Week 7 — Studio · "Figure it out fast"

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 7 of 16 (Week 7) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 3 · SLO 7 (the spine: hear it → name the move → write it)
Studio 7 · 20 points · Studios group · In session, Week 7's second session · async make-up path below, full credit, submit by the end of Week 7
Format: a transcription race. Professor Hemsworth plays tunes you already know; you leap-map them onto paper against the clock, interval calls out loud. Nothing to buy or download; race sheets and paper keyboards are provided, and your own instrument is welcome.
Timing note: the studio runs ≈45 minutes, because this session is a double-header — the cumulative midterm review takes the last half hour of class. The midterm runs next week, in exam week's single session.

Every content unit has a the second session studio. It's the week's payoff enacted: this week, the payoff is speed — a melody transcribed in minutes because every leap has a name.

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Part 1 — The Big Picture

In week 1's studio you located and addressed single notes, one at a time, from a cold start. Today closes the loop on all of Foundations: you'll take down entire melodies by ear, and the difference between now and week 1 is exactly one skill — you name the moves. Every round runs the ear-first direction — sound → name the interval → spell from the note you trust → write it — because that's the gig direction: someone plays something, and you catch it in writing before it evaporates.

There's a clock on the wall for a reason. Not to stress you — to show you something. By the end of Round 3 you will have hard evidence of how far your ears-to-paper speed has come in seven weeks.

Part 2 — The Task

The guiding question: How fast can you turn a melody you hear into correct notation another musician could play from — and what does naming each interval do to that speed?

No hypothesis to write — but before Round 1, jot your honest guess on the sheet: how many minutes would it take you to write down a full phrase of a song you know? You'll compare that guess to your Round 3 time at the end.

Part 3 — Procedure (the four rounds)

You'll work on the race sheet (staff paper with starting notes pre-printed) and your paper keyboard from Week 1. Pairs work best for Rounds 1–2 (one calls, one writes, then swap); the race in Round 3 is every musician for themselves, and it also runs fine solo throughout. Instruments out and welcome — checking a leap on your own strings or keys is playing, not cheating.

Round 1 — Baseline warm-up: the first tune you ever addressed (≈6 min).
Everyone sings the Twinkle tune (Ah! vous dirai-je, maman) — the same melody this course played on day one. Starting note given: C4. As a full room, leap-map the opening out loud: what's the first move? (Nothing — a repeated note.) The second? (A big bright leap up.) Name it, spell it, write it, keep going through "how I wonder what you are." Professor Hemsworth writes the interval calls on the board as the room makes them. No grade pressure here — this round is the method rehearsal, and the Week 1 callback is the point: week 1 you needed the map to name one note; today you'll spell whole tunes.

Round 2 — Call the leap (≈9 min).
Six prompts. For each, Professor Hemsworth names and plays a starting note, then plays a second note. You: (1) write the interval name — quality + size, by ear (sing it against your do–mi–sol patterns or your unit-6 song-hook bank if it helps); (2) spell the landing note from the start. Check with your partner after every second prompt; disagreements get resolved by counting letters out loud, not by seniority. Answers go in Table 1. Prompt 6 is the week's celebrity — you'll know it when you feel it.

Round 3 — THE RACE: two heats (≈18 min).
Real tunes, real clock. For each heat: the tune is named, the starting note is printed on your sheet, Professor Hemsworth plays the phrase twice slowly, then starts the timer and keeps looping it quietly. You leap-map the pitches onto the staff — rhythm is pre-printed on the race sheet this week; pitches are the race. Call your intervals under your breath or out loud (the room will be noisy; good). Hands up when done; your time gets written on your sheet. After each heat: the room calls the interval chain aloud together, and you mark your own sheet against it.

• Heat A — Joy to the World, the opening line. Starting note printed: C5. One long fall, and you know every step of it.
• Heat B — The Star-Spangled Banner, the opening call. Starting note printed: G4. Six notes, real leaps, one of them the interval this course will not stop talking about (a perfect fourth — consonant here in a melody, whatever the chapter said about bass lines; that's the "context" clause, live).

