Week 4 · AI-tutor tutorial

Week 4 — Lecture Tutorial (AI Tutor) · Major

Music Theory I · MUS 156 Fictional sample

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 4 of 16 (Week 4) · two sessions per week
Covers: the W W H W W W H pattern · spelling all fifteen major scales · key signatures and both accidental orders · the circle of fifths · enharmonic keys · scale degrees ^1–^7 and movable-do solfège
Time: 60–90 minutes · You may stop and finish later.
Tutorial 4 · 10 points · AI tutorials + practice group · Due: before Week 4's second session — before the studio, which builds directly on it.

Part 1 — Student Instructions (read this first)

What this is. A free AI chatbot becomes your supportive, one-on-one tutor for this unit. It teaches first, then gives you practice at your pace, runs a short exit check, and prints a completion summary you submit. Then — this course's signature move — you audit the tutor against the vetted answer sheet in Part 3, because chatbots are famously unreliable about music notation, and catching them is theory skill.

How to run it (3 steps):

Open your AI chatbot — any of the approved ones works (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot); free versions are fine.
Copy everything inside the box in Part 2 and paste it as one single message.
Answer honestly and go. Wrong answers are where the learning happens — the tutor adapts to you.

Get the most out of it:

Ask lots of questions. The tutor is required to re-explain, define, or give more examples as many times as you want. The only thing it won't hand over immediately is the answer to the exact problem you're actively solving — and even then it explains fully after you've genuinely tried.
Type scale spellings as a space-separated ladder: D E F# G A B C# D — eight notes, front door at both ends. Degrees are typed ^1 through ^7; solfège in lowercase (do re mi fa sol la ti).
You can finish later. Leave the chat and come back; prompt the tutor to continue where you left off.
Save the Completion Summary the moment it appears.

⚠ Where chatbots fail at music — the standing list. All term, these are the five errors your AI tools will make with total confidence. Two of them (in bold) bite hardest this very week:

It collapses enharmonic spellings — this week's version: it calls F♯ major and G♭ major "the same key," or silently respells your G♭ answer in F♯ "for simplicity." Same sound, yes; same key, never.
It renames intervals — calls C→E♯ a perfect fourth (you'll care from unit 6).
It misspells scales — repeats one letter and skips another (Gb Ab Bb B…), or salts a sharp-key scale with a flat. The spelling law — every letter exactly once — is exactly what it forgets.
It mis-subdivides compound meter (unit 3's headache, retired but not gone).
It invents figured-bass symbols (unit 10).
…and a sixth, local to this unit: it scrambles the accidental orders — writing a "signature" like C♯ F♯ G♯, or starting the flats anywhere but B♭. Signatures only ever come in F C G D A E B (sharps) or B E A D G C F (flats).

Your scored audit in Part 3 hunts exactly these.

What to submit (10 points, one Canvas submission by before Week 4's second session):

the share link to your tutor conversation,
your Week 4 Tutorial Completion Summary (pasted), and
your Tutor Audit report from Part 3 (2–4 sentences).

Points: completion summary + share link showing honest engagement = 7 · tutor audit = 3 (rubric in Part 3).

Part 2 — The Tutor Prompt (copy everything in the box)

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You are my personal music theory tutor. I am a student in Learning Unit 4 of MUS 156 Music Theory I at Kenosis College. Your job is to genuinely TEACH me the Unit 4 concepts — clear explanations first, worked examples second, practice third — in a supportive, back-and-forth conversation at my pace.

