PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[JakeJew]

A lot of my young students (12, 13) get really stuck when trying to learn all the positions of the pentatonic scale up and down the neck, even just memorizing the second one. They memorize the first one easily and we spend some time with that and many of them can get some good phrases going. When I want them to get the other ones down progress is often very slow, and they feel very uncomfortable making phrases with these other positions.

In addition to just having them play with the positions, I've tried some different things with different students depending on what I thought they could handle-

1. Giving them riffs and/or patterns to practice within the other positions (one position at a time)

2. Giving them awkward string skipping melodies to practice within the position

3. Looking at how the pentatonic works in string pairs up and down the neck (so they can see the patterns)

4. Trying to get them to see how you can play one riff in many different places on the fretboard

Maybe the process is just slower than I want it to be.

Does anybody have any ideas? I remember memorizing the pentatonics was a breeze, I have no idea what methods i used...
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"Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure that it is the antithesis of self-consciousness." - Aaron Copland

[Gorecki]

Seems like the largest cause of issue is the age group. That age has the attention span of a hampster if you don't keep them focused and practicing consistantly.

Good luck! (not an easy age)
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Do you know where all of your F'n B flats are?

[Phrygian Dominant]

One thing I've found that helps is to make 'em write it down. I've found writing it down helped some of my students. If they can read standard notation then make them write the scales out that way. If they don't read then ask them to bring some guitar grid paper to the next lesson and have them write out the scales on that. Just my 02 cents.

The young ones can be difficult
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[JakeJew]

Hmm thanks guys, good suggestions!

keep em coming
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"Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure that it is the antithesis of self-consciousness." - Aaron Copland