Round 4 — The tritone corner (≈5 min).
Professor Hemsworth plays the week's itch two ways and resolves it: B3–F4 melting inward, then F4–B4 opening outward. You sing both resolutions with the room, then on your sheet: spell the tritone above D4 both ways — once as an augmented fourth, once as a diminished fifth — and draw an arrow showing which way each spelling wants to move. (Table 2.)

Fallback (no piano hearing needed): if you can't hear the piano well from your seat, or you're doing the make-up path, every round works with a free keyboard app or your own instrument — the make-up section below prints every prompt and starting note so you can produce the sounds yourself.

Part 4 — The Scaffold (complete during the rounds)

Table 1 captures Round 2 — the interval you heard and the note it lands on.

Prompt	Starting note (given aloud)	Interval you heard (quality + size)	Landing note (full address)
1	______	______	______
2	______	______	______
3	______	______	______
4	______	______	______
5	______	______	______
6	______	______	______

Table 2 captures Round 4 — the tritone above D4, spelled both ways.

Spelled as	Landing note above D4	Resolves (inward / outward)
Augmented fourth (A4)	______	______
Diminished fifth (d5)	______	______

Race record (Round 3): Heat A time __ · pitches correct ___ /8 · Heat B time _ · pitches correct ___ /6 · my pre-round guess from Part 2: ___

Part 5 — Analysis Questions (short answers on the sheet, ≈4 min)

1. Compare your Round 3 times to the guess you wrote in Part 2. What changed your speed — better ears, or better names? One honest sentence.
2. In Heat B, the melody falls from G4 all the way down to C4, then climbs back and finishes a leap above its starting note, on C5. Name the interval of the total fall (C4 up to G4) and the interval of the final leap (G4 up to C5), and say what the relationship between those two intervals is. (Hint: unit 6 called it inversion — and notice what the two of them stack into.)
3. A bandmate transcribing Heat A writes the third note as G♯4 instead of A4's neighbor A♭… wait — no. They write B♭4 as A♯4 in a tune that's clearly in F major. Same piano key — so what's actually wrong, and what decides the right letters?
4. Round 4: one sound, two spellings, two opposite arrows. In your own words, what is the spelling for, if the piano can't hear the difference?
5. Name one moment today when your ear was ahead of your pencil — you knew the move before you could name it. What was the move, and what finally got it on paper?

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment (≈3 min, phones out — or on the projector if the room prefers)

Type three facts from today into your chatbot and ask it to check them — for example: "Check these: (1) F4 up to B4 is an augmented fourth; (2) B3 up to F4 is a diminished fifth, which is a different interval with the same sound; (3) an octave plus a major third is called a major tenth." Then judge its reply against your own sheet. The classic failures to hunt: it calls A4 and d5 "the same interval, just different names for the tritone" (collapse), or it names the compound a "major eleventh" (added 8 instead of 7). Write 2–3 sentences on your sheet: what it got right, and at least one thing you corrected or verified. The habit all term: the tool drafts, you judge.

Part 7 — What to Submit

Hand in before the review block starts: the race sheet (Round 1 participation is visible in your Round 2–4 tables and race record + analysis answers + AI-critique sentences). 20 points, graded on the rubric below. Keep your paper keyboard — it has one more exam to sit through with you (in your memory, anyway: the midterm room is closed-book, closed-AI, open-ears).

Async make-up path — full credit, submit by the end of Week 7. Life happens; missing the studio costs you nothing but the room. Do the same tasks alone: (1) play each Round 2 prompt yourself from the printed list below (keyboard app or your instrument), then complete Table 1; (2) run both race heats against your own phone timer — play the phrase from the printed starting note, then leap-map it, honestly timing yourself; (3) complete Round 4's Table 2; (4) do the AI-critique step. Submit: phone photos of your completed sheet, plus a short recording (a minute is plenty — voice memo or video) of you playing or singing either heat's phrase while calling the interval moves aloud. Same rubric, same 20 points, no penalty.

