Constructing Major Scales Using Only Letter Names Worksheet

Posted on December 20, 2011 by wombat

The major scale worksheet shown below requires that the student fill in the letter names only. The letters “W” and “H” that you can see between the larger circles refer to Whole and half step intervals

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Teaching Key Signatures to a Guitarist with Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”

Posted on October 27, 2011 by wombat

Teaching Key Signatures to a Guitarist using Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”

Guitarists can sometimes be a little resistant to music theory lessons? Meet them half way with this handy way of teaching the order of the first five sharp key signatures?

Teaching stuff like key signatures or the cycle of fifths to the “plank spanking” members of your classroom group can sometimes be “challenging”? A lot of guitarists like to think that they are not bound by the petty constraints of “civilised” society. They know that they are wild eyed and dangerous rock warriors who bow to no man and who live every moment of the day by the creed that “rules is for fools”?

Okay so we (and everyone else?) know that they are in reality, scared and (often) spotty gremlins who mask their many insecurities with various combinations of funny hair, aliminium acne (studded face furniture) and sometimes rediculously pointy monstrosities masquerading as musical instruments (I know it’s just a phase but its still annoying) but if we don’t teach them about music theory then who will?

Getting guitarists to realise that music theory is a tool that they can use rather than a set of unwelcome obstacles to be negotiated (or better still avoided?)  can seem like an uphill struggle when what they would much rather do is spout knowledgeably and at frankly horrifying length about equipment that they do not own and have never tried before getting on to the really important business of reciting to anyone within earshot a list of the famous bands that they would not be prepared to join under any circumstances?

How about letting them in on a way of remembering the first five sharp keys by means of noodling about on a Jimi Hendrix (or more accurately a Jimi Hendrix cover of a Tim Rose) song?

“Hey Joe” starts on C (the key signature without any sharps or flats) for two beats.

Then it goes to G (one sharp) for two beats

Then D (2 sharps) for two beats

after that it does another two beats on an A (three sharps)

before arriving at a chord of E (four sharps) for two full bars.

C-G-D-A-E

There you have it? The first five sharp keys in a simple song. Tell them to use the Em Pentatonic scale  (notes of E-G-A-B-D) when soloing over the entire progression and they could even start to entertain the notion that you might know what you are talking about (this recognition of your superhuman teaching prowess will usually take the form of a shrug and a grunt so it is important not to get too carried away here)?

Now all they have to do is sell the pointy guitar and buy a music theory book?

 

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Music Teaching Resources

Posted on August 11, 2011 by wombat

The following material is a look at some of the resources that you will get in your download.

 

Let’s start at the beginning?

Musical Note Naming Worksheets


“Why teach our music students concepts that they do not understand (scales, chords, etc) in a language (musical notation) that they do not speak?”

This material sets out to help students become “familiar with” (rather than just “aware of”?) the names of the notes on a piano keyboard as a prelude to developing a functional working knowledge of scale and chord construction. This stage is often glossed over when commencing on a music theory course but if students do not understand the principles behind note names then it is reasonable to say that everything that follows will be more difficult than it needs to be?

Students are given a “master” handout with the notes of a piano keyboard on it (the middle handout in the picture at the top of this page?) and from there are invited to complete a set of worksheets requiring that they identify notes correctly in the spaces provided. It should be remembered that just because (to us) there is nothing particularly complicated about this material that does not mean that our students already know it? It is simple to us as educators because we deal with this stuff every day (and maybe have done for more years than we care to remember)

There are other worksheets  (to be used later?) which introduce the concept of musical notation and engage the learner in not only identifying the specified note but also in writing that note on a musical stave.

Making this distinction between notation and notes allows us as educators to treat reading and writing music as the separate subject that it really is rather than to try to introduce our learners to concepts that they do not (yet) understand (scales, chords, etc) using a language (notation)  that they do not (yet) speak

Follow this link to see a more fully developed lesson plan dealing with the correct identification of musical notes

Whole and Half Step Intervals

Once students are comfortable in the knowledge that they can identify musical notes correctly then it is time to introduce them to the concept of intervals of a whole and a half step. A working understanding of these two basic intervals will give them the capacity to understand and construct any major or minor scale.

