There are several reasons why I choose this song for today. First, the current Stats project in Math I directs us to play a video for the students:
The video title "The NBA Data Scientist" refers to Ivana Seric. She helps the Philadelphia 76ers by analyzing basketball data (just as the students are doing with this project) -- and based on the way the Sixers (and their star big man Joel Embiid) dominated our local SoCal teams this week, I think that Seric's work has been successful thus far. But of course, if someone who gets zeroes in math tries to apply to a similar job position, they'll be told "No!" just like the song.
Another reason I perform this song today is that, ever since the old charter school, it's been a tradition to sing it at the first Hero Quiz (or its former name) after winter break. I was originally planning to give the Hero Quiz last week, but it makes more sense to give it during project week -- an easy way to end the week after working hard on the project all week. The words "heroes" and "zeroes" rhyme, and I want to contrast math heroes (including Seric and hopefully most of my kids) with math zeroes.
Today is Fiveday on the Eleven Calendar. But as I promised earlier, once the project begins, we skip directly to the new sixth resolution:
Resolution #6: We implement all parts of our projects in class.
Today in fourth period Math I, we finish the last four slides of the ten-slide Desmos component. And this time I figure out how to copy the English and Spanish instructions for the students. Another teacher helps me figure out how to print in the copy room -- ironically, it's a Spanish teacher. She points out that Google Translate has improved over the years, though no computer translation is perfect. And I attempt to pronounce the Spanish instructions in class. The plans are for the students to work on the group assignment on Friday, followed by the Hero Quiz.
I'm still communicating with the other teachers to see how they are implementing the project. The official Math I leader visits my classroom this morning. Naturally, he started the project last week, and so his students have reached the part where they get to research one of their own favorite players (who may play a sport other than basketball). Since I started later, my classes likely won't get to this part of the project at all.
Meanwhile, I'm going at the same pace as one of my neighbor teachers. He suggests coming up with some sort of quiz to wrap up the week as well. I don't know what sort of quiz it will be -- it might be a full regular quiz (since I don't believe he gave his class a quiz last week), and I don't know whether it will be on paper or DeltaMath. If it's on paper, I might use part of it as a Hero Quiz. The plans are to include a Chapter 3 review equation (such as a fraction buster) and a Chapter 4 scatterplot question, but this may change.
Since today's song is a parody, I won't post any Mocha code here. But there are a few more things I wish to say about "No Zeroes" and what it inherits from its original song "No Scrubs."
The riff is relatively simple -- iv-i-V-i, as its key is minor. But here's the thing -- the girl group TLC originally sings "No Scrubs" in the key of G# minor, and that's a rather strange key indeed. G# minor contains five sharps, just like its relative B major.
Two types of minor keys are used in the song. The melody is in G# natural minor (pure Aeolian mode):
G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E-F#-G#
Indeed, the first note of the melody is F#. But as for the chords, the existence of the dominant seventh chord D#7 suggests that the song is in G# harmonic minor, with a raised seventh:
G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E-Fx-G#
And there you have it -- the raised seventh becomes Fx, or F double-sharp. (Some scores avoid the double-sharp by writing the chord as Gdim7, with its enharmonic equivalent G. But a true dominant chord includes Fx here.)
Notice that no song is ever written in G# major -- instead, we'd write it as Ab major (four flats). But the key G# minor exists -- while Ab minor (seven flats) is possible, it's usually not written that way. Once again, the double-sharp appears only in G# harmonic (or melodic) minor, not natural minor.
Some scores avoid the double-sharp altogether by raising the song a semitone to A minor. And indeed, I actually play it on my guitar today as A minor. The chords used are Am, Dm7, E7.
(By the way, all of what I write about G# minor applies to the standard 12EDO scale only. In other equal temperaments such as 19EDO, Fx is distinct from G, and G# minor is distinct from Ab minor.)
As for the vocals, the girls sing the song in the range F#3-C#5. They are strong altos (or mezzosoprani), so I must lower it an octave to reach my range, F#2-C#4 (or G2-D4 in A minor). This is quite a wide range, a twelfth (or tritave), the same as "The Star Spangled Banner," and thus it tests the limits of my own range. (By contrast, of the two 14EDL tunes I sang recently, one of them is near the upper part of my range and the other near the lower part -- I'd have to sing one right after the other to stretch my range as much as this one song does.)
Oh, and there's one more thing to say about this song. The late Lisa Left Eye Lopes (who died tragically in a car crash a few years after performing this song) added her own verse to this song -- a rap verse. I had no idea that this verse even existed -- the non-rap version has been playing on my radio ever since my senior year of high school, but never the rap version.
The rap verse contains some interesting lines here, such as "See, if you can't spatially expand my horizons" and "Inundate your mind with intentions to turn you out." So perhaps I can add a rap verse to my "No Zeroes" parody as well -- after all as teachers, we want to "inundate your mind" with math. I might add this rap verse in time for a future performance of this song.
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