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I
spent a lot of time in chemistry lessons at school, but my ability
to actually do anything with that subject is next to zero! Come
to think of it, the same is true of most of the things I studied
at school! You can learn all you like about a subject, but if
you don't put the theory into practice, you are unlikely to
retain any real understanding of it.
This is just as true of guitar playing as it
is of any other subject so:
My Golden Rule Number 5 says:
Help your student find a use for every bit
of music theory you teach them
Teach the chromatic scale. Then get your student
to use that knowledge to find notes anywhere on the fretboard.
Teach the major scale. Then get your student to use it to
find a couple of simple melodies (folk tunes, nursery rhymes,
TV themes etc..). Maybe get them to improvise a bit with it.
Here's a nice sequence to use C Major scale
over:
4/4 ||: C | CMaj7 | CMaj6 | C | F | F6 | G6
| G7 :||
Teach chord formulas then get the student to
make up their own chord-based riffs from that knowledge.
Example: Try getting them to make up blues/rock'n'roll
riffs based on this idea:
Im I I7 (eg. Am A A7) This idea is common in
a lot of blues based music:
E-------------------------------------------------------------
B----5--5-----8---------------------------------------------
G----5--5h6------5h6p5h6p5h6p5-------------------
D-------------------------------------------------------------
A-------------------------------------------------------------
E-------------------------------------------------------------
Personally I try to never do more than half
a lesson of theory. Then I can spend the other half getting
the student to put that theory straight to use. Not only does
this approach mean that the student retains the understanding
of the theory, but it teaches them to value theory and makes
them more receptive of future theory lessons.
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