Week 10 — Drill Plan · Sevenths by Ear
Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 10 of 15 (Week 10) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 1 · SLO 3 · SLO 4
Sessions: session 1 · session 2 (Skills Check 10 in the last quarter hour of session 2)
Instructor-facing. This file is excluded from the student cartridge. Every stimulus named below is notated, with its performance script, in
_keys/KEY-stimulus-sheet-week-10.md; the seventh ladder, the pull line, and the sight-singing set SS1–SS4 are notated in this unit's P page (student material, not secrets). Nothing musical is spelled out here.
Named in Music Theory I: the five seventh-chord qualities, the diatonic sevenths in major (viiø7 — half-diminished, never viio7 in major), inversions with their slash figures, seventh-chord symbols, slash chords. An hour later those stacks stop being spellings and start being sounds the room can sing through.
First time teaching this
The point of the LU: last week the triad; this week one more third on top. Every seventh quality the theory class spelled is an arpeggio the voice can walk — and in major, four of the five qualities live at diatonic addresses the class already owns: the ti-chord on do (IM7), re's chord (ii7), sol's chord (V7), ti's chord (viiø7). Sing the address, and the quality comes free.
The one thing that must land: the seventh is not decoration — it is the pull. V7 carries a tritone inside it (ti against fa), and when ti rises and fa falls the chart resolves. A student who can sing sol–ti–re–fa and then resolve it has connected Unit 7's tritone to every dominant chord they will ever play.
The most common way it goes wrong: quality ID by mood ("jazzy" = maj7) instead of by structure — keep pointing the ear at the two tells: the third (bright or dark bottom) and the seventh (how far under the octave). Second trap: the classic confusion — students assume the bare 7 in C7 means a major seventh. It never does; the tutorial works this all week, and the check tests it. Third trap: over-promising the fully diminished sound. It gets heard this week, on "loo," as color — its diatonic home is harmonic minor, which the theory class reaches next week. Frame it honestly and move on.
The do ritual
Defined in full in Unit 1's B; run it unchanged — play I–IV–V–I in the day's key, sing "do," the class sings do–mi–sol–mi–do back. This week, before dictation only, add one extension: after the response, arpeggiate the day's target chord once so the new fourth note enters the ear inside an established key.
Drill sequence
Session 1 — minute markers, stimuli by keys-sheet name, tempi, repetitions, words to say.
| Time | Segment | Stimulus / tempo | Reps | Words to say |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:03 | The do ritual | Ritual in C, 76 BPM | 1 cycle | "Same door. Today the chords grow a fourth floor." |
| 0:03–0:17 | The seventh ladder | A1–A4 at 60→72 BPM (ritual first in each new key) | 2 play–sing cycles each | "Last week you sang three-note stacks. One more third on top. do–mi–sol–ti: sing the ladder, land the top lightly — it's a half step shy of home." |
| 0:17–0:30 | Quality ID, played vs arpeggiated | QI1–QI4 at 66 BPM, blocked then rolled | 2 hearings per call | "Four flavors: major seventh, dominant, minor seventh, half-diminished. Two tells: the bottom third, then the seventh. Vote on fingers — 1, 2, 3, 4." |
| 0:30–0:38 | The classic pair | QI1 vs QI2 root-matched at 66 BPM | 3 pairs | "Same root, one note different. Cmaj7 shimmers; C7 leans. Which hearing leaned?" |
| 0:38–0:50 | The pull | P fence 2 (pull line) at 66→72 BPM; instructor holds the V7 under the room | 3 full passes | "Find the two restless notes — ti and fa. Sing them home: ti climbs, fa falls. That's why every chart's dominant resolves." |
| 0:50–1:00 | Chord-tone singing | ME1–ME2 at 66 BPM | 2 rounds each | "I hold the root. You sing the member I call — third… seventh… fifth. Climbing the whole ladder under your breath is legal today, not session 2." |
| 1:00–1:08 | The color visitor | FD1 at 66 BPM, echo on "loo" | 2 hearings + echo | "One quality has no address in a major key: every interval inside it is a minor third. Taste it on 'loo.' Its home key arrives in theory next week." |
| 1:08–1:15 | Close + assignments | — | — | "Practice page has your daily ladder. Tutorial before session 2 — its symbol work feeds the check. Ten minutes a day, out loud." |
Session 2 — new rhythm figure, dictation with skips, sight-singing, then the check.
