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

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
Drill Studio 7 · 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: session 1 is a working studio — new sounds plus a full-discipline rehearsal of session 2. Session 2 is the mid-course cumulative check, described on its own page.

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. An hour later every one of those names becomes something your voice does.

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Part 1 — The week's shape, said plainly

Session 1 finishes the interval family: last week your ear owned everything up to the fifth; today it takes the sixths, the sevenths, the octave, and the one restless distance in the middle. Then we rehearse session 2 at full discipline, so nothing about session 2 is new except that it counts.

Session 2 is the mid-course cumulative check — all seven weeks, two parts: fourteen ears-only questions answered together, then about ninety seconds of singing per student on the posted rotation. It is not a new kind of event. It is the same drills, administered. And it sits this week on purpose: your theory midterm is next week, and the two were never going to share a morning.

Part 2 — session 1's drills

The do ritual opens, as always — and it opens every new key today.

The wide-leap ladder. Echo patterns, each built around one leap: the minor sixth, the major sixth, the minor seventh, the major seventh, the octave — then the minor sixth again in minor. The move is always the same: name the reach, land it, let the steps walk you home.

The tritone's pull. One distance splits the octave exactly in half, and it cannot sit still. You'll sing it resolving both ways — ti pulling up into do, fa leaning down onto mi — and hear why one sound gets two spellings: fa up to ti is an augmented fourth, ti up to fa is a diminished fifth. Same sound in the air; the resolution tells the page which one it was. That's this morning's enharmonic point made audible: spelled differently is different, even when a piano can't tell them apart.

Inversion pairs. A minor third and a major sixth built from the same two note names — sing both and hear the flip. Sizes add to nine; major trades with minor; perfect stays perfect. Your ear gets the rule before the arithmetic does.

The octave overcoat. Professor Hemsworth plays a third, then the same third stretched past the octave — a tenth. Compound intervals aren't new information: name the simple interval inside the coat and add seven. You'll name these; nobody's voice is asked to leave the octave.

Leap-mapping. The week's headline skill: a short melody plays three times, and you transcribe it by naming its leaps — the intervals dictate the notes. This is the same figure-it-out-fast race the theory studio runs on paper, started in the ear, and it's the skill session 2's melody items reward.

The mock check. The last twenty minutes run exactly like session 2: partner cards, stimuli announced by number, two hearings, silence, answer — then you coach your partner using the rubric's own words before you swap. Perception first, labels last. Walk out knowing precisely what the room will feel like in two days.

Part 3 — session 2, and the prepared patterns

The check's full description — parts, points, ground rules, make-ups — is on the skills-check page of this module. Your studio job for session 2 is one decision and some repetitions: choose one of the four prepared patterns below and own it. At your hearing you'll sing your chosen pattern (do is given), then read one two-bar melody at sight — the same dials as every week of this course so far.

Prepared pattern 1 leaps a major sixth from do to la, then walks down to rest:

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

Prepared pattern 2 takes the full octave at once, then descends through the do–mi–sol tones:

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

Prepared pattern 3 is the minor-mode option: down to sol, a minor sixth up to me, and a stepwise settle:

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

Prepared pattern 4 is the bold one, in three: a drop to fa, the tritone's lift to ti, and the resolution home:

KEY: G major    METER: 3/4    CLEF: treble
| G4/q C4/q F#4/q | G4/h. |

The rotation, in numbers: you've been heard solo at least twice already this term — that was the point of the rotation. At a full section of 36, eighteen students sing at session 2's check (about ninety seconds each) and the rest take posted office-hour slots around next week's single session; in a small room, everyone sings in session 2. While others are heard, you work the silent prep sheet — audiation only, and yes, silence is part of the grade of the room.

Part 4 — Before session 1 (the prep step)

Run Tutorial 7 first. It hands you the conversion arithmetic session 1 leans on — compound-to-simple, inversion sums, the tritone's two names — and its practice circuit is the check-prep strategy: audiate first, sing second, name last.

Part 5 — What counts, and how

Studio participation is the grade this page carries: 20 points across the two meetings — session 1's drills and mock-check coaching, session 2's warm-up, silent-station discipline, and your own hearing conduct. The standing lens, as every week:

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.

Any octave that fits your voice earns full credit, sung or played; timbre is never graded.

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Perception — leap sizes called correctly in echoes and the mock check; resolutions heard, not guessed; partner coaching names what actually happened (10)	9–10	5–8	0–4
Realization — leaps land, in any octave that fits, sung or played; recoveries return to do; mock-check answers delivered at discipline (7)	7	4–6	0–3
Labeling — interval names, the two tritone spellings, and the error classes used rightly when you describe what you heard (3)	3	2	0–1

Part 6 — Missed a session? The make-up path

Session 1 missed: run the practice page's daily loop for the missed days, then record the wide-leap ladder and both tritone resolutions and submit the clips with two sentences of self-diagnosis (error classes, please) under this studio's make-up assignment by the end of the week — full credit. Session 2 missed: the check has its own make-up path, described on the check page; email Professor Hemsworth the same day.

Why this makes you a better musician

Session 1 you finish a seven-week project your ear started in Unit 1: every distance inside the octave, owned by sound. In session 2 you find out — in the friendliest possible format — that certification feels exactly like practice when the practice was real.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Unit 7 Drill Studio — Intervals Outward II"
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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