A Feeling for Harmony Book 1 Introduction and Foundations Practica Musica Assignment Schedule Fall, 2011

Practica Musica Page

Follow along on the sequence when a PM assignment is given. You will be expected to progess at work intervals of just a half-hour for each session assigned. Presumably, you will all soon be spread out along a continuum of assignments.

That is expected and how it should be.

Practica Musica Assignments Schedule

PM SETTINGS:

Settings are in the options menu. Some very useful ones are...

• In keyboard options: choose Labeled Keyboard if you are unsure of the names of the notes on the piano keyboard.
• In sound options, slow down the playback of the musical examples here, based on beats per minute.
• Notice in sound options, you can set the temperament. which will be helpful when trying to hear different intonations.
• Guitarists can also use the fretboard instead of the keyboard, which is a great way to improve your interval reading and playing on the guitar.

USING THE SOFTWARE

1. Before anything else, under the file menu, choose "check for updates via the internet" to make sure you have the current version. This is important to make sure that your work posts accurately.
2. TO REGISTER: Choose "Register this computer" under the file menu, while you are connected to the Internet. You will reach a dialogue box, and enter the following as the course number:

earlham-171s

You will then be able to enter a username, which in this case, please user your full name so I can easily find you. You will then enter  your own password.

To test this, go under you name in the menu  bar, go to Enter or Change Webstudents Account Name. Make sure you are registered with the proper account.

1. When working with the program, first choose an activity under the "Activities" menu. Then, most often, there will be levels of increasing difficulty to choose from in the rightmost menu, whose name changes to match the activity you are currently engaged with.
2. Like any game, this software keeps track of your score and will expect you to reach a certain level before completing it. Once you are registered with "webstudents," your score will instantly post to the web, thus enabling us to quickly and easily keep track of your progres.

Timetable and Evaluation

By the end of the semester, you should have put in 1200 minutes, 20 hours, into working on the ear training portion of practica musica. As you will see from the syllabus, this amounts to fully 15% of your grade, so it is very important that you complete this work. You grade will amount to a straight percentage of 1200 minutes, according to this chart:

• 1080 - 1200 minutes = A
• 960 - 1079 = B
• 840 - 959 = C
• 720 - 839 = D
• Less than 720 minutes = F

Step One: Note and Rhythm Reading

Complete by Sept. 5

You should go through the following sequences between Monday, August 30th and Monday, September 6th. You should put in 30 minutes between each class session, for a total of 6 hours. You will get as far as you get, there is no need to complete the work, only a requirement that you move forward.

Our class is populated with individuals with different musical backgrounds. For those of you needed work in basic musical fundamentals, there is plenty for you to do, and I'm happy that you are here to learn! For those of you with significant instrumental or vocal experience, PM will take you far and challenge you at your current level.

Just proceed through these steps for average of one-half hour per day to and make the progress that you individually need to make.

Under the 'activities menu' go to "02 Exploring Music Course." Please do the following exercises, in this order:

1.1 The keyboard

• If you are unfamiliar with the keyboard, this is your first step. Notice that if you play to notes, the name of the interval will pop up, so this is also a good way to begin to learn your intervals.
  

1.2 Whole step - half step and 1.3 Octaves

• These are two simple activity that make sure you can hear whole steps and half steps, and also that you can hear when an interval is, and is not, an octave. Just go through it/
  

1.4 Reading treble clef , 1.5 Reading bass clef  and 1.6 Reading accidentals

• These will help you in your note recognition and you ability to read accidentals. Remember that you can use you computer keyboard, with ASDFGHJJKL:" representing the notes CDEFGABC ETC. The upper keys represent the accidentals.
• Again, this would be a great opportunity for guitarists to improve their note reading skills on the fretboard! Of course, you can always switch back and forth between keyboard and guitar (under the option menu/keyboard options).

RHYTHM EXERCISES  (All under the "02 Exploring Music Course")

Try to finish as much of these as you can before the exam on September 6th.

2.1 Meter Examples -- I have already brought you to these examples. You must know them by name, they will be a part of the first exam.

2.2 Placing Barlines. Be sure to do these by the exam on September 6th, as you will have examples much like these to complete.

3.1 Reading Rhythm. If you are an experienced player, you should do these anyway just to make the score. If you are less experienced, this is an excellent practice for you in basic rhythm reading and you should do these for as much time as you have.

3.2 Writing rhythm. For experienced players, this is an excellent exercise, as it is a very different act to play back a rhythm by ear, rather than simply replicating what's on the page. If you are a less experienced player, it's OK if you don't get to this exercise, as long as you have put in your minimum of 2 hours up to this point.

It is not necessary to complete sections 4.1 and 4.2, unless you are an experienced musician and have zoomed through all of this so far!

TOTAL TIME: 2 hours.

