Week 10 — Studio · "Cmaj7 vs. C7"

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 10 of 16 (Week 10) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 4 · SLO 7 (the spine: hear it → name it → spell it) · SLO 8, next component (read the chart's symbols at gig speed)
Studio 10 · 20 points · Studios group · In session, Week 10's second session · async make-up path below, full credit, submit by the end of Week 10
Format: quality votes, spelling relays, and bass-note calls. Professor Hemsworth plays; you name what you hear, then spell it four notes deep at the board with your team. Nothing to buy or download; studio sheets and paper keyboards are provided, and your own instrument is welcome.

Every content unit has a the second session studio. It's the week's payoff enacted: this week, the payoff is chart fluency — hearing that Cmaj7 and C7 are different chords is old news to your ear; today your hands and pencil learn to keep pace with it.

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Part 1 — The Big Picture

Session 1 built the five-flavor system: triad plus one more third, five qualities, the symbols charts actually use, and the four floors a seventh chord can stand on. Today the system goes into your ears and hands at performance speed. Every round runs the ear-first direction — sound → name the quality → spell the stack → call the bass — because that's the gig direction: a chart says Gm7, a leader says "make it half-diminished," a slash orders your bass player to the third, and none of it waits for you to look anything up.

By the end of the session your team will have spelled all five qualities on one root at the board, twice, on two different roots — and you'll have caught the one-note differences by ear before spelling a thing.

Part 2 — The Task

The guiding question: When you hear a seventh chord — or read its symbol — how fast can you produce the four exact notes, and could another musician play from what you wrote?

No hypothesis to write today — but before Round 1, jot an honest guess on your sheet: of the five qualities, which pair do you expect your ear to confuse most often? You'll check yourself against it after Round 2.

Part 3 — Procedure (the four rounds)

You'll work on the studio sheet and your paper keyboard from Week 1. Rounds 1–2 are solo ears with neighbor-checks; Round 3 is a team relay at the board; Round 4 mixes ears and figures. Instruments out and welcome — confirming a spelling on your own strings or keys is playing, not cheating.

Round 1 — Ears only: dreamy or bluesy (≈8 min).
Six pairs. In each pair Professor Hemsworth plays two chords on the same root — one is the major seventh chord, one is the dominant seventh, order scrambled. On your sheet, circle which one was the dominant (the bluesy one that leans). No spelling, no letter names — this round is pure ear, and your ear has been doing it for years. After the six pairs: compare with a neighbor, then hear any disputed pair again.

Round 2 — Name the seven (≈14 min).
Eight single chords, roots announced aloud as they're played. For each: write the quality you hear — maj7, 7 (dominant), m7, m7b5 (half-diminished), or dim7 (fully diminished) — in Table 1. Check with a neighbor after every second chord; disagreements get one replay, then the room votes before the reveal. After chord 8: check the guess you wrote in Part 2 — which pair actually fooled you?

Round 3 — THE RELAY: five floors on one root (≈18 min).
Teams of 3–4 at the board. Professor Hemsworth announces one root; your team builds all five qualities on that root, stacked as note names, one row per quality — maj7, dominant 7, m7, m7b5, dim7 — with one catch: runners alternate, and each runner may write or fix exactly one note. Heat 1 root: F. Heat 2 root: G. Between heats, the room checks the finished board against the played sound — Professor Hemsworth plays each row as written, including any wrong ones (the ear catches what the eye missed). Copy your team's corrected heats into Table 2 as your record.

Round 4 — The bass tells you (≈12 min).
Six chart symbols, played and shown one at a time — a mix of slash chords and inversions. For each, write in Table 3: the bass note you hear on the bottom, which chord member it is (root / third / fifth / seventh), and — for the seventh chords — the figure that position carries (7, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2; for the plain triads, unit 9's 6 does the job). Slashes with slashes, figures with slashes: no hyphens anywhere on this sheet.

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 chord and pair so you can produce the sounds yourself.

Part 4 — The Scaffold (complete during the rounds)

Table 1 captures Round 2 — the quality you heard, root announced.

#	Root (announced)	Quality you heard (maj7 / 7 / m7 / m7b5 / dim7)
1	______	______
2	______	______
3	______	______
4	______	______
5	______	______
6	______	______
7	______	______
8	______	______

Table 2 captures Round 3 — your team's corrected relay boards.

