Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 13 of 16 (Week 13) · two sessions per week
Objectives: SLO 6 · SLO 7

This file holds two pieces: (A) the Week 13 Overview page ("Start Here") and (B) the Welcome Announcement that posts when the module opens. All timing is relative — "Week N" language throughout.

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(A) Week 13 Overview — Start Here

Welcome to Unit 13: Progression, and Two Independent Voices

This is your home base for the unit. Read it first, then work the checklist below from top to bottom. Everything on it is linked inside this module.

You have sung two independent lines at once since you were a kid — every round is exactly that. This unit names what kept those lines apart, and then hands you the pencil. Until now harmony has been vertical: chords, stacked and labeled. This week it goes horizontal: two lines at once — a harmony vocal that doesn't melt into the lead, a countermelody that answers it, a bass line with a shape of its own. You'll learn the four ways two lines can move against each other, the short list of moves that quietly weld two lines into one (parallel perfect fifths and octaves — and the honest reason they're avoided), the lane rules that keep the listener from losing the thread, and the two notes in every key whose next move is already decided. Then you'll write a second voice yourself — and run it against the same voice-leading checker this course's own materials had to pass.

The unit's big question

"You've sung a round and felt two melodies hold their own shape at once. What keeps two lines independent — and what quietly fuses them back into one?"

By the end of this unit, you can…

Use this as a checklist. If you can do all five out loud, the quiz will feel like confirmation.

• [ ] Name the four motion types between two voices — contrary, oblique, similar, parallel — from described moves.
• [ ] Spot parallel perfect fifths and octaves, and explain the honest why: they fuse two lines into one (independence, not ugliness — power chords do it on purpose).
• [ ] Tell a direct (hidden) fifth or octave from a parallel one, and name the legal ways to approach a perfect interval.
• [ ] Keep two lines in their lanes: no crossing, no overlap, ranges respected.
• [ ] Resolve the tendency tones — ti rises to do, the chordal seventh falls by step — and write a second voice that passes the course's voice-leading check.

What to do this unit, in order

The table below lists the unit's items in working order, with points and due dates.

#	Do this	Type	Points	Due
1	Read the Week 13 chapter — the four motions, the independence rules, the lanes, the tendency tones, and the six-step writing procedure	Chapter (ungraded prep)	—	Before the first session if you can
2	Browse the Readings & Resources links that interest you — Bach's two-voice Invention No. 1 is the listening of the week	Prep (ungraded)	—	Alongside class
3	Tutorial 13 — Progression, and Two Independent Voices (AI tutor + audit) — your chatbot teaches, you learn, then you audit it on your own knowledge (two-voice checking is where the tools fail most confidently)	Tutorial · graded	10	before Week 13's second session — before the studio, whose writing and hunting build on it
4	Studio 13 — "Round to two voices" — in class, session 2: sing the rounds, map why they work, hunt planted faults, write a real second voice, and watch the course's checker grade the room's work live. Bring your voice and your instrument.	Studio · graded in session	20	In session, Week 13's second session (async make-up at full credit by the end of Week 13)
5	Practice 13 (AI coach) — six quick reps before the quiz	Practice · graded (completion)	5	the end of Week 13
6	Quiz 13 — Progression, and Two Independent Voices — 10 questions, 15-minute timer, one attempt, closed to AI	Quiz · graded	10	the end of Week 13
7	Discussion 13 — "The Line Under the Line" — find the second voice in a song you actually play; post the summary + share link (that post is the whole submission)	Discussion · graded	10	the end of Week 13
8	Assignment 13 — "The Second Voice" + Chart Milestone 3 — name the moves, hunt the faults, write your own second voice against a given line — then draft your Chart song's lead sheet, by ear, with your coach; the coach's report (score on line 1) + share link	Assignment · graded	100	the end of Week 13

Your Chart, this week: milestone 3 — lead sheet drafted — lives inside Assignment 13 (problems 16–20). Your milestone 2 progression draft becomes an actual page: bars, chord symbols in your key, and the melody sketched by ear, phrase by phrase. Have the song and the milestone 2 report within reach when you start the assignment. The finished Chart — analysis, transposition, polish, demo — is unit 15's assignment; this week's sheet is the page it gets built on.