___________________________________________________________________________

Step Two: Intervals

Complete by Sept. 17
3 hours total time

5.1 Identifying intervals  5.2 Speed intervals (less experienced students, feel free to pass over this, it's hard!)   5.3 Building Intervals

Then: Activity 03: # 6 and 7

• Make sure you do 5.1 before doing assignment No. 4, and make sure you do 5.3 before doing assignment no. 5.
• Activities 03: No 6 and No. 7 will give you more practice in writing intervals, with the added bonus of being able to play them on the fretboard or keyboard.

For the Quiz on Sept. 17, you should focus on exercises above, plus the aplet I've provided for you to play diatonic intervals from the same pitch level.

Complete by Oct 1
3 hours total time

After completing all of the above, go on to

No. 8, Interval ear training in 03 "the original 17 activities" menu.

This is a core activity. You should try to work through levels one and two, which are called filling in the triad and filling in the octave. I think of these as the "Diatonic Intevals." There will be questions like these on the exam on October 1.

The remaining two levels are vital if you are going to be a music major or are serious about your musicianship. These involve knowing all the chromatic intervals when played randomly one after they other. This level is not required for the exam, however.  If you've moved quickly through the first two levels, by all means finish all of these.

ADVANCED STEP TWO

If you've completed all the interval work in less than 6 hours (8 hours total PM time by this point), I suggest the following activities to complete before October 1. They are excellent training for melodic and rhythmic dictation.

These are all found in Activity menu 04: "Actvitives by Topic: 02 Pitch Reading, Dictation"

• Choose 02, the intermediate level
  • Diatonic pitch patterns is a good warm-up
  • Pitch errors is an excellent way to improve your eye-ear coordination
  • Progressive pitch dictation is an excellent first step in dictation practice.

___________________________________________________________________________

Step Three: Key Signatures and
Melodic Dictation 1

Level one
Complete by October 11

To prepare for the quiz on Key Signatures, go to Activity 04 (Activities by Topic): 05 Scales and Key Signatures

• The one labeled just "Key Signatures" gives you a chance to practice giving the name to the key signaures when you are presented with them.
• The one labeled "Building Key Signatures" asks you to write out a key signature given the prompt (i.e. "write the key signature of E minor").

You should complete this for the October 11th quiz.

Note that there is also a section here for listening to Modal Melodies, if you would like more practice in this area.

Level two
Complete by October 29th

During this sequence, we are working on modal counterpoint. To help with your writing, it is time for all of you to work on taking melodic dictation.

You have a total of 3 hours to put into all of step three. Depending on your background, you can work through any other following dictation examples. It is up to you. I list them in progessive order of difficulty, but I focus on those that are diatonic, as we have not yet formally covered major and minor scales.

These are all found in Activity menu 04: "Actvitives by Topic: 02 Pitch Reading, Dictation"

• Choose 02, the intermediate level
  • Diatonic pitch patterns is a good warm-up
  • Pitch errors is an excellent way to improve your eye-ear coordination
  • Progressive pitch dictation is an excellent first step in dictation practice. For many of you, this is all you will need to do.

If you have already gone through Progressive pitch dictation, then proceed to:

• Generated Pitch Dictation
• Library Pitch Dictation

The difference in these is that the first one produces melodies according to a computer algorithm, and so are a bit random, but still good for the ear! The Library dictation are from actual classical melodies, and thus are more musical.

TOTAL PM TIME BY OCTOBER 29th: 840 minutes.

__________________________________________________________________________

Step Four: Scales, Triads and Seventh Chords

Step four in Practica Musica corresponds with Chapter Five in the Feeling for Harmony website. Regardless of where you have reached in Step three, level two above, you should begin these four activities, which correspond to written assignments given out for the same day.

Spend an hour with Practica Musica and an hour on the written assignment, at a minimum.

Level one
Complete for November 3

This is to help with haring the blues. It has you identify I, IV and V triads.

• Activity 03 ("Original"): 13 Chord Progression Ear Training
  • Only Level one, Primary Triads (I, IV and V)

Level two
Complete for November 5

• Activity 03 ("Original"): 9 Scales
  • Do some from levels one, two and three. You aren't expected to get all the points in any activity, simply to get some experience in writing scales.
  • TIP: First choose the proper key signature in the "key" box, then write the scale. Once you choose the note cursor, you can play the scale on the piano as well as put it into the staff. Playing the piano will input the notes. (Of course, you can use the fretboard too).
  
  

Level three
Complete for November 8

This activity is good practice for knowing how to spell and recognize triads. Spend equal time on all three activities. YOU ARE ONLY EXPECTED TO WORK ON LEVEL ONE FOR EACH ACTIVITY, the ones about triads.

• Activity 03 ("Original"): 10, 11 and 12 on Chords
  • Activity 10 asks you to play triads.
  • Activity 11 asks you to spell triads.
  • Activity 12 asks you to recognize major and minor triads by ear.

Level four
Complete for November 10

Engage in the same activity as in level three, only now go to the next activity levels and try spelling and recognizing seventh chords.  We have not yet discussed inversion (that's in the next chapter), so limit yourself to the second level of activities 10 through 12.

___________________________________________________________________________

Step Five

 

A Feeling for Harmony Hompage

Forrest Tobey Homepage