Quality	Heat 1 on F (four notes)	Heat 2 on G (four notes)
maj7	______	______
7 (dominant)	______	______
m7	______	______
m7b5	______	______
dim7	______	______

Table 3 captures Round 4 — the bass call.

#	Symbol shown	Bass note	Chord member	Figure
1	______	______	______	______
2	______	______	______	______
3	______	______	______	______
4	______	______	______	______
5	______	______	______	______
6	______	______	______	______

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

1. Round 2: which two qualities did your ear confuse most, and what's the one-note difference between them on paper?
2. Cmaj7 and C7 in one sentence, for a bandmate who reads no notation: what changes, and which one leans?
3. In the relay, the dim7 rows needed spellings like C♭ and E𝄫. A teammate says "just write B and D — same keys, less ink." What breaks if you do?
4. Round 4: when the chordal seventh landed in the bass (the 4/2 ones), what did it do to the sound — and where did the bass note seem to want to move? Describe it in ear terms; the official vocabulary arrives next unit.
5. The Chart, milestone 1 warm-up: name one candidate song for your Chart project and one moment in it where you suspect a seventh-chord color lives. (Your answer here is a scouting note — the real milestone happens inside this week's assignment.)

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment (≈4 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) C7 is spelled C E G Bb, not C E G B; (2) in C major, the seventh chord built on B is B D F A, half-diminished; (3) G7/D means the G7 chord with D in the bass." Then judge its reply against your own tables. The classic failures to hunt this week: it "corrects" fact 2 to B–D–F–A♭ and calls it viio7 (a chord containing a note C major doesn't have), or it tells you half-diminished and diminished are the same chord. 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 you leave: the studio sheet (Round 1 circles + Tables 1–3 + analysis answers + AI-critique sentences). 20 points, graded on the rubric below.

Async make-up path — full credit, submit by the end of Week 10. Life happens; missing the studio costs you nothing but the room. Do the same tasks alone: (1) play each Round 1 pair and each Round 2 chord yourself from the printed lists below (keyboard app or your instrument — every chord fits under one hand, and rolling it note by note counts), and complete the circles and Table 1; (2) run the relay solo on paper for B♭ instead of F/G — all five qualities, four notes each — into Table 2's margin; (3) play each Round 4 symbol from the printed list, lowest note first, and complete Table 3; (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 arpeggiating any three Round 2 chords while naming their qualities aloud. Same rubric, same 20 points, no penalty.

Make-up lists (so no hearing partner is needed): Round 1 pairs — on C: Cmaj7 then C7 · on F: F7 then Fmaj7 · on G: Gmaj7 then G7 · on Bb: Bb7 then Bbmaj7 · on D: Dmaj7 then D7 · on Eb: Eb7 then Ebmaj7 (circle the dominant in each pair as you play). Round 2 chords — Cmaj7 · C7 · Am7 · Bm7b5 · Cdim7 · Fmaj7 · E7 · Gm7. Round 3 root — Bb. Round 4 symbols — C/E · G7/D · Am7/G · F/A · C7/Bb · G7/B.

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Instructor key — REMOVE BEFORE PUBLISHING TO STUDENTS

Round 1 pairs (play both chords in each pair at equal volume, same register; repeat each pair once; the key column names which position the dominant sat in):

#	Root	Play	Dominant is
1	C	Cmaj7, then C7	second
2	F	F7, then Fmaj7	first
3	G	Gmaj7, then G7	second
4	B♭	B♭7, then B♭maj7	first
5	D	Dmaj7, then D7	second
6	E♭	E♭7, then E♭maj7	first

Expect near-perfect scores — say so afterward: "Your ear has known this for years; the week is about the spelling."

Round 2 play order, roots announced (vetted spellings for the reveal):

#	Chord	Quality (Table 1 answer)	Spelling
1	Cmaj7	maj7	C E G B
2	C7	7 (dominant)	C E G B♭
3	Am7	m7	A C E G
4	Bm7♭5	m7b5 (half-diminished)	B D F A
5	C°7	dim7 (fully diminished)	C E♭ G♭ B𝄫
6	Fmaj7	maj7	F A C E
7	E7	7 (dominant)	E G♯ B D
8	Gm7	m7	G B♭ D F

Chord 4 is the week's celebrity — after the reveal, say it out loud: "B–D–F–A is the seventh chord on ^7 in C major: half-diminished, viiø7. If any tool ever tells you that chord is B–D–F–A♭, it has handed you a note C major doesn't own." Chords 4→5 back to back are the ø/° one-note difference, heard.