There are a set of five worksheets featuring various degrees of graphic assistance designed to help students to gain a thorough understanding of whole and half step intervals. Follow this link to view an enlarged image of some of the sheets

The material builds upon the knowledge and capability developed during the study of note names and involves the student in first identifying a specified note and then providing the name of another one either a whole or a half step away from the original note

This page is a “work in progress” at the moment and more material will be added when I can drag myself away from the television/pub. In the meantime see the menu on the right of the page for more detailed lesson plans etc or the graphic below which looks  a ten step programme designed to enable students to become familar with the construction of all major and minor chords and scales (without having to be able to read or write music)

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Major Scales: Construct Them All? Music Worksheets and Lesson Plan

Posted on July 15, 2011 by wombat

Music lesson Plan and Worksheets: Constructing all Major Scales

The Major Scale is a dealbreaker. If by using major scales worksheets our students can be brought to a point where they truly understand its construction then they are ready to move on to look at chords and other scales. If they only get to be able to write it on a staff in a few easy keys following a bunch of “rules” that they learned parrot fashion (“key of C= no sharps or flats, key of G= one sharp etc?) then there is no guarantee that there is any real understanding in operation here at all?

I make a habit of teaching my music students the major scale (and all scales come to think of it) without using notation at all. Once they understand how major scales work without notation (and the major scale worksheets are a great way to make this happen) it becomes relatively simple to introduce music notation  as a new topic a little further down the line? Before I started to approach the subject in this way I often used to find that students were able to notate major scales (and minor ones for that matter) without really knowing what was going on?

This lesson should be undertaken when students have already studied how to assign the correct  names to notes and when they understand how the two basic intervals of a whole step and a half step work in practice.

You might like to look at the following music lesson plans?

Note Naming Music Lesson Plan

Whole and Half Step Intervals Music Lesson Plan

This can also be viewed as being lesson # 2 of a set of

Ten Music Theory Lessons designed to ensure that our students understand all basic Scales and Chords

When you are sure that your students are familiar with (as opposed to just “aware of”) the names of notes and the intervals of a whole step and a half step then they are ready to use this knowledge in order to understand how major scales are created.

Constructing Major Scales: Music Lesson Plan
It should be stressed that this material can be used as a “stand alone” lesson but you might like to incorporate  a free powerpoint demonstration covering major scale construction  for your students that you can download now by simply clicking this text?

Either way………..

Start the session with a brief recap of previous lessons where note naming and the whole and half step intervals were covered and let the student group know that they are going to use the knowledge that they have developed studying this material to understand how all major scales (not just the easy ones) work.

It is a good idea at this point to make students aware of the three “rules” of major scale construction (there is a powerpoint slide in the presentation that features the “rules” outlined below).

Major Scales: Rule no 1

The names of the notes of a major or minor scale follow the strict alphabetic sequence (if the first note of a scale is an A then it follows that the second will be a B note, the third a C note and so on)

Rule no 2

The only letter of the alphabet to appear twice within a scale is the first (or “root”) note which “bookends” the scale by featuring at the beginning and the end of it.

Rule no 3

You should not mix #’s and b’s within a scale (obviously this rule is not relevant to the C major scale because there are no sharps or flats in it)

Having mentioned the “rules” of major scale construction it is time to actually construct the C major scale in order to allow students o observe the rules in action?

Remind the group of the fact that a whole step is made up of two chromatic movements and a half step consists of a single chromatic movement and then present them with the formulae for any major scale as a phone number?

221 2221 or perhaps more memorably “double two one-treble two one”

The point of this is to encourage your student group to commit the important stuff to memory rather than to rely on sheets of paper? I am trying to sell you a set of paper based resources but I cannot stress enough that “the knowledge is not knowledge if it stays on the paper”
The worksheets which accompany this lesson plan are unusual in that they do not require students to know anything at all about notated music. All that is required is that they are able to work out the notes of the (C) major scale in accordance with the sequence of whole and half step intervals (221-2221) discussed earlier.

