Music teachers?

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 13 Apr 09 - 09:17 PM

Thanks for the link to the Dylanchords site, Peter -- looks like there is a lot of useful stuff there.

Another question for you all:

I'm wondering if other teachers have suggestions for melodies that use a limited range of notes. I'm working with a guitar student who has a lot of trouble singing in pitch. Most of the lessons we now spend part of the time working on the guitar, and part of the time working on singing.

Right now we're working on "When the Saints Go Marching In" which only has a range of five notes. Anyone have other suggestions for songs that use a small range of notes?

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 12:40 AM

I suggest that you teach your student play the notes in guitar chords one at a time and match the pitches with the voice. The next step would be to pick the melodies out of the guitar chords and to match them with the voice. It will seem a bit messy at first, but it will start to fall into place, and it will improve both the singing and the guitar playing.

Of course, this only works if the guitar is in tune;-)

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 10:20 AM

I think I have a pretty good methodology that I'm using with her. We are sometimes using the notes on the guitar to get her starting pitch, or to remind her how high a particular note is, but since she's more interested in accompaniment than single note playing, we are mostly focussed on playing the chords.

When we work on the singing, we put down the guitars and she sings back to me. I find it's much easier for students to match another human voice than an instrument. The only problem is if your voices are in very different registers, as they usually are if one of you is a woman and one is a man. I have one male student that I work on singing with, and I use the guitar more with him because of that issue.

But I'm still interested in songs that have a limited note range. Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Peter T.
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 10:30 AM

Cockles and Mussels. Five Hundred Miles. Yellow Submarine. (Anything Ringo sings is within five notes, if that).

Something a voice teacher of mine did for me which was really, really useful, was to give me familiar songs where the first two notes spanned intervals. For instance, Somewhere Over the Rainbow (an octave), and so on, 6ths, 5ths, etc, (can't remember any other tunes exactly now). Really gets that hard interval stuff into the brain (of course my brain is now a sieve, but you get the idea).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 10:43 AM

One neat little tune that only uses the left hand on a descant recorder: "Veris leta facies" from Orff's "Carmina Burana" (start on A and the range is G to d).

"The Big Ship Sails on the Eely-Ally-O" has only one note more, a sixth from F# to d.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 11:18 AM

Thanks for the suggestions, folks, keep 'em coming!

And Peter, thanks for reminding me about the songs with intervals. I know I have a list of those somewhere. The ones I remember off the top of my head are (these are ascending intervals, I think there are different songs for descending intervals):

Minor 3rd: "Greensleeves"
Major 3rd: "Oh When the Saints"
Perfect 4th: "Here Comes the Bride"
Augmented 4th: "Maria"
Perfect 5th: "Twinkle Twinkle"
Minor 6th: "Go Down, Moses"
Major 6th: "My Bonnie"
Octave: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Apr 09 - 12:24 PM

micheal row the boatashore,go tell aunt rhody

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 01:36 AM

"Goodnight,Irene", if it hasn't been mentioned.

When I was learning to play the guitar, my father asked me to play a scale. I went into that same line about playing chordal accompaniments, etc, and he said, "If you can't play the scale on a musical instrument, you can't really play it." And it's true. The scales are the basic, bottom line.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 07:31 AM

The reason I never learned to play the guitar for forty years was the fact that teachers tried to teach me the scales. I hated learning scales, and my suspicion is that it takes a certain kind of mind to enjoy them -- there is a kind of pleasure in their repetition, but they can seem frustrating and pointless when you are thirteen and want to just get out there and play. One of the great things about the guitar is that it can give you all these chords with so little effort.

I'm not against scales; I'm just saying that there is a difference between something being the foundation, and it being the first thing you teach someone. It looks as if "foundation" means you start with that; but I think it is a misleading analogy. In a perfect universe of course, one would start at A and go to Z; but that is not how the perverse human mind works....or mine anyway. Or did when I was thirteen.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 10:04 AM

Hey M. Ted,

I have to respectfully disagree. I think it depends on how you are going to play the guitar. If your goal is to be able to sing songs and strum or fingerpick along, you can go very far without ever playing a scale. You can even learn to play melodies, improvise, and compose tunes without playing scales.

