ti→do and fa→mi half-step resolutions separately, then reassemble. Re-establish tonic the standard way: stop, run the do ritual, resume. Abandon criterion: a session 1 segment still failing after two escalated attempts gets banked — the check's Unit 7 items still stand on the week's floor drills, and say so calmly. The named pick-up hook: Unit 8's consolidation session re-runs every one of these sounds inside the cumulative echo medley, and the sixths return with names attached again in Unit 9 when the triad inventory needs them. Nothing banked is lost.

Tempo table

Drill	First pass	Target
The do ritual	76 BPM	76 BPM (never varies)
Wide-leap echo W1–W6	76 BPM	80–84 BPM
Tritone pull TT1–TT2	66 BPM	72 BPM
Inversion pairs INV1–INV2	72 BPM	76 BPM
Compound demo	60 BPM	60 BPM
Leap-mapping LM1–LM2	76 BPM	76 BPM
Mock-check cards MK1–MK2	72–76 BPM	as scripted
Check stimuli	as scripted	fixed by script

Rotation note: the hearing part's arithmetic is printed in the keys-sheet administration script and in the student-facing check description: at 36, eighteen hearings in session 2 and the rest in posted office-hour slots around next week's single session; at 4, everyone in session 2. The P rotation has already touched every student at least twice — remind them of that in session 1.

~ Professor Hemsworth's edition · Kenosis College · built with thecoursemaker.com