Follow this link to see an enlarged image of one of the music worksheets relevant to this lesson plan

The graphic below which shows a detail of one of the the major scale worksheets. The representation of the keyboard at the top of the worksheet does not feature note names and students should be discouraged from writing them on there themselves (apart from a single note of C if required)? This will oblige students to think rather than just to transfer letter names from one part of the worksheet to another. Remember that the whole point of these paper based resources is to ensure that our learners develop a “joined up” knowledge of how the whole thing (music theory) works. The objective is to understand this stuff rather than to complete a whole pile of worksheets?

 

If you look at the detail of the major scale worksheet in the diagram below you will see that between each circle (in which students are required to supply the letter name of the degrees of the major scale) there are small squares containing either the letter W (signifying a whole step) or H (for an interval of a half step). Students should be encouraged to complete the worksheet using the graphic representation of the piano keyboard featured at the top of the page to help them to decide on the correct name for each note. Whilst working on this material students should be reminded of the “three rules” of major scale construction (letters progress in alphabetic order-no mixing of sharps and flats and the fact that the only letter which appears twice is the “root” note of the scale)

 

When students have completed the section of the worksheet devoted to the construction of the C Major Scale then they should be encouraged to apply the same sequence of whole and half step intervals to create other specified major Scales.

The first major scale worksheet has a list of scales that the learner should be able to create by reproducing the sequence of intervals and the graphic of the piano keyboard at the top of the page should help students to work out the names of the notes and also should serve to reinforce the knowledge discussed in the lesson plans on  correct note naming and the effective use of intervals covered in the sessions leading up to this one?

By the end of this session your students should be able to identify the notes in any major scale (not just the easy ones?) and will be ready to move onto the next stage of study in which they are involved in using the notes of any given  major scale in order to construct any given major chord?

The lesson plan above is presented as an alternative to common “conventional” music education schemes of work which tend to “drip feed” scales and keys to students in accordance with how many sharps or flats they have in them?

Sharps and flats are not a particularly difficult concept for people who can count up to twelve and who are able to recite the alphabet from A to G (our students?) and if they understand how musical notes are named and how a particular sequence of intervals (gaps between the notes?) will create any Major Scale depending on which note you choose to start from then they will  have a “joined up” knowledge of how the whole thing (music theory) fits together rather than a more limited insight into a couple of scales and keys?

 

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Whole and Half Step Intervals Music Lesson Plan

Posted on July 6, 2011 by wombat

The objective attached to this lesson plan is to ensure that our music theory students develop a working understanding of whole and half step intervals.Follow this link to view a full sized version of one of the music theory worksheets shown above

 

The material is intended to be presented after the session (or sessions) designed to ensure that they are aware of the “correct” name for notes. The lesson plan and worksheets  presented here can be understood as part of the “Ten Steps To Understanding Scales And Chords” material discussed elsewhere on this site.

Entry Behaviour: In order to derive the maximum benefit from this material students should, at its outset be able to independantly assign the correct name note (or notes) with relation to a visual representation of a standard piano keyboard (click the link to be taken to the relevant lesson plan ).


Musical Intervals Lesson Plan

Out line the objectives of the session (or sessions depending upon your own circumstances)

These outcomes are

1: Be able to demonstrate an abilty to identify the name (or choice of names) for any note on a representation of the piano keyboard

2: To go on from this point to identify and correctly name notes either a whole step or a half step away from the original note

3: To work towards (and hopefully arrive at) a situation where students can identify notes a specified distance from an original starting note without recourse to diagrams.

The third objective is the really important one because to arrive at this point students will be carrying the information around in their own heads rather than “leaving the knowledge on the paper”?

After outlining the goals attached to this part of the course distribute the first worksheet which invites students to supply the name of a specified note (in the circle provided) and then to name notes a whole step above and below the original note

Towards the end of this first worksheet the idea that notes (the black ones on the keyboard) can be assigned one of two names discussed in earlier lessons will be re-introduced.

whole and half step intervals

After presenting the two worksheets on whole step intervals you can basically repeat the process with the pair of worksheets  themed around the half step? It is quite likely that more than one session will be required depending on variables including prior learning/existing strengths and weaknesses of your student group or simply the length of lessons in the place where you work? Students with a background in singing or drumming will probably find the material more challenging than those who play a chordal or orchestral instrument but again these are generalisations that you might like to consider rather than hard and fast statements of fact.