Round 3 relay — vetted boards (play each finished row as written, wrong notes included; the ear does the grading before you do):

Heat 1, root F: Fmaj7 F A C E · F7 F A C E♭ · Fm7 F A♭ C E♭ · Fm7♭5 F A♭ C♭ E♭ · F°7 F A♭ C♭ E𝄫
Heat 2, root G: Gmaj7 G B D F♯ · G7 G B D F · Gm7 G B♭ D F · Gm7♭5 G B♭ D♭ F · G°7 G B♭ D♭ F♭
(Make-up root B♭:) B♭maj7 B♭ D F A · B♭7 B♭ D F A♭ · B♭m7 B♭ D♭ F A♭ · B♭m7♭5 B♭ D♭ F♭ A♭ · B♭°7 B♭ D♭ F♭ A𝄫

The relay's teaching moment is the bottom two rows: C♭, F♭, E𝄫, A𝄫 are not eccentricities — the stack's letters must survive (F–A–C–E, G–B–D–F, B♭–D–F–A♭ under every accidental). A team that writes "B" for C♭ gets the row played both ways: same sound, and then the letters counted aloud — F to B is a fourth, and the chord's own name says seventh… wait, fifth. Count it with them: F–G–A–B is four letters — the "fifth" became a fourth on paper. That's what breaks.

Board reference (also the deck's staircase, transposed):

METER: free    CLEF: treble
| <F4,A4,C5,E5>/w <F4,A4,C5,Eb5>/w <F4,Ab4,C5,Eb5>/w <F4,Ab4,Cb5,Eb5>/w <F4,Ab4,Cb5,Ebb5>/w |

Five whole-note stacks on the treble staff, all rooted on F4 — the five qualities on F, descending the one-note staircase: F–A–C–E, F–A–C–E♭, F–A♭–C–E♭, F–A♭–C♭–E♭, F–A♭–C♭–E𝄫.

Round 4 symbols and vetted answers (play each with the bass note clearly lowest; show the symbol as you play):

#	Symbol	Bass note	Chord member	Figure
1	C/E	E	third	6
2	G7/D	D	fifth	4/3
3	Am7/G	G	seventh	4/2
4	F/A	A	third	6
5	C7/B♭	B♭	seventh	4/2
6	G7/B	B	third	6/5

Full spellings for the reveal: C/E = C–E–G over E · G7/D = G–B–D–F over D · Am7/G = A–C–E–G over G · F/A = F–A–C over A · C7/B♭ = C–E–G–B♭ over B♭ · G7/B = G–B–D–F over B. Any hyphenated figure on a sheet gets one sentence and a smile: slashes are chord positions; the hyphen's job arrives in unit 14.

AI-critique full credit: names a specific claim checked, with either a caught error (most common: the viio7-in-major regression, or "half-diminished and diminished are the same chord") or a real verification ("it agreed, and I re-ran the key-membership test on fact 2 myself: no A♭ in C major"). "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, analysis answers, the Chart scouting note in question 5), grade the method — honest marks, qualities written in course shorthand, four-note spellings complete — never the taste in songs. Question 5 has no wrong song; it has only missing ones.

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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 — dreamy or bluesy: all six pairs circled honestly (3)	3	2	0–1
Round 2 — name the seven: qualities in course shorthand, ≥6 of 8 correct (5)	5	3–4 (hears the big families but blurs ø/° or maj7/m7)	0–2
Round 3 — the relay: both heats recorded in Table 2, ≥8 of 10 rows spelled fully correctly, dim7 rows honestly attempted with correct letters (5)	5	3–4 (one heat solid; or right keys, wrong letters on the doubles)	0–2
Round 4 — the bass tells you: ≥4 of 6 rows with bass note, member, AND figure correct — slashes only (3)	3	2 (bass notes right, members or figures shaky)	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 re-verified against the course theory reference (all five qualities on C, F, G, B♭; B–D–F–A as viiø7 in C major; slash-chord members and figures 6 · 6/5 · 4/3 · 4/2); the relay fence parses and its five stacks match the Heat-1 key; rubric sums 3+5+5+3+2+2 = 20; no purchased or downloaded materials; figures appear with slashes only. ✓

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Assignment
title            = "Week 10 Studio — Cmaj7 vs. C7"
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 10's second session; make-up by the end of Week 10
published        = true

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