Week 9 — Skills Check · Triads by Ear
Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 9 of 15 (Week 9) · two sessions per week
Objectives tested: SLO 3 (identify quality, member, and bass member by ear) · SLO 4 (match heard chord-shape melodies to their syllables and degrees)
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-09.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. Professor Hemsworth performs every stimulus live, from a fixed script, the same way for everyone: chords sound blocked and then rolled slowly from the bottom; melodies get the ritual first, then three hearings. You will have made every one of these calls in the studio the same morning — the quality game, the member game, the bottom-note game, the chord-shape dictation.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Triad quality ID | a chord sounds blocked, then rolled; call it major, minor, diminished, or augmented — frame first, then the middle | SLO 3 |
| 1 | Member extraction | a triad sounds, then one of its members alone; name which member you heard | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Arpeggio dictation response | do is planted, a two-bar chord-shape melody plays three times; match it to its solfège or degree string | SLO 4 |
| 2 | Root position or not | a blocked chord rolls from its lowest note; is the root on the bottom — or the third, or the fifth? | SLO 3 |
Wrong-answer options come from the real ways ears slip on chords — quality filed by mood, the shrunk and stretched frames swapped, the top note sung when the third was asked, an inversion filed as a new chord. If you ran the daily ladder, this check is confirmation, not a hurdle.
Ground rules
Closed to AI, closed to notes, closed to neighbors — it's your ear being certified, and after a week of ladders it's ready. Phones face-down except for answering. 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 set of stimuli held by Professor Hemsworth for exactly this case. Recruit a musician who can play chords and short lines accurately from a card — someone with a keyboard or guitar works well this week. 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 — announced by number, scripted 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 9 Skills Check — Triads by Ear"
assignment_group = "Skills checks"
points_possible = 8
allowed_attempts = 1
access = opens in session 2; live administration only
published = true
F-skills-check-week-09-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