When you feel that the students can cope well with the material on the worksheets with visual aids (piano keyboard diagrams etc) on them then it is time to find out what they really know? I sell music theory worksheets but I cannot stress enough that completing a worksheet (or a whole series of them) is not the aim. The objective is that by using the sheets our students develop knowledge of music theory that they can transfer from one situation to the next and which they will be able to use as a “tool” as they move from one set of musical circumstances to another (be that a written examination or a rock band rehearsal)

whole and half steps musical intervals

By challenging your students with the final (text only) worksheet you will be able to find out which of your students truly “understand” the materials under study. This will provide you with opportunities to encourage extra study for those who are “almost there” This study can usually be as simple as giving them extra copies of the worksheets to complete before the next session.

DOWNLOAD 300+ Music Theory Worksheets NOW! 

A lifetime of re-usable resources for only $18.00

Buy your music teaching resources in complete safety via any major credit card (through paypal) or directly through your paypal account if you have one. If you choose to use a credit card, rest assured that we never see your credit card details as paypal do all of that for us.

How to access your simple “one click” download

When Paypal receive your payment you will be immediately invited to click a

“RETURN TO MERCHANT”button.

You will be taken to a page from where you can download the products that you have paid for NOW!

In the (rare) event that something should go wrong with the order/download process just email me at robh@teachwombat.com

I will check the order and send you the links that will get you to your stuff.

Thanks! Rob!

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Printable Music Worksheets: Music Theory vs Reading Music?

Posted on June 25, 2011 by wombat

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Music Lesson Plan
Note Name Worksheets

Posted on June 18, 2011 by wombat

First Music Theory Lesson Plan: Note Naming Worksheets

This Music Note Naming Lesson Plan is designed as a very first music theory lesson. Although other material on this site is concerned with lesson plans and resources themed around  topic areas such as developing an understanding of whole and half step intervals and the construction of all major scales (not just the “simple” ones?) it cannot be stressed enough that if our students do not fully understand the principles that lie behind the “correct” naming of musical notes then they will perpetually struggle with all other aspects of music theory.

This note naming music lesson plan is delibarately designed so as not to use any musical notation at all. The rationale behind this is simply that it makes very little sense to try to teach someone something that they don’t yet understand (the names assigned to individual pitches) using a language (musical notation) that they do not (yet) speak?

Once students are comfortable with note names and basic intevals it becomes relatively easy to then introduce standard notation if required?

The ability to name musical notes is one of  the absolute building blocks of music theory. If our students fail to develop the ability to identify notes correctly then they can never independantly construct a major scale?

If they dont know how a major scale is constructed they will be unable to fully understand chords and harmony?
The objectives of this session (or group of sessions) is to ensure that our students will be able to……….
1: Know how to identify any note on the piano keyboard with the aid of a reference diagram

2: Know how to identify any note on the piano keyboard without the aid of a reference diagram

Too often this stage is passed over when teaching music theory and as a result every other element (such as creating scales or chords) becomes much more difficult for students to learn (and much more complicated for us as music educators to teach?)

The problem is that in our haste to get onto the “good stuff” we can gloss over something that (to us) seems very simple and that is the names of musical notes and where they can be found on a graphic representation of a standard keyboard.

Without being able to relate to this material in a visual way this information is, to a novice horribly complicated. Think about it? As far as a complete beginner to music theory is concerned the (somewhat confusing?) “rules ” are as follows…..
There are eleven musical notes.

Some of those notes are named after the  first seven letters of the alphabet.

Some of them have a choice of two names based on variants of (only some) of those letters and must be labelled correctly according to some other rules that you have not studied and therefore do not understand yet?

Looked at from that perspective it is perhaps little wonder that we come up against so many students who (although they love music and can be very technically adept on the instruments that they play) just “don’t get” music theory and come to believe that knowledge of it is not relevant to them as players, composers and performers. There is a danger that some of our students come to regard music theory as an obstacle to be negotiated rather than as a tool to be used to make them more capable?

The material that follows is designed to help make our students “familiar with” (rather than just “aware of” the names of musical notes along with their physical location on a piano keyboard and is intended as a first music theory lesson.


