Major Scale Lesson

I’ve been trying to come up with friendly ways to teach music theory since I was 18. My favorite professor in Music School (hello Dr.MK!) had to step out of our Theory One class and tossed me the chalk, instructing me to explain 7 chords. I stood at the board and drew up little diagrams to clear up the differences between Major 7ths, Dominant 7ths, minor 7ths, half-diminished 7ths, and fully diminished 7ths. Upon her return, she asked students if they thought I should be a Music Education major. The entire class raised their hands in agreement. So after the lecture I walked to the registrar’s office and added it onto the Violin Performance major. Hands down, it was the best decision I made in college. I’ll always be grateful for that chalk toss.

More than 20 years later, I’m still scratching out little diagrams, but now they look pretty thanks to Heather Kraft. We recently went through and revamped the Major Scales Workbook to expand and include C String Folks. (Duh!) So now the beauty of a freebie will work quite nicely for violins/fiddles, mandolins, violas, cellos, and 5 string players. Go ahead. Download it now and the updated workbook will magically appear in your email inbox.

After teaching with this book for over a year, I realized that these diagrams do indeed help foster independence and confidence in my students. They are, however, more helpful with my repeated explanations and guidance, and perhaps possibly overwhelming without my talking you through the fingerboard maps.

SO…

I filmed lessons for each of the scales included in this book! You’ll find the first scale, C Major, on my YouTube channel.

Or if you’re a subscriber to the JamWithLauren All Access Curriculum, you’ll find all six of the scale lessons and the updated workbook in a *New Module 10*. Besides the scale/key of C, I’ll guide you through finding notes all over your fingerboard in the keys of G, D, A, F and Bb. 

By the way, The Curriculum includes everything- all the tunes, all the foundational lessons on techniques, all the bonuses like grooves, chord voicings, and play-along tracks. You also become a part of the superb JwL Facebook community- where I teach LIVE lessons twice a month and lead motivational challenges. (Those lessons are also added to our Teachable platform for non-social media users). So what I’m saying is, it’s a super-duper great curriculum. My JwL subscribers/supporters are helping keep the lights on for this little-yet-mighty blog. Thank you, JamFam! 

In case you’re wondering why you should practice your scales to begin with, here’s a post from guest blogger and dear friend Taylor Morris.

Or if you’re not quite sure what a key/scale is and you’re asking, ‘what’s the big deal already Lauren?’, this post is for you.

My hope is that you’ll love practicing scales with my workbook and fingerboard range maps SO MUCH that you’ll be hooked on music theory like I am.

Here’s to hoping. Happy practicing. Until next time,

Be well.

xoL