This challenge will help your student memorize two areas of the fretboard simultaneously. By using tapping the student can practice playing the same scale over an octave. It's a simple challenge but can make a dramatic difference to how the student sees the fretboard and how they choose to use scales.
When it comes to memorizing a new scale, students tend to become stuck moving up and down the scale without skipping notes along the way. Yes you can definitely practice moving up the scale in different intervals, but those type of set exercises won't completely solve the problem. This challenge will ask your student to think ahead and make their own way through the scale while obeying one rule. This ability to choose any note as long as it isn't an adjacent note will allow the student to develop their understanding of the scale without it feeling like a set exercise. In other words, the student can be creative instead of using rote memorization.
Learning the notes on the fretboard is a big task for a beginner and it can take a while before the student starts to recall the notes properly. Most students either learn the notes based on patterns or memorizing areas of the fretboard one at a time. This challenge will test your student out to see whether they're memorizing the notes properly, or if they're just memorizing set patterns.
If your student struggles with this challenge but can find the notes when playing in a certain shape or pattern, it's a sign that they haven't actually learned the notes properly. This simple test can reveal whether your student truly understands the fretboard or not.
There are many different ways you can teach your students scales and there is no one right way to do it. This guide will explain two main approaches to teaching scales. Even know you may already teach scales using a certain method, it's best if you read these methods with an open mind as you might learn an approach that is more effective than what you are using now. Having two different approaches to teaching scales will give you greater flexibility as a teacher as you will be able to choose the method that's best for each individual student's needs and goals.
This is a handy lesson plan to use when you want to discuss intervals with your student. All the intervals up to an octave are provided in both melodic and harmonic forms. The included Teacher's Guide will suggest a simple way you can discuss all intervals with your student. It's recommended you go through each interval with your student rather than merely provide this as a reference sheet.
If you spend the time and effort teaching the importance of learning intervals, your student will begin to understand chords, scales and songs better. You can even use this lesson plan as the starting point for ear training. Teaching your student to identify the different intervals by ear is a fantastic skill.