Music Lesson Plan

1:Distribute the handout (featured at the top of this article) that features nothing more than a large graphic representation of a piano keyboard through two octaves.

2:Spend some time talking to the student group about the diagram during which you should stress that the material is not aimed at people who play keyboards but is designed so as to allow anyone to understand how the harmonic and melodic elements of music theory work.

Make them aware of the way that the white notes follow the strict alphabetic sequence

Talk to them about the fact that the black notes can be given one of two names depending on the circumstances and assure them that you will help them to be able to determine the correct name for black notes as a situation demands in subsequent music theory lessons

Distribute the “note naming worksheet 1″ which features keyboard diagrams with lines running from individual (natural-white) notes to circles in which students are invited to write the name of the notes indicated.

Follow this link to view an enlarged version of one of the note naming handouts that accompany this lesson plan

When students have completed worksheet 1 introduce “worksheet 2″ which includes tasks geared around the # and b notes to be found on the black piano keys

Students will again be able to refer to the handout featuring the large piano keyboard and should not experience a great deal of difficulty when providing the correct name (or names) for each given note?

Following on from this ask them to repeat the exercise (using other copies of the same worksheets) but without access to the note naming handout (which they should now place into their files for future reference).

As they are engaged in this task remind them of three “rules” that they may find helpful?

Rule # 1: The note of C can be found on the white note to the left of any group of two black notes

Rule # 2: The white notes (going left to right) follow the alphabetic sequence

Rule # 3 The black notes can have one of two names depending on the circumstances (explain to your students that at the moment they have not covered those circumstances and that at this stage it is enough to know both of the note names that could be assigned to each black key)

Next introduce the music worksheet (part of which is shown below) which feature piano keyboard diagrams with a number of circles in which your students can name the correct musical note (or notes). You might like to help your students to identify the notes required by letting them know where the note of C can be located on the chart but by this stage it is probably a good idea to make sure that they do not rely on the handout given outr at the very start of the session which gave the correct names for all of the notes. It is very important that the knowledge “does not stay on the handouts” and that instead your students are encouraged to become independantly able to identify any note?

By the end of the session your students should feel a lot more confident about the concept of assigning a name (or names) to a musical note and should be ready for the next step which involves them in the study of whole and half step intervals

musical note naming worksheet detail

A detail from one of our musical note naming worksheets

Click This Text to Download A Free Powerpoint Presentation using the questions on Note Naming Worksheet no 1 For your Classroom
The above material is intended to be covered before embarking on ………………..

“Ten Steps To Understanding

Scales and Chords”

Below is a graphic that sets out to detail a scheme of work designed to take a student who has no knowledge of music theory whatsoever to a situation in which they come to fully understand the construction of all major and minor scales and triads as well as the chords that can be created from any major scale. Tour the site for help with music lesson plans or you can read more in our post “Ten Steps To Understanding Scales And Chords”

 

 

DOWNLOAD 300+ Music Theory Worksheets NOW! 

 

A lifetime of printable and copyable  classroom resources for a single one off payment of only $18.00

 

 

How to access your simple “one click” download

Buy your music teaching resources in complete safety via any major credit card (through paypal) or directly through your paypal account if you have one. If you choose to use a credit card, rest assured that we never see your credit card details as paypal do all of that for us.

When Paypal receive your payment you will be immediately invited to click a

“RETURN TO MERCHANT”button.

You will be taken to a page from where you can download the products that you have paid for NOW!

In the (rare) event that something should go wrong with the order/download process just email me at robh@teachwombat.com

I will check the order and send you the links that will get you to your stuff.

Thanks! Rob!

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Music Lesson Planning:
Ten Steps To Understanding Scales and Chords

Posted on June 17, 2011 by wombat

Music lesson Planning: Scheme of Work

Ten step scheme of work aimed at ensurng that our music students understand all scales and chords without needing any knowledge of notated music?

Below is a graphic that sets out to detail a scheme of work designed to take a student who has no knowledge of music theory whatsoever to a situation in which they come to fully understand the construction of all major and minor scales and triads as well as the chords that can be created from any major scale.

