Instructional videos and a quiz about notes, intervals, harmony, keys, scales, triads, and chord qualities (major and minor).

Age Range: 14 (Grade 9) and up.

Timing: About 25 minutes of video material + 15-45 minutes of quiz taking.

Learning Activity Number: 1.

Learning Objectives: Students will be able to correctly identify meanings and uses of notes, intervals, harmony, keys, scales, triads, and chord qualities (major and minor). This reinforcement of a shared vocabulary will prepare students to communicate about music—to understand others’ musical ideas and to make their own understood.

Universal Design for Learning Principles: Instructional materials are audio-visual, with captions, different playback speeds, and infinite repetition available to all learners. Specialized terms are explained. The quiz can be taken at different paces and multiple times, and the language it contains is straightforward and consistent with that used in instructional materials.

Resources/Materials: Students will need internet access to view the study materials on YouTube and to take the online quiz.

Learning Activity Outline

Introduction:

Instructional Content:

Activity: View and, as needed for understanding, review (at your own preferred speed, and with subtitles if desired) the above 4 instructional videos. Then take an online quiz to reinforce (and assess) your learning.

A sample of multiple choice questions included:

  • An interval is the relationship between: two notes (the distance from one to the other), and not two keys, any number of notes, a chord and its component notes, or any number of instruments
  • Two or more notes occurring at once is an instance of: harmony, and not necessarily beauty, a major chord, melody, or good guitar playing
  • A key is for giving: a sense of location in sound, and not the first and/or last note of a piece, melodic ideas, chords to play and chords not to play, or a chord its quality

Conclusion: After taking the quiz, note any uncertainties and questions and seek to resolve them by consulting any combination of the internet, class peers, and your instructor. Quiz results will be available to students as soon as possible.

Assessment: The quiz, while being a learning reinforcement tool, will also itself serve as an assessment.