The late-work policy is in the syllabus.

How to succeed this unit

• Let your ear go first, every time. Sing the round before you label it; sing your written line before you submit it. "Would this line survive alone?" is a question your voice answers faster than your pencil.
• Memorize two facts cold: the parallel ban covers perfect intervals only (parallel thirds and sixths are the sound of every duet you love), and perfect intervals are arrival points — earn them by contrary or oblique approach. Those two settle half the unit.
• Ask "parallel WHAT?" before flagging anything — and learn the difference between parallel (fifth to fifth) and direct (arriving at a fifth). The checker prints different words for them; so should you.
• Ti rises; sevenths fall. Four words, two contracts, no exceptions in plain two-voice writing.
• Treat your chatbot as a smart intern, not an oracle. This week it will miss real parallel fifths and condemn your perfectly legal thirds. Catching that is graded work — and in the studio you'll have the course's own checker as ground truth.
• Do the tutorial before the second session. The studio writes and hunts all morning and assumes its reps; the pre-studio deadline is the one mid-week deadline, same as every week.

Come to the first session with your voice warmed up. You'll be singing a round before the first slide.

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(B) Welcome Announcement — Week 13

Release: posts on the module's opening day (drip — not before). Ships workflow_state=active with side_comment discussion; see placement block.

Subject: You've been singing two-voice music since you were five

Hi everyone,

Think back to the last time you sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat as a round. Half the room started, the other half came in late, and for a glorious minute there were two melodies in the air — and you held yours. Nobody taught you voice-leading first. That skill you already have is Unit 13: two independent voices — the harmony vocal that doesn't melt into the lead, the countermelody, the bass line that's actually a line.

This unit — Progression, and Two Independent Voices — is where you start writing the second line yourself. You'll learn the four ways two lines move against each other, the handful of moves that secretly weld two lines into one (parallel fifths aren't ugly — they're fusing, and power chords prove it), and the two notes in every key whose next move is already under contract. Then you'll write a line of your own and watch it face the course's voice-leading checker — the same software gate every example in this course had to pass. Software doesn't flatter anybody. Clean passes feel earned.

Three things not to miss:

1. Tutorial 13 is due before the second session (before Week 13's second session) — the studio assumes its reps, and this week's tutor audit is the best hunting season of the term: chatbots are famously bad at two-voice checking.
2. The second session is a singing class. We open with rounds in two groups, hunt planted faults in printed passages, and then every table writes a second voice and swaps sheets to hunt each other's. Bring your voice; bring your instrument.
3. Chart milestone 3 lands this week. Inside Assignment 13, your song's progression draft becomes a real lead sheet — bars, chords, melody, by ear, in your own hand. Have your milestone 2 report handy. Unit 15's finished Chart gets built on this page.

Everything else — practice set, quiz, discussion, and The Second Voice assignment — closes the end of Week 13. The Start Here page in this module lays it all out in order with points.

Warm up on the way in. The first thing we do in session 1 is sing.

See you in this class,
Professor Hemsworth

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Canvas placement block

# (A) Overview page
canvas_object    = Page
title            = "Week 13 Overview — Start Here · Progression, and Two Independent Voices"
published        = true
module_position  = first item in the Week 13 module

# (B) Welcome announcement
canvas_object    = Announcement
title            = "You've been singing two-voice music since you were five"
workflow_state   = active
discussion_type  = side_comment
delayed_post_at  = module opening day (drip; offset 0 from module start)
# Announcements are NEVER module items — Canvas rejects them as module content.
# They live in the Announcements stream only; do not add this to the Week 13 module.

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