The two interesting things about this scheme of work is that it does not rely on notated music in any way. This leaves the educator free to introduce notation as a “separate area of study” if required or desired and means that the student is not obliged to study a subject that they do not understand (music theory) using a language that they do not (yet) speak (notation).

The “Ten Steps” are intended to follow on from a short period of preliminary study where students are familiarised with note names. Follow this link for a music lesson plan dealing with the “correct” naming of notes
Using Music worksheets to teach scale spelling and chord construction is the best way that I’ve found to make sure that my students learn (which is the only point of trying to teach them?) or, perhaps just as importantly to let me know where the barriers to developing understanding are.

Music worksheets provide me with a precisely defined learning path with clear and measurable objectives which allow me as a  teacher to see just how well my music theory students are doing. They also give me clear and graphic evidence of just what my music students do and don’t understand at any given point in time.

If we are not careful too much of our music education can be concerned with getting students to “jump through hoops” (graded exams etc?)  rather than to develop a joined up knowledge of the subjet that they are supposed to be studying? It can be argued that those students who have a “joined up” theoretical knowledge base will be able to jump through the hoops anyway (and probably at a higher level?).

An example of this problem can be found in a common approach  the graded music examinations set by many awarding bodies in which musical scales, chords and keys are “drip fed” to students as they progress through the grades. Elementary grades will generally concern themselves with the keys of C G and D. Intermediate grades will introduce flat keys and intermediate/advanced material will involve working on some of the more # or b laden keys.

On the face of it this might seem perfectly reasonable but I would argue that such a progression is devised more for the benefit of the graded music examination system (providing as it does a simple and logical way of constructing distinctions between grades) than it is for the creation of a “joined up” (theres that phrase again) knowledge base for our students.

If at a relatively early stage our learners became confident in their own ability to construct any major (or minor) scale (rather than just remembering how many #’s are in the “simple” ones) because they understood fully the sequence of intervals and note names involved then we can move on to more advanced material knowing that they have developed an analytical framework relevant to the subject and not a syllabus.

If Music Theory Students can count to twelve……?

Music theory is not complicated. If our students can count up to twelve and know the alphabet from A through to G they are in posession of a set of theoretical tools that will (if they are trained to use them properly) allow them to be able to understand the harmonic and melodic content of all western music from Pearl Jam to Prokofiev . If our students can not count up to twelve and do not know the alphabet from A to G then maybe they need to spend more time with their Maths and English teachers before they come to see us in the Music department?

I believe it was Einsten who said something along the lines of “if you don’t know enough about something to explain it in simple terms then you don’t know enough about the subject to teach it”

I’m with Albert on this one. Making (seemingly) complicated things simple is the essence of what we do as music theory teachers. Scale Spelling and Chord worksheets (combined with a well constructed plan) are an invaluable tool.

 

DOWNLOAD 300+ Music Theory Worksheets NOW! 

 

A lifetime of re-usable resources for only $18.00

 

 

How to access your simple “one click” download

Buy your music teaching resources in complete safety via any major credit card (through paypal) or directly through your paypal account if you have one. If you choose to use a credit card, rest assured that we never see your credit card details as paypal do all of that for us.

When Paypal receive your payment you will be immediately invited to click a

“RETURN TO MERCHANT”button.

You will be taken to a page from where you can download the products that you have paid for NOW!

In the (rare) event that something should go wrong with the order/download process just email me at robh@teachwombat.com

I will check the order and send you the links that will get you to your stuff.

Thanks! Rob!

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Printable music classroom Worksheets key to “Stress Free” Music TeachingC

Posted on March 14, 2011 by wombat
music teaching in the twenty first century

The modern music classroom?

Music Teaching ks1 – ks12: More stress than we need?

Music Teaching (whatever the key stage?) is stressful when you have to “wing it”?. In an ideal world, two minutes before a music lesson we would simply pick up the appropriate file from the right place on the shelf above our desk, glance at it in a casual and distracted manner and then just stroll into the room to dazzle our (already seated) students as usual with both the depth of our knowledge and the ease with which we create understanding of sometimes difficult concepts.

