Tag Archives: guitar note-reading

teaching

February Lesson Materials

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In February I finished my Guitar Method Book Note-Reading Unit 1, which teaches the eight natural notes on the three high strings (G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G) and Unit 2, which teaches the nine natural notes on the three low strings (E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F). I also rearranged my “Guitar Beginning Riff and Solo Exercises” so that all of the major pentatonic and minor pentatonic exercises are side-by-side, and I also put all of the quarter note rhythms first, followed by all of the 8th note rhythms.

I worked on my Snare Drum Method Book for the first time in a long time. (To give you an idea of how long it’s been, all of my sentences had TWO spaces after the periods… which I changed.) I did a bunch of overall formatting clean-up, but the main thing was that I rearranged Units 5 and 6. Originally Unit 5 focused on 3/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, and 12/8 using mostly 8th notes with occasional quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and rests, and Unit 6 added 16th notes to the same set of meters. In the updated versions Unit 5 is all of the compound meters (3/8, 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8) first using mostly 8th notes with occasional quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and rests, and then adding 16th notes to those same compound meters, and Unit 6 is the complex meters (two versions of 5/8 and 3 versions of 7/8) first using mostly 8th notes with occasional quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and rests, and then adding 16th notes to those same complex meters.

It had also been a long time since I worked on my Drum Set Method Book, so it was in need of some updates. I realized that in addition to 4/4 which is the most common meter in music, I should also include exercises in 2/4 and 3/4 at the beginning of the book since they are also relatively common. I followed the same format that I originally used to introduce 4/4 on drum set: building a basic quarter note beat, building a basic 8th note beat, learning how to navigate four-measure phrases, and then playing a whole song form. I added 2/4 and 3/4 versions of those exercises parallel to the 4/4 versions, so that the students will be well versed with all three meters right from the beginning.

Please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

teaching

January Lesson Materials

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Throughout the month of January, there were many resources for my lessons that I worked on. They can all be found under the recently-streamlined “FOR MY STUDENTS” tab.

I started work on a method book for mallets. So far, I have unit 1 which is note-reading exercises in the key of C Major, unit 2 in the key of G Major, and unit 3 in the key of F Major. On the topic of note-reading, I started a ukulele note-reading method book and a guitar note-reading method book. Also for guitar, I created “Beginning Finger-Picking Patterns”, “Beginning Riff and Solo Exercises”, “Which Pentatonic Scales and Modes to Play Over Chords”, “Common Chord Progressions”, and “Reggae Strumming Rhythms”.

I also made a big addition to my Composition/Songwriting page. I included “Which Pentatonic Scales and Modes to Play Over Chords” and “Common Chord Progressions” from my guitar page, and also added staff paper of varying sizes, staves, and orientations. I created an entirely new document, “Composing Phrases, Periods, and ABA Compositions” so that I have a workbook to use with composition students, teaching them how to use common chords progressions found in major and minor scales and modes.

Please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.