Lesson 9 & 10

We spent the last two lessons focusing on interval symbol recognition.  After we quickly reviewed the Greek letters we played war with the Interval cards (old version).  The girls really improved at how quickly they recognized the symbol values and we even included symbols that they hadn't learned in the Parallage Phrases.

I got the first draft of the Magnetic Puzzle in the mail before our second lesson so we spent some time working on some new concepts.  First, I taught them about the diatonic scale and we focused on the indicators (the Greek letter and the symbol below it) for the first time.   I had each of the girls put the Greek letter on the scale and then I showed them the bottom symbol.  I explained the historical significance of the bottom symbols and the importance of the perfect fourth and fifths.  I showed them the scale chart (seen on the right in the picture) and pointed out how most of the scales have perfect fourths and fifths in them and a whole step in the middle separating the lower and upper tetrachords (three smaller intervals within the larger interval of a perfect fourth).   We focused on the lower tetrachord and I see now that I didn't finish the scale or the upper tetrachord (it should end on pa').  In our next lesson we will finish the scale and I will explain how there are a perfect fourth and fifth coming down from the top note in the scale just like there is from the bottom note going up. 

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After teaching them about the diatonic scale and the indicators, we used the puzzle to build the ascending symbols.  I showed them how to build the symbols and then we played a game called "Play or Pass"*.  I didn't get pictures of this game this week, but we will play it again next week and I will take pictures.  Also, the puzzle pieces are too small so I created a second draft of the puzzle and sent it to the printer.  I removed the Greek letters and lower indicator symbols from the top section of the puzzle and made the interval and rhythm symbols bigger.  

I also started teaching them some more of the apihimata.  I taught them the apihimata for mode 1, 3, during the part of the lesson on the diatonic scale and later I taught them 8 as well.