Make-up prompt list (so no hearing partner is needed): Round 2 — (1) C4 then E4 · (2) E4 then F4 · (3) G4 then C5 · (4) A4 then F4 · (5) C4 then C5 · (6) B3 then F4. Round 3, Heat A — Joy to the World from C5 (the printed rhythm on the race sheet; loop it yourself). Heat B — The Star-Spangled Banner opening from G4, six notes ("O-oh say can you see, by…" stop at the sixth note). Round 4 — D4, both tritone spellings above it.

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Instructor key — REMOVE BEFORE PUBLISHING TO STUDENTS

Round 1 — Twinkle warm-up (board calls, in order). From C4: repeat · up P5 → G4 · repeat · up M2 → A4 · repeat · down M2 → G4. Then the descent if the room is rolling: F4 F4 E4 E4 D4 D4 C4 (down m2 G→F… call it: G4 down M2? No —) walk it precisely: G4 → F4 is down M2, F4 repeat, F4 → E4 down m2, E4 repeat, E4 → D4 down M2, D4 repeat, D4 → C4 down M2. The reference, both phrases:

METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| C4/q C4/q G4/q G4/q | A4/q A4/q G4/h | F4/q F4/q E4/q E4/q | D4/q D4/q C4/h |

Four bars of quarter notes on the treble staff — C4 C4 G4 G4, A4 A4 with G4 held, then the stepwise fall F4 F4 E4 E4, D4 D4 landing on C4: the Twinkle tune, the same melody Week 1 opened the course with.

Round 2 prompts and vetted answers (play each pair twice; name the starting note aloud):

#	Play	Vetted interval	Vetted landing note	Note
1	C4 → E4	M3	E4	the do–mi everyone owns; easy opener
2	E4 → F4	m2	F4	the white-key half step, Week 1 alumnus
3	G4 → C5	P4 (up)	C5	octave number ticks over — expect C4 errors, send them to the boundary rule
4	A4 → F4	M3 (down)	F4	descending; spelling from above is the skill
5	C4 → C5	P8	C5	palate cleanser before the finale
6	B3 → F4	d5 — the itch	F4	say nothing at first; let the room name the sound (tritone), then pin the spelling: B-C-D-E-F is five letters, so this one is the d5. Respelled from B3 as a fourth it would be E♯4 (B3→E♯4 = A4) — mention only if asked; Round 4 does it properly

Round 3 — race keys. Play each phrase twice slowly before the timer; loop quietly during. Full credit bands are in the rubric; the interval chains for the room call-out:

Heat A — Joy to the World (pitch skeleton, even quarters on the race sheet):

KEY: C major    METER: 4/4    CLEF: treble
| C5/q B4/q A4/q G4/q | F4/q E4/q D4/q C4/q |

Eight even quarter notes falling stepwise from C5 to C4 on the treble staff — the full major scale, descending: the opening line of Joy to the World with its rhythm evened out so the race scores pitches only.

Chain from C5: down m2 (B4) · down M2 (A4) · down M2 (G4) · down M2 (F4) · down m2 (E4) · down M2 (D4) · down M2 (C4). Teaching beat after the call-out: the two m2s land exactly where the key's half steps live — ti–do and fa–mi — Week 4 earning rent.

Heat B — The Star-Spangled Banner, opening six notes:

KEY: C major    METER: 3/4    CLEF: treble
| G4/q E4/q C4/q | E4/q G4/q C5/q |

Six quarter notes on the treble staff: G4 falling to E4 and C4, then climbing back through E4 and G4 to C5 — the anthem's opening call ("O-oh say can you see, by"), rhythm evened to quarters for the race.

Chain from G4: down m3 (E4) · down M3 (C4) · up M3 (E4) · up m3 (G4) · up P4 (C5). Teaching beat: the shape is do–mi–sol furniture (name it as sound only — chords get their names in unit 9), and the final P4 is a melodic fourth: consonant here, context clause live. Expect the C5 octave-number slip again.

