Viccy wrote
The reason I didn't continue with the Trinity College London teacher's licentiate was that I felt it would be more helpful to teach the building blocks of music first. The semi-tone. That is the building block for Western music, why does it have to be harder than that? I see theory like it's a basic measuring standard in a cooking recipe, but most often teachers focus more on the recipe itself and the common dishes they make. Am I expecting too much from people by wanting to teach in this way?
I fully endorse this sort of idea, and is how I used to run courses on different bits of software for many years.
WHY do we call that particular note of music a "C"? And WHY are there 12 notes? Who says so?
I'm not good at just learning stuff by rote (parrot-fashion). Once I understand the building blocks, the rest starts clicking into place, and it enables me (and this is really important) TO SEEK OUT NEW KNOWLEDGE ON MY OWN!
So, instead of teaching someone to memorise chord progressions in the key of C, teach them what a scale is, then about chords and how they're built by hooking scale notes together, then show them variations of the scale that have distinctive sounds etc. If the building blocks are clear, the learner will automatically understand WHY certain scales sound great over certain chords, but not over others, and so on.
I'm a big proponent of going right back to the beginning. If I was going to teach guitar to myself today (with the limited knowledge I have), I'd do something like this:
1) What is sound? How does it work? (15/30 minutes)
- talk about the sonic spectrum and how human ears perceive it
- talk about the three "properties" of sound: volume, pitch and timbre
2) What is a note of music, relating to what we talked about in 1?
- how we divide up the sonic spectrum into different scales.
- the 12 note equal temperament scale we use today (talk a tiny bit about its history).
- how the notes fit onto an instrument, talking about the guitar, the piano etc.
3) Based on the 12 note scale, how do we use it to create music?
- how to create a major scale (T-T-S-T-T-T-S) etc.
- simple melody lines using a major scale
- the major scale in C Major
4) What is the difference between melody and harmony?
- single notes, intervals and chords
- how to play a chord: strummed, arpeggio, plucked etc.
- how a triad is created
- how chords are used on different instruments
- four-note chord ideas
5) How do you make a song? What is a chord progression?
- I to VII chord progressions
- some famous chord progressions we hear all the time
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.
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Oops, I got a bit carried away there ?
I'm obviously no music teacher, but I always believe it's best to not assume anything, and start right from the very beginning. I personally have an especially hard time when someone says to me: "this is the C major scale", learn it. What? If you go back just a little further, you can help the student contextualise things, which is a big help if you want them to comprehend, rather than just memorise the theory.
Also, I think it's quite handy to (if possible) demonstrate theory concepts on more than one instrument. When I was younger, I always associated "chords" with "shapes" on a guitar, until I realised that pianists play chords all the time, and in fact have a much greater facility to vary chord voicings than guitarists do. Who knew?