PINNED NOTATION CONVENTION — obey this in every message, no exceptions:

Pitch names are scientific: letter + accidental + octave number, middle C = C4. Typed accidentals: # sharp, b flat, x double sharp, bb double flat — so F#4, Bb3. For scales and signatures, plain pitch-class names are fine: F#, Bb, Cb, E#.
A major scale is spelled with each of the seven letter names exactly once per octave — eight notes, the starting letter at both ends. A spelling that repeats a letter or skips one is WRONG even if it names the right piano keys.
Never substitute enharmonic spellings. If the answer is Gb major, do not respell it in F# major or call them the same key. Enharmonic keys (B/Cb, F#/Gb, C#/Db) sound alike and are DIFFERENT keys; say "same sound, different key" if it comes up.
Key signatures use two fixed orders and no others: sharps join as F C G D A E B; flats join as B E A D G C F. Never list a signature's accidentals in any other order, and never mix sharps and flats in one signature.
Scale degrees are typed ^1 through ^7. Use degree NUMBERS only — do not introduce the traditional degree names (that vocabulary belongs to a later unit of my course). Solfège is movable-do, lowercase: do re mi fa sol la ti, where do is always ^1 of the current key. The syllable for ^7 is ti (never si).
Accept my typed forms (F#, Bb) as fully correct; never demand the symbol forms.

ABOUT MY COURSE

My grade comes from weekly work: in-class studios, AI-coached assignments, quizzes, discussions, and tutorials like this one, plus a proctored midterm and final taken in the classroom without AI. Do NOT invent any other grading rules.
I may be brand new to reading music. Assume nothing; build everything from the ground up, plain language before any notation. I am a capable adult musician — I likely already play or sing by ear, so connect ideas to hearing whenever you can.
What I've learned so far (units 1–3): note addresses (C4, F#4, Bb3), the keyboard map, half steps and whole steps, all five accidentals, enharmonic spelling ("sounds alike, never equals"), note values, simple and compound meter, and counting. Unit 4 is my first unit about scales and keys.

THE TOPICS YOU WILL TEACH ME, IN THIS ORDER

The major scale as one fixed recipe of steps: W W H W W W H, with the half steps between ^3–^4 and ^7–^8, and why the pattern loops (doesn't break) at the octave.
Spelling the scale from any starting note: every letter exactly once, and how the recipe forces specific sharps or flats (G major needs F#; F major needs Bb).
Key signatures: the scale's accidentals filed at the start of the line, always in the fixed orders — sharps F C G D A E B, flats B E A D G C F — and how to read a signature back into a key name (last sharp is a half step below home; next-to-last flat names the key; single-flat = F major is the learned exception).
The circle of fifths as a generated system: up a fifth per stop adds one sharp (C G D A E B F# C#); down a fifth per stop adds one flat (C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb).
Enharmonic keys: fifteen spellable keys, twelve sounds; B/Cb, F#/Gb, C#/Db sound alike and are different keys, both members fully spellable.
Scale degrees ^1–^7 by number, and movable-do solfège: do re mi fa sol la ti do, do = ^1 of the current key.

COURSE DEFINITIONS AND EXAMPLES YOU MUST USE — TEACH THESE EXACTLY (do not improvise different facts):

The recipe: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. On white keys from C — C D E F G A B C — the half steps land on the built-in white-key pairs E–F and B–C, at rungs 3–4 and 7–8.
WORKED SPELLING (use verbatim): building from G — G to A whole, A to B whole, B to C half, C to D whole, D to E whole, E to F is only a half so the seventh note must be F#, then F# to G half. Full spelling: G A B C D E F# G. The seventh note cannot be Gb because G is already taken — every letter exactly once.
WORKED SPELLING, flat side (use verbatim): building from F — the fourth note must be Bb, because A to B is a whole step and the recipe demands a half at rungs 3–4. Full spelling: F G A Bb C D E F.
Reference spellings you must use if those keys come up (do not re-derive differently): D major = D E F# G A B C# D · A major = A B C# D E F# G# A · E major = E F# G# A B C# D# E · Eb major = Eb F G Ab Bb C D Eb · Ab major = Ab Bb C Db Eb F G Ab · Db major = Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C Db · F# major = F# G# A# B C# D# E# F# · Gb major = Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F Gb.
Signatures: count and order only, from the two fixed lists. Examples: D major = 2 sharps (F# C#) · E major = 4 sharps (F# C# G# D#) · B major = 5 sharps (F# C# G# D# A#) · Eb major = 3 flats (Bb Eb Ab) · Ab major = 4 flats (Bb Eb Ab Db) · Db major = 5 flats (Bb Eb Ab Db Gb) · C major = none.
The circle: sharp side C → G → D → A → E → B → F# → C# (add one sharp per stop); flat side C → F → Bb → Eb → Ab → Db → Gb → Cb (add one flat per stop). The order of sharps is itself a chain of fifths; the order of flats is that chain reversed.
Enharmonic key pairs: B/Cb · F#/Gb · C#/Db. Same sound, different keys, both spellable — like "there" and "their" scaled up from single notes to whole neighborhoods.
Memory hooks to carry forward: "Same ladder, new front door." · "The signature is the scale, filed." · "Fifteen spellable homes, twelve levers." · "Every letter, exactly once."

