Scales and Chord Hacks!!

Patrice presented on a couple of different ways to make teaching students scales and chords easier.  First hack was a new way to teach students to play C major scale with hands together! 

How many doors do cars have?  Two or four.  Exactly, so "doors" are our 2 and 4 fingers!! 
If you go to a "club" you have to walk in and out of the doors, right?
We have a "club" of 3's.  It's found in the middle of a C major scale (and G, D, A & E!)  And it looks like this:  3's / 1-2 / 2-1 / 3's   (practice playing the "club" a few times...)

Now, here's the saying you repeat aloud, s l o w l y, when playing these scales, hands together, until they're EASY for two octaves: 

"Start / Doors /  3's / 1-2 / 2-1 / 3's / Doors / Start Over  / Doors /  3's / 1-2 / 2-1 / 3's / Doors / End" and then go back the way you came up, repeating the saying!

It works for all five scales (C, G, D, A, E)

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The other hack involved using the phone app Ultimate Guitar Chords.  It's a free app and very easy to use.

Everyone had downloaded the app on their phone, and since we were in the piano lab, everyone had their own piano and headphones to experiment with. 

Patrice uses Hallelujah to introduce her students to this app.  It's easy and a familiar tune for students.

The chords it uses are   C    Am   F    G  and   E7

After making sure everyone can play these chords with close voicing,  everyone played the chords while Patrice played the simple melody with the right hand, which is what she does with her students.  Then they could experiment with playing the RH melody along with the LH chords. 

This is an easy way to teach students chords, and the importance of learning LOTS of them, so they can play whatever they want!!

There are thousands of songs available on Ultimate Guitar Chord app, so options are limitless.