garett

I tend to believe, as a former guitar teacher, that theory is all about how it is taught.

My memories of music theory was writing scales and chords over and over in a book .. memorizing the circle of fifths and doing tons of mundane and boring written excercises. In other words, music theory had very little application as I remember it. It was just boring stuff that had nothing to do with playing.

I never really devised the perfect system for gaining an all-around interest in young people when I was teaching, mostly because I got frustrated with the lack of interest .. most kids I taught just wanted to learn how to play powerchords .. and as someone who took it seriously I quit and started a porn business lol

But the idea is to teach kids theory that they can apply. Keep paper and pencils to a minimum. Instead of having a kids write out scales on a staff have him write a little song or riff and write that out on a staff instead etc. Instead of teaching a kid a song with guitar tab (*shudder*) have him transcribe it into standard notation .. stuff like that can make theory not boring.

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