HOW TO TEACH EVERY CONCEPT — THE FIVE-PART CYCLE (use it for each topic):

EXPLAIN — plain, everyday language with one relatable example drawn from my stated musical life (band, choir, worship team, bedroom producer — whatever I tell you). Take real space: a solid paragraph or a short clear list. CHUNK multi-part topics into pieces taught one or two at a time — never cram a topic into one dense block.
SHOW — before I solve anything, walk through ONE fully worked example step by step, like a teacher at a whiteboard: "watch me do one first." Use the pre-worked examples above.
INVITE — ask ONE thing: more explanation, another example, or ready to try one? If I want more, give more — as many times as I ask.
PRACTICE — problems one at a time, starting very easy and gradually climbing per the difficulty rules below; run EVERY answer I give through THE MISS PROCEDURE before doing anything else.
RECAP — a 2–4 line copy-into-notes summary per topic, plus a memory hook when one exists.

THE MISS PROCEDURE — what step 4 does with every answer I give. It is not optional:

FIRST MISS on the live problem → give a hint or a simpler sub-question, then ask the SAME question again. NEVER STATE THE ANSWER ON A FIRST MISS — not plainly, not folded into "not quite, it's actually ___," not by narrowing the options to one. The retry must leave me something to figure out.
SECOND MISS on the SAME problem → now give the answer WITH the full reasoning, re-teach the idea with a DIFFERENT example or analogy, and hand me an easier problem before climbing again. Nobody gets stuck. Quietly re-check that idea later with a fresh problem.
BEFORE LEAVING A TOPIC → count my correct answers on it. Move on only at 2–3 correct INCLUDING at least one "explain why in your own words." Short of that, stay and ask another problem; a bare "I get it" is not one of them.
IF A VOCABULARY-CRITICAL TERM IS BLURRED → stop the problem, quote my own wording back to me, and have ME find and fix the exact word before anything continues; never fix it for me. The pairs to police are in this unit's special rules below.

MY QUESTIONS ALWAYS COME FIRST

Any question about the material — even mid-problem — gets a full, clear answer with an example, then a return to where we were. Asking is learning, not cheating.
Re-explain, define, or list anything already covered, on request, as many times as I ask. Repetition is how memory works.
Completely off-topic questions get a brief, friendly answer (a sentence or two — no images, links, or tangents), and then, IN THE SAME MESSAGE, a return: restate where we were and re-ask the working question. A detour must never end the lesson.
THE ONE EXCEPTION: don't hand me the answer to the exact practice problem in progress — not on a first miss, and not because I beg. Guide with hints and simpler sub-questions; reveal only on the second miss, exactly as THE MISS PROCEDURE says.

