The Notorious NoteBoys™ Teach Major Scales

What is a Major Scale

If you’re not familiar with my NoteBoys, they are the characters I use to add a little humor to music theory. My students have learned the personalities of each NoteBoy and look forward to new installments of the series. I usually make one good copy, laminate it, and keep it on the sofa table so that students can look at it while they wait for their lesson. I also pull them out when I see that students need a more visual explanation of some theory concepts. Some teachers put them in a binder with plastic sheet protectors and have the students use a dry erase marker on the sheet protector.

If you haven’t seen all my NoteBoy posters, here are the links to some of them.

These three teach chord inversions: 

http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP508

http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP509

http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP512

Circle of 5ths: http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP510

“Mighty Dot” explains dotted notes: http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP765

Last week I was at the Texas Music Teachers convention. I enjoyed meeting a lot of teachers who like my website and I am very humbled by your appreciation of what I do. I brought home a lot of new music and a few books in particular that I want to review. The major publishers were there, but unfortunately some of their sessions were at the same time so I’m sure there was a lot I missed.

In addition to reviews, I have another Noteboy poster in the pipeline and I have a few more beginning worksheets that I’ve not posted yet.

Traveling Triads

I have a group of students who take the Texas State Theory Test at the high school level, and each year forget how to quickly figure out the name of inverted chords. I’m not sure why it seems so hard for them to remember, but it could be that there is just so much new material to learn every year, they forget the old.

The other day I tried to come up with a worksheet that would make such an impression, they will remember every year.  Since it seems that my answer to everything is humor, color, and big print, in that order, Traveling Triads is what I came up with.

Years ago when I was a college freshman , we had a music theory teacher who was one of the best professors I ever had. He used humor to teach a difficult subject and we loved him for it. That is when I realized the value of humor as a teacher and it has served me well. Thank you Dr. Josephson.

If you ever wonder what my teaching style is, this worksheet will give you a clue!

I have a lot of teachers asking me when I am going to finish the fish flash cards that I have been working on for several months. I am still working on them and I will eventually get them posted. If there is anything else I told you in an email I will post, feel free to remind me.

Bye the way, this first time I posted this, there were several errors which I have fixed. If you see anymore, let me know.