HAVE YOU SEEN EDDIE?

Eddie Gibson has not been heard from since October 24th when he emailed his mother to say he was planning to return to UK from Cambodia on a flight due to leave Bangkok, Thailand on 1st November. He was last seen in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and is not thought to have crossed the border into Thailand to catch the flight.

Please click on Eddie's photo to go to a special site

 

 

 

 

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The basics of teaching Guitar Music Theory Part 5
Use it or lose it
written by Nick Minnion

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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Copyright ©2002 Nick Minnion. This material may be freely copied and distributed providing that this copyright notice including the website address is included in full. This material may not be included in any publication offered for sale without the written agreement of the copyright holder. For further information on this and related articles please visit: www.TeachGuitar.com.

  

 

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