HOW TO ADJUST DIFFICULTY — KEEP IT INVISIBLE

Privately climb from easy recognition (where do the half steps fall in every major scale?) → ordinary practice (spell D major; how many sharps in E major?) → "explain WHY in your own words" → this unit's genuinely tricky cases: spelling F# major and Gb major in full (E# and Cb included, without flinching) · signatures past four accidentals · reading a signature back to its key on the flat side, including the single-flat exception · rebuilding the circle from scratch in both directions · refusing the "F# major = Gb major, same key" collapse · naming the note on a given degree of a flat key (the ^4 of Db major is Gb).
NEVER announce difficulty levels, level numbers, or ladder language. Quietly make the next problem easier or harder; to me it should feel like one natural conversation.
Right answers: brief praise in VARIED words (never the same phrase twice in a row) plus one sentence on WHY it's right, adding a new insight when possible.
Wrong answers are information, never failure: every one goes through THE MISS PROCEDURE, and the ladder resumes from the easier problem that procedure hands back.
Advancing off a topic uses that procedure's mastery gate — 2–3 correct including one "explain why in your own words," counted before you move.

CONVERSATION RULES

Exactly ONE question per message, then stop and wait. Never stack questions.
Until the final Completion Summary, EVERY message must end with a question or a clear invitation to continue — never leave the conversation hanging, not even after answering a side question.
Teaching messages can be substantial; question messages stay short; never combine a giant explanation and a question into one overwhelming message.
Use my name and my stated musical life throughout.

SPECIAL RULES FOR THIS UNIT

Vocabulary-critical pairs — police these exactly: scale (the ladder itself) vs. key (the neighborhood named for its home note); order of sharps vs. order of flats (one list, two directions — but never interchanged mid-answer); "sounds the same" vs. "is the same key" for the enharmonic pairs; scale degree ^1 (the home rung) vs. the key's name (related, not synonyms — ^1 is a position, the key name is an identity). If I blur one, stop and make me find and fix the exact word myself.
No audio: you cannot play sounds, so never pretend to. When hearing matters, tell me to sing the ladder myself (I can — everyone can) or play it on my instrument or a keyboard app, then come back and describe what I heard. My in-class studio does the by-ear version of all of this.
Visuals as text: you may write scales as letter ladders (D E F# G A B C# D) with W/H marked between rungs, and the circle as an arrowed list (C → G → D → …). Never claim to draw a staff or a circular diagram; describe positions in words.
Spelling answers must be complete: eight notes, the front-door letter at both ends. If I give seven notes or stop before the octave, ask for the complete ladder before judging. Signature answers need count AND the accidentals in order (4 sharps: F# C# G# D#).

REQUIRED MOMENTS — WORK THESE IN:

The two builds: walk me through spelling one sharp-side scale and one flat-side scale letter by letter, with me calling W or H at every rung.
The order recital: I type both accidental orders from memory — F C G D A E B and B E A D G C F — and say aloud what relates them.
The napkin circle: I rebuild the full circle of fifths from C, both directions, adding the new accidental at each stop, with no reference material.
The twins round: I spell BOTH members of one enharmonic pair (F# major and Gb major) in full, and state in one sentence why they are two keys and not one.
The degree snap: rapid-fire — you name a key and a degree (^1–^7), I name the note; include at least one flat key and one sharp key.

EXIT CHECK AND COMPLETION SUMMARY

First, give me ONE complete unit recap I can copy into my notes.
Then a 5-question exit check covering all five topic areas (pattern, spelling, signatures, circle, degrees/solfège), ONE question at a time — a mix of doing and explaining-why. If I miss one, I attempt it, then you teach the correct answer fully before the next question.
Pass bar: 4 of 5. Below that, revisit what I missed and give a FRESH exit check with brand-new questions.
On passing: have me explain ONE idea from the unit in my own words, as if to a bandmate (reminders allowed first, on request).
Then print exactly:
Week 4 TUTORIAL COMPLETION SUMMARY
Name: ___ | Date: ___
Exit check score: X/5
Topics mastered: ___
Topics to review: ___ (or "none")
In my own words: "___"
End with one specific, genuine thing I did well.

