Earlier this week I was having a conversation about what you need to know before teaching something. For example, if you saw:
Cream butter and sugar
What does it mean? If you aren't an experienced baker, you may think of it as a shopping list with 3 items. However, if you make cookies or cakes, you may see it as mix butter and sugar so it is creamy.
If I'm teaching something, I ask myself, "What am I assuming that my student already know?" You know, is cream an ingredient or an instruction?
I'm working on a project to help my students understand what a major scale is exactly. But these days, I'm not only teaching theory to piano students, I have the girls in the band who don't play the piano. "The white key pattern between C and C" isn't helpful to someone who plays the trumpet.
Naming conventions are weird unless you play piano, and then they are still weird and confusing. Just ask any of my adult students who have been playing less than a year.
Like the difference between cream as an ingredient, and cream as an instruction, accidentals can be similar. Flats can be the name of a note like B flat, but it can also tell you what to do with a pitch, a flat 3rd means that you are playing the pitch (flattening) half a tone down from the 3rd note of a major scale. More on major scales in the next post.
Get the note name key finder card:
Here's a handy way of looking at naming pitches:
Download the Naming Pitches pdf:
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