Week 11 — Skills Check · Harmonic Listening I
Course: MUS 155 Aural Skills I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 11 of 15 (Week 11) · two sessions per week
Objectives tested: SLO 2 (notate from a heard performance — matched, not written, here) · SLO 3 (identify by ear, without notation)
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-11.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, in the last quarter hour of session 2's studio — the first skills check of the harmony era. Chords are performed live, from a fixed script, announced by number, with the key planted by the do ritual before every pitched stimulus. Nothing here asks for anything the studio didn't drill the same morning: find the bass, name the loop, name the job, count the chord clock.
Blueprint
The table maps the item families to what your ear does and the outcome each serves.
| Items | Family | What your ear does | Objective |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Bass-line match | Four chords sound (one set major, one minor); pick the syllable line that spells the bass you heard | SLO 2 |
| 2 | Progression ID | A four-chord loop plays (one major, one minor); name it in Roman numerals | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Function ID | A progression stops partway; call the stopped chord's family — home, away, or pull | SLO 3 |
| 2 | Harmonic-rhythm count | Chords under a tune; say how often the harmony changes | SLO 3 |
Wrong-answer options come from the real error classes — the minor loop filed bright, the fourth that lands as a fifth, the tune's rhythm mistaken for the chord clock.
Ground rules
Closed to AI, closed to notes, closed to neighbors. Phones face-down except for answering; nothing is written during a hearing — listen first, answer after. Group-administered: everyone answers the same live hearings at the same moment, so it runs identically at four students 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 holds a parallel stimulus set for exactly this case. Recruit a musician who can play four-chord progressions accurately from a card — this week's stimuli are chords, so a pianist or guitarist is the right partner. Your partner contacts Professor Hemsworth directly and receives the performance cards (they never pass through your hands), 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 11 Skills Check — Harmonic Listening I"
assignment_group = "Skills checks"
points_possible = 8
allowed_attempts = 1
access = opens in session 2; live administration only
published = true
F-skills-check-week-11-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