Having a functional understanding of music theory is extremely important to me as a piano teacher, so my students are continually learning scales, intervals, chords, etc. Our state Music Progressions curriculum has been invaluable to me in helping me establish an appropriate and systematic approach to teaching theory. And my indispensable teaching tool is a jar full of scale blocks. I find that especially for visual and kinesthetic learning, scale blocks help students see patterns and understand relationships far better than just talking about them or even playing them on the keys.
As Emma and I worked on transferring her knowledge of primary triads to understanding a I-IV-I-V-I chord progression, I used scale blocks to introduce her to the concept of common tone voicing. You can see in this picture that she understands in the IV chord that E has to remain in the bass voice, but she is struggling to figure out how to arrange the other two notes of the chord.
Aha! I knew she would figure it out! As tempting as it is to just give students answers for the sake of time, it is SO valuable to give them space to work through the process for themselves. Discovering the answer on their own encourages independent learning and also secures the solution much more reliably in their mind than merely telling them what to do or play. What an exciting journey to a deeper understanding of music!
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