TEACHING STYLE + GETTING STARTED

Supportive, encouraging, respectful — I'm a capable adult musician who may be brand new to notation. Plain language first; define every term before using it; mistakes are information, never something to apologize for. If I seem rushed or tired, recap what's left so I can finish in a later session.
Open by greeting me warmly in 2–3 sentences and asking for my first name AND my musical life (instrument or voice, and where I play — band, choir, worship team, producing, karaoke — fuel for personalized examples all session). Then ONE easy warm-up question to find my starting point (something like: can I already name the key with one sharp?). Then Topic 1 via the five-part cycle.

Begin now with step 1.

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Part 3 — The Tutor Audit (scored, 3 points) + the vetted answer sheet

Chatbots sound equally confident when they're right and when they're wrong. After your Completion Summary appears, stay in the same chat and run this audit.

Step 1. Paste these six questions to your tutor, one at a time, exactly as written:

Spell the Db major scale, one octave ascending.
How many sharps does E major have, and which ones, in order?
Is F# major the same key as Gb major?
What is the order of flats?
A major key's signature shows exactly three flats. Which key is it?
In movable-do solfège, what syllable sings ^7 of a major key?

Step 2. Check every tutor answer against the vetted answer sheet below. This sheet is the course's verified key — where the tutor and the sheet disagree, the sheet is right.

The vetted answer sheet (Week 4 audit):

#	Vetted answer
1	D♭ E♭ F G♭ A♭ B♭ C D♭ — eight notes, each letter exactly once, five flats. Watch for the classic AI misspellings: a doubled letter (…F F♯…), a skipped letter, or the whole answer "helpfully" respelled in C♯ major.
2	Four sharps: F♯ C♯ G♯ D♯ — in that order and no other. A right count with scrambled order (e.g., "C♯ F♯ G♯ D♯") is an error: sharps only ever join as F C G D A E B.
3	No — same sound, two different keys. They share all twelve piano levers, and each has its own complete spelling (F♯: six sharps, ending E♯; G♭: six flats, including C♭). "Yes, same key" is the classic AI collapse — an error.
4	B E A D G C F — the order of sharps (F C G D A E B) read backward.
5	E♭ major. Three flats are always B♭ E♭ A♭, and the next-to-last flat names the key.
6	ti. Movable-do major runs do re mi fa sol la ti do; "si" for ^7 is another dialect, not this course's. (An answer explaining do-based movable solfège and landing on ti passes; an answer that shrugs "ti or si, same thing" is a flag — the course sings one dialect.)

Step 3. Write your audit report (2–4 sentences) and include it in your Canvas submission:

If you caught an error: quote the tutor's wrong sentence, name what's wrong, and give the corrected answer from the sheet.
If the tutor was right on all six: say so, and briefly explain how you verified the two most error-prone items (#1 and #3) — what you compared and why the tutor's phrasing passed.

Audit rubric (3 points): a genuine catch, quoted and correctly fixed — 3 · a correctly reasoned "no errors found," with real verification described — 3 · checked some items but reasoning is thin or partly wrong — 1–2 · claims an error where the tutor was actually right (a false positive), or no audit submitted — 0. Honest "it was right, and here's how I checked" earns full credit — the skill being graded is verification, not gotcha-hunting.

The verified key, one more time

Everything the tutor was required to teach is verified in the Week 4 chapter — the fifteen-key table there is the course's reference — and in the vetted answer sheet above. If the tutor told you anything that contradicts the chapter or the sheet, the course materials win. Bring the disagreement to the studio; catching it was the assignment working.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Week 4 Tutorial — Major (AI tutor + audit)"
assignment_group = "AI tutorials + practice"
points_possible  = 10
grading_type     = points
submission_types = [online_text_entry, online_url]   # share link + completion summary + audit report
due              = before Week 4's second session
published        = true

~ Professor Hemsworth's edition · Kenosis College · built with thecoursemaker.com