[David]

So, I was teaching one of my little student buddies scales, he got down Major after a month (took him long enough, I mean shit), anyway, so I basically teach him that Minor, isthe same thing as Major, just the root note is placed a different part. Thus... the fingering for Minor C = Major D#. He didn't get it, because I think his IQ is in the negative numbers, so I continued to teach him Harmonic Minor... His dad, a musician, came to pick him up after practice, and apparently the kid talked to his dad about this. About 15 minutes later, his dad comes back to my place, with his son, and continues to bitch me out. Apparently I am absolutely COMPLETELY wrong, and that they are 2 completely different scales with different fingerings and formulas. Riiiiiight... I told him it's just the root note that is different. He then told me to shove it, picked up my guitar, played a nifty little lick, and said, "that's standard C minor, and that's not the same as what your dumb fuckin ass taught him." I then informed him that he was playing Harmonic Minor in C, and he told me to shut the fuck up, said his kid will get lessons from someone who actually knows what they're talking about, and left.



And that kid was giving me $35 for an hour lesson. DAMN.

[Metal Ken]

well, i guess if you want to be REALLY technical its Eb major...But the premise is still the same. the C minor scale is essentially the Eb Maj scale rooted in C. Thats the concept of MODES. They notate that shit in beginner scale books, lol.

[David]

yeah, strychnin just explained that shiznat to me... BUT, I personally (not textbook), just go by the notes and sound. The 3 steps, or 3 letter names up, isn't changing anything other than what it's callled, so it doesn't change any of my thoughts on the scale, so I really could care less... unless I was taking a test, such as strychnin said, then I would need to know that. Like I told him, I could call it cornbread, and it wouldn't make a difference to me.


Btw to everyone, my guitar teacher, is GP5 guitar scales index. How pimp is that!? I may not know the name, but I can work my way in and around about 15 scales no problem for improv. If some guy can name it, that's nice, but if some guy can use and apply it, but calls it cornbread, now that's cool.

[Mastodon]

Why dosn't that a-hole just teach his son himself if he knows so damn much?

[Drew]

If you're making $35 an hour teaching, you might as well call it by the right name, dude.

That said, the guy's dad is an idiot. Next time, though, just use the phrase "relative minor" to smooth him over a bit.

(although, honestly, in that situation I would not immediately point out the relative major/minor thing, let the kid learn them all independantly, and then say, "now, look at this." I think it's a slightly more useful way to go about it, in that you're taking these two totally different entities, and then suddenly shopwing him it's all dependent on perspective - it makes music suddenly seem cohesive, and it's a great "big picture" moment that's kind of exciting when you first see it. But that's just me - teach as you see fit, sir. )

[Vince]

I'm with Drew on this one. I would've replied to the guy and said both scales are part of the same key, but they're different modes off the key. The major scale is the Ionian mode, and the minor scale is the Aeolean mode.

If you understand how the modes work together, it makes it a lot easier to teach someone 'the system' so that they understand it, rather than teaching them one-off scales, IMO.

[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by Drew

(although, honestly, in that situation I would not immediately point out the relative major/minor thing, let the kid learn them all independantly, and then say, "now, look at this." I think it's a slightly more useful way to go about it, in that you're taking these two totally different entities, and then suddenly shopwing him it's all dependent on perspective - it makes music suddenly seem cohesive, and it's a great "big picture" moment that's kind of exciting when you first see it. But that's just me - teach as you see fit, sir. )

Thats how my teacher taught me.. its really more fun that way... But its a lot harder to go about doing it that way, i think..heh

[Drew]

Though, in David's defense, I think that's what he was trying to do, even if he didn't explain it (to us) as clearly as he could have...

And I'm with Ken. Sure, it's initially more confusing... but it's a VERY rewarding realization when you start to see how the peices fit together, and excitement = desire to keep learning.

[David]

yeah, the way I teach my students, is completely unconventional to the standard way that a text-book smart person would. By teaching him standard fingerings of scales at first, which shouldn't take as long as he does to get down, you get a basic feel for it. It's pretty rewarding to just sit there and to be able to improv knowing what notes you can hit anywhere on the fretboard for a certain scale. If I had him learn minor, I KNOW that kid would never get the parallel between major and minor's fingerings. He just doesn't have the brain compacity to understand it. When we read Lord Of The Flies at my school, which is one of the most obvious yet insightful books as we all know, he thought Ralph was Jack and Jack was Ralph, he read the book twice... and couldn't understand it... yeah, so I'm also teaching this kid, knowing that he can't analyze ANYTHING by himself. He needs to be pushed along. By teaching him that the fingerings of these are both the same, he can then basically skip learning that (because he already knows it), and move on to other simple scales.

I was going to teach him about 4 or 5 scales, Major, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Pentatonic Major, and Blues Major, I was then going to get into modes and more complex stuff.


My Philosophies On Teaching (at a ripe 16 years of age!):
So, as a "un-certified-self-taught-self-analyzed-teacher," I tend to look at the student, and give them a special learning step plan based on their abilities to understand and comprehend it. There are probably a lot of teachers out there, who have it written down in a book, which they once read, and then teach it the exact same to their students... I don't like that. That's what I consider the "cloning process." Satch, Vai, Doppler, all of satch's students, all seem to be slight variations of himself and have the same sort of abstract thinking style for writing. A lot of the people I know who take lessons, end up playing (form) exactly like their guitar teacher, they look at scales, modes, progressions, the exact same, and are just a clone. My personal goal, while teaching these people, is to give it to them, and have them figure it out. With this kid, he can't really do that, but I gave him the basics to what he needed to start understanding, and start making progressions on his own. If my student, turns out with a style 100% different than mine, and 100% unique to them, then I see myself as a success. If I open a book and teach everyone the same and have 5 identical guitarists, well that's nice.


$35 an hour is what I said to give this guy lessons, and I didn't think he'd go for it. When he surprisingly said sure, sounds good, I was like, that's fuckin tight. I always do that, where I say a rediculous price, and if they say sure, woot, money for me, if they say no, then I lower it and say I was only kidding. As for not knowing "proper" names of this stuff... well what I call it, is true, it just isn't "proper." I tell everyone that I taught myself, and it will be different than learning from someone that has it from a book and what is considered standard and true, and if they agree to continue, I'm not going to argue.

[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by David

Satch, Vai, Doppler, all of satch's students, all seem to be slight variations of himself and have the same sort of abstract thinking style for writing.

I have to disagree here. Alex Skolnick and Steve Vai sound NOTHING like Satch, and if i had to pick, i'd say Alex Skolnick owns harder than Satch (nothing against him). Satch's stuff sticks to the tried and true rock scales and rock/blues progressions and whatnot (Not detracting, but hes' badass none the less), but Vai is fucking nuts and Skolnick sounds nothing like either of them. Does Kirk Hammett sound anything like Satch?

I think the basics are basics. No matter what you play or your style is, a C scale is a C Scale no matter how you look at it. The way you approach and analyze and pick notes to improv with over certain progressions, choose what to accent or add and remove, thats where your style comes in.