On the other hand, for learning how to play lead guitar, scales can be very very helpful.

I just don't think they are necessary for every guitar player's needs.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 02:45 PM

Did I say that? "necessary for...needs." I need some help with my English!

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: bet
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 02:54 PM

Neat to know we've a lot of elementary teachers out there. I retired from teaching elementary music in Colorado, 30++ years, got put back to work teaching music when I came to Alaska. I am no longer teaching music in the school but have moved on to reading.
I have taught privately but prefer the schools. I've taught beginning band, strings, choirs, recorders,penny whistles and of course general music in the classrooms. I love having the kids perform! I no longer do private lessons.
Keep up the great work you are all doing. bet

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 05:30 PM

Also respectfully, Eve--you have to use scales to do all of those things that you mentioned--and if you can do all of those things, playing the scale itself requires minimal effort.

When I began teaching guitar, I contacted a number of people that I had known over the years who stopped playing, to ask them why. The all gave the same answer--they were no longer were interested in the music that they'd learned to play, and didn't know the to move on to anything else.


As for PeterT--playing scales is a hobgoblin for a lot of people, but it is easy and fun

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Peter T.
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 05:49 PM

I didn't mean to insinuate that scales weren't important, and worth learning at some point. But fun? (I had a math teacher who used to say that solving algebraic equations was fun, but 2x=199.8 percent of the population would disagree).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 06:53 PM

Hi M.Ted,

I think scales are helpful, but I don't agree that you can't play the guitar if you can't play scales. That's my only point. I think you can learn a lot and play a lot successfully without ever playing a scale.

And yes, some of the things I'm talking about are related to scales (or scales are related to them), but you don't NEED to be able to play a scale in order to accomplish them.

You are right that when you are playing bass runs or a melody, you are using the notes in the scale, so effectively you are learning scales, but in the context of playing a melody. (As opposed to learning the scale divorced from the chord structure and melody that you are working on.) So really, we are talking about learning the same thing, just differing on which direction you approach it from.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 09:45 PM

All the chord forms are built on scale patterns. and when you play a bass run it follows the scale pattern. Beyond that, you use a scale form and the fingering that goes with it when you play a melody.

If you practice your scales up front, it is simple and fast to learn a new melody. If you don't, you end up working out the fingerings at the same time you're trying to learn a new tune, and you won't have the tune down till you've learned and polished the fingerings.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 01:33 AM

Different people have different ways of learning, different ways of teaching, and different ways of understanding and connecting musical ideas. It seems that learning scales has been very effective for you.

For some people, including Peter T. and myself, exercises like scales are not effective. Probably, as a teacher, it's good to have the flexibility to be able to teach using scale exercises or by using other methods that transmit some of the same information.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Mooh
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 09:36 AM

"The study of scales will solve a greater number of technical problems in a shorter amount of time than the study of any other technical exercise." Andre Segovia...and who am I to argue? The problem for instruction of scales is the unimaginative ways they are presented to students.

I've never, honestly, lost a student due to scales. I insist on them as a part of the warm-up regime. Every lesson starts with at least a couple (chromatic, majors, minors, pentatonics, and whatever) which takes but a minute or two, and very often I will instruct a student to play the scale in the key of the piece they are to play next, in order to acclimate themselves to the sound and feel of the key. Making ascending and descending exercises, rising and falling by intervals within a scale, makes them good fingering and ear training (and head understanding). They are the foundation of improvisation (jamming sounds better to some students), composition, and playing by ear. They are also good for finger discipline, interval recognition by sound, sight, and feel, fretboard memorization, and they are a good vehicle for practicing articulation devices like hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, etc.

Naturally, your mileage may vary.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Music teachers?
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 05:40 PM

Agreed, Mooh!

I think many people have a reaction to playing scales or doing other technical exercises because of bad experiences they've had in the past, and that's why I don't use them much in my teaching -- because I'm usually trying to help people get over their music-making phobias, and trying to make the music as accessible as possible.

Having said that, learning scales can really help solidify many things for guitar players, so I would never rule them out.