There are two ways to teach scales. One is from a book, which is the way I was taught, and the other way is to teach from a theoretical approach (using half steps and whole steps). In teaching my students, I find that teaching scales from a theoretical perspective helps the student begin to understand the underlying structure behind all of the scales. This can be extended to all types of scales--pentatonic, minor, etc. I think that this approach has a lot of merit because scales can be broken down to explain all kinds of theory. When you move around the circle of fifths, for example, you always add one sharp or one flat to the key signature. This is a pattern that you can explain to students, and if you write it out, it is easy to see and understand. With beginning students, I think it is best to explain scales in this way (pattern recognition in the circle of fifths and in whole and half steps) so they can start to see patterns in music. I think that memorizing scale patterns is good in itself to get the physical aspects worked out for the sake of facility in difficult passages, but learning the scales in this way is limiting for the student.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Approaches to teaching anything depend on your instructional objectives for students. Helping students understand music from a theoretical perspective is important, and the approach you suggest will certainly help with this. Other teachers may desire their students to visually recognize scale patterns in music. For this to occur, some practice in playing scales and scalar patterns from notation would be important.
ReplyDeleteBe sure that the connection between the discussion in your post and the item you are linking to is clear (you don't mention the Music Matters blog posting in your discussion).