Week 10 — Skills Check · 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 tested: SLO 3 (identify quality, chord member, and figure by ear) · SLO 4 (hold a heard line long enough to match it)
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-10.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. Every chord is played blocked and then rolled, from a fixed script, the same way for everyone; melodic stimuli get do established first via the ritual. You will have sung every one of these sounds in the studio that same morning: the four stations, the classic pair, chord-tone extraction, the snap figure. Scratch paper is welcome; nothing is answered during a hearing.
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 | Seventh-quality ID | a four-note chord sounds, blocked then rolled; name its quality by the two tells — the third, then the seventh | SLO 3 |
| 1 | The classic pair | two chords share a root; one is maj7, one is the bare-7 dominant — say which hearing was which | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Member extraction | a root sounds and holds, the chord arpeggiates, one member sustains; name the member — root, third, fifth, or seventh | SLO 4 |
| 2 | Dictation response | two bars with seventh-arpeggio skips, or a rhythm with the snap figure; match what sounded to its solfège or counting string | SLO 3 |
Wrong-answer options come from the real ways ears slip on sevenths — mood-voting, the maj7/7 swap, the nearest chord tone, the snap evened out into straight eighths. If you sang the ladder daily, 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 four-note chords and short lines accurately from a card. 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, blocked then rolled, 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 10 Skills Check — Sevenths 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-10-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