Round 4 vetted answers (Table 2): A4 above D4 = G♯4 (letters D-E-F-G, four names; arrow: outward). d5 above D4 = A♭4 (letters D-E-F-G-A, five names; arrow: inward). Demonstration resolutions at the piano: B3–F4 → C4–E4 (inward, to a third); F4–B4 → E4–C5 (outward, to a sixth). Same keys under the hands both times — that's the whole point; make them say what differs (the letters, and therefore the lean).

AI-critique full credit: names a specific claim checked, with either a caught error (most common: "A4 and d5 are the same interval" or the +8 compound slip "M11") or a real verification ("it agreed, and I recounted the letters F-G-A-B myself before believing it"). "The AI said it was all correct" with no checking shown earns the partial band.

Where students collect their own responses (the Part 2 guess, race times, analysis answers), grade the method — honest marks, intervals written quality-then-size, addresses complete — never speed itself. A slow, correct sheet with real interval calls outscores a fast, lucky one.

Analysis key, for reference: (2) The total fall spans C4 up to G4 = P5; the final leap is G4 up to C5 = P4. They are inversions of each other (sizes sum to 9, perfect stays perfect), and stacked they make the octave C4→C5 — same two letter names, G and C, sharing the octave between them. (3) A♯4 names the same key as B♭4, but F major's scale spells that key B♭ — the key signature picks the letters; a chart in F with A♯s in it makes the next musician's eyes bleed. (4) The spelling carries what sound can't: which letters, which scale, which way the music leans — it's the difference between recording a noise and writing a sentence.

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After the studio: the cumulative midterm review (≈30 min — protect it)

Sheets in, timers away, review block on. It runs from the Week 8 review outline and study guide — open since two weeks ago along with the prep tutorial and practice exam — not from this studio sheet. Suggested shape: ten minutes of rapid-fire spelling across Week 1–Week 7 (addresses, signatures, scale forms, intervals simple and compound), ten on the room's standing misconceptions (the octave boundary, compound-meter beat counts, and this week's A2-vs-m3), and ten of open floor on the study guide. The single sentence to send them out on: nothing on session 1 is new — it's everything you've already named, certified.

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Grading rubric — 20 points

The rubric below maps the studio's parts to points; bands are full / partial / none. The async make-up path uses the identical rubric.

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Round 1 — warm-up engaged honestly (method visible: interval calls used from Round 2 on) (2)	2	1	0
Round 2 — call the leap: intervals quality+size AND landing addresses complete, ≥4 of 6 fully correct (5)	5	3–4 (hears sizes but qualities shaky, or addresses missing octave numbers)	0–2
Round 3 — the race: both heats attempted with times recorded; ≥10 of 14 pitches correct across heats with interval calls evident (6)	6	3–5 (one heat solid, one thin; or pitches right with no visible method)	0–2
Round 4 — tritone corner: both spellings above D4 correct with correct arrows (3)	3	2 (one spelling right; or spellings right, arrows swapped)	0–1
Analysis questions: honest, specific answers to all five (2)	2	1	0
AI-critique: 2–3 sentences with a specific catch or a real verification (2)	2	1	0

Quality gate (self-checked): every Round 2–4 key entry and both race chains re-verified against the course theory reference (letter counts before qualities; G4→C5 = P4 with the octave tick; d5 contracts / A4 expands; A4-above-D4 = G♯4, d5-above-D4 = A♭4); both race fences parse and sum to their meters; rubric sums 2+5+6+3+2+2 = 20; no purchased or downloaded materials; the review block introduces no new concepts. ✓

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Week 7 Studio — Figure it out fast"
assignment_group = "Studios"
points_possible  = 20
grading_type     = points
submission_types = [on_paper]        # in session; async make-up: online_upload (photos + short recording)
due              = in session, Week 7's second session; make-up by the end of Week 7
published        = true

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