| Time | Segment | Stimulus / tempo | Reps | Words to say |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0:00–0:03 | The do ritual | Ritual in G, 76 BPM | 1 cycle | "Door open. Listen for the fourth floor all morning." |
| 0:03–0:12 | The snap figure | RH1 at 76→84 BPM, then EC1 at 72→80 BPM | 2 cycles each | "New rhythm move: a long lean and a late snap — count it '1 … a.' Clap it back; then sing it back." |
| 0:12–0:24 | Ladder maintenance + member extraction | A1–A4 at 72 BPM; ME1–ME2 at 66 BPM, solo turns on the rotation | 1 cycle each; 4–5 solos | "No ladder-climbing today — go straight to the member. If you must climb, climb silently." |
| 0:24–0:40 | Dictation with skips | D1 at 66 BPM, then D2 at 66 BPM; three hearings each, hear–sing–write | scripted | "The line walks a chord you know. Hearing one: hands catch the rhythm. Two: sing it inside. Three: write. If bar two snaps late, that's your new figure — write the dot." |
| 0:40–0:52 | Sight-singing circle | SS1–SS4 from the P page, 60→66–76 BPM | round-robin | "Audiate the skips before you sing — every leap is a chord member, so name the chord in your head and the leap sings itself." |
| 0:52–0:55 | Check setup | — | — | administration script, keys sheet |
| 0:55–1:09 | Skills Check 10 | Stimuli 1–8 per script, 66–76 BPM | scripted | script only — identical administration matters |
| 1:09–1:15 | Close | Ritual, once, all together | 1 | "You can now hear a suffix. Recordings and practice close at the end of the week." |
When they miss it
Per drill: what the miss sounds like, and the immediate corrective — a specific next sound, never a re-explanation.
| Drill | Error mode — what it sounds like | Immediate corrective |
|---|---|---|
| Seventh ladder | Top note overshoots — ti lands on do (leap mis-sized; the octave habit from Unit 9) | Play sol–ti alone, twice; sing just that pair, then rebuild the ladder. The top is a third above sol, not a fourth. |
| Seventh ladder | Do lost mid-arpeggio — the last note drifts sharp or flat of the key | Stop, run the do ritual, then sing the ladder against the sustained tonic in the piano. |
| Quality ID | Voting by mood — "dreamy" gets maj7 called on a m7 | Replay the bottom third alone: bright or dark? Then the top pair: how far under the octave? Two tells, one at a time. |
| Quality ID | m7 vs ø7 blurred — both dark, the shrunken fifth missed | Play the two fifths naked: root–fifth of each chord back to back. One is solid, one caves. Then the full chords. |
| The classic pair | The bare 7 heard as "the fancy one" — Cmaj7 and C7 swapped | Play the two sevenths alone against the root: B against C, then B♭ against C. Half-step bite vs whole-step lean. Then the full pair. |
| The pull | Fa resolves upward — the line ends off the chord | Sing fa–mi alone, three times, falling. Then ti–do rising. Then both pairs together, then the full line. |
| Member extraction | Nearest-note substitution — asked for the seventh, sings the fifth | Re-strike the root, arpeggiate slowly, stop on the requested member and have the room join it. Then re-ask cold. |
| Dictation | Triad written, seventh missed — do–mi–sol–do on the page where do–mi–sol–ti sounded | Play what they wrote, then what sounded, back to back. The wince teaches; then they fix the third note from the top. |
| Snap figure | Dot evened out — the figure written as two even eighths (subdivision lost) | Clap the bar while counting "1 (e-&) a" aloud with the subdivision whispered; then the figure alone; then the whole bar. |
Escalation path
If a drill fails room-wide: the ladder drops back to last week's triad arpeggio (do–mi–sol) and adds ti only after two clean passes; quality ID drops to two choices (maj7 vs dom7 only — the classic — before four); member extraction allows audible ladder-climbing again; dictation drops to D1 with the chord named in advance; the snap figure drops to clapped rhythm alone before pitch rejoins it. Re-establish tonic the same way every time: stop, run the do ritual, resume. Abandon criterion: a segment still failing after two escalated attempts gets banked — "the seed is in; it flowers next week" — and logged. The named pick-up hooks: Unit 11 sings these same chords as bass lines (do–fa–sol–do under I–IV–V–I) and gives V7 its analysis name; the pull line returns there verbatim as the dominant's resolution, and any banked quality-ID work re-enters Unit 11's progression ID at floor difficulty.
Tempo table
| Drill | First pass | Target |
|---|---|---|
| The do ritual | 76 BPM | 76 BPM (never varies) |
| Seventh ladder A1–A4 | 60 BPM | 72 BPM |
| Quality ID QI1–QI4 | 66 BPM | 66 BPM |
| The pull line | 66 BPM | 72 BPM |
| Member extraction ME1–ME2 | 66 BPM | 66 BPM |
| Color visitor FD1 | 66 BPM | 66 BPM |
| Snap figure RH1 / EC1 | 76 / 72 BPM | 84 / 80 BPM |
| Dictation D1–D2 | 66 BPM | 66 BPM |
| Sight-singing SS1–SS4 | 60 BPM | 66–76 BPM |
| Skills-check stimuli | as scripted, 66–76 BPM | fixed by script |
Rotation note (P states it to students): solo hearings continue inside member extraction and the sight-singing circle — 6 to 8 students heard individually per session keeps every voice heard solo roughly every two and a half weeks at a full section of 36; in a small room, everyone, every session. Keep the ledger current; Unit 13's prepared-material distribution assumes the rotation is even.
~ Professor Hemsworth's edition · Kenosis College · built with thecoursemaker.com