Here in the real world, because the meeting ran late and we still had to compile data to feed those who have beans to count and pens to push (and who drive better cars /take longer lunch breaks than we do?) sometimes you enter a class with a mouthful of half chewed sandwich, a head full of cotton wool  and a face wearing that “rabbit in the headlights” expression that students find so endearing?

Add the fact that that from a group of 30 students who should be in attendance two are (genuinely) ill, two are malingering, two more are engaging in courtship rituals, one is having some kind of phsychotic episode and half of the class were not there when the lesson was supposed to start because they were spectators at a very important playground fight?

Welcome to the world of twenty first century music education. It can sometimes feel like you work in a Hieronymus Bosch painting?

Alright, I’ll admit that I’m laying it on with a trowel here. It’s not always like that. On a good day teaching music is just about the best (legal) job that you can get but I am I alone in feeling that the good days seem to be further apart from each other than they used to be?

Schemes of work, Lesson Plans, Differentiated learning strategies or whatever the latest top down initiative is to allow those who don’t understand what we do to tell us exactly how to do it? The nice thing is that they can’t change music. If they could then they would? Twelve is such an illogical number. There should not be 12 notes in an octave? Surely it would make more sense if there were ten and they were named A to J? (another advantage is that we could then rebrand the whole tired concept as a dective?). This whole music theory thing is an area that has been neglected by educational managers for way too long and we need them to come and help us to fix it?

 

Music Teaching with Less Stress?

What we really need is a simple (for a change) and flexible plan that will actually make our lives easier whilst improving the quality of our student’s education?

How about (Oh no here comes the advert!) hundreds of printable music theory worksheets covering scales, chords, notation and harmonic systems  that you can print or photocopy at will? You can compile them into revision booklets and distribute them to your students before examinations? You can use the theory tests as diagnostic documents? Leave pre printed worksheets with substitute teachers so that you can ensure that your students are “on task” rather than finding out what another teacher did on their holidays when you can’t be in the classroom?

Just bits of paper then? Starting from the point at which a student understands nothing at all of music theory and ending up at a point where they can construct just about any scale or chord?

In a world full of whizz-bang technology I’m a bit embarassed at the non technical nature of this stuff? Just a whole pile of PDF’s put together so that you don’t have to make your own. All you have to do with them is……

1: Download them

2: Print/copy them

3: Use them to help your students to understand

Surely it can’t be that simple?

 

 

 

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20 Giant Guitar Chord “Mini Posters” For Your Music Classroom Wall?

Posted on August 16, 2010 by wombat

Part of the 300 worksheet/handouts package features 

20 Giant Guitar Chord “Mini Posters”

Twenty incredibly useful and simple teaching aids to print and stick on your music classroom wall.

The first eight chords use the basic CAGED Guitar System (the chords of C A Am G E Em D and Dm) which are generally regarded by guitar teachers the world over as being the easiest for a novice guitarist to play.

By using the chord of The CAGED System students are able to avoid being required to play “difficult” chords (such as the F shape where two strings have to be held down using a single finger) until they are technically ready to do so.

The remainder of the chord shapes that make up the “guitar Chord Mini Posters” are those which guitar teachers the world over use to move students on from the absolute basics.They include more involved guitar chords (four note voicings such as Cmaj7 etc) which are “more complicated to say than to play” and if your students can physically form the shapes for the Caged Chords then they will have no problems with the new shapes?

The giant guitar letter sized guitar grids can be laminated for use in group guitar lessons or printed and put up on the wall of your music classroom? The Coolest Wallpaper on The Planet?

Many guitar teachers around the world choose to line the walls of their teaching studios with these handouts or alternatively they just email them to their students as attachments allowing the learner to print them and displey the grids in their own homes?

Print 20 Free Giant Guitar Chord “Mini Posters” Now?

You can click the link below (underneath the picture of the chords?) to download and print the 20 Giant Guitar Chord Mini Posters as a freebie? All we would ask in return is that you consider using the buttons below (underneath the picture of the chords?) to let your friends on Facebook and Twitter know about us?

Thanks!

 

Click this text to download and Print 20 Giant Guitar Chord Grids Now?

Please consider letting your friends on facebook and Twitter know about us or just use the button that looks like an envelope to send someone who may like to get this free stuff an email?

Thanks!

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