Wise students summarise and ask lots of questions

Posted by Gary on August 8, 2013

I’ve been blown away all week by the emails and printouts that students bring into class showing what they’ve learned and often what they have figured out for themselves without being asked to.

Enthusiasm like this sends students forward in leaps and bounds, and while I am really, really busy I still love when students keep contacting me outside of lesson time to get me to check what they have done. Brilliant stuff guys, I love it!

Here are just a couple of docs and findings that guitar students have handed me just in the last week that impressed me, dealing with harmony and specifically guitar chords:

Dave’s Chordal summary:

1) A 7th chord is a – 13 5 7 combination of chords, it is a triad + the 7th chord.

2) There are different type of 7th chords – Major, Minor, Dominant, Diminished and Half Diminished.

3) Dominant is just shown as 7 for example C7 = Dominant 7th

4) Major 7th = Major 3rd and Major 7th interval, Minor 7th = Minor 3rd and Minor 7th interval , Dominant 7th = Major 3rd and Minor 7th interval.

Using C chord which is CEG and turning it into a 7th chord we add B. This creates a Major 7th Chord because C-E is a major third and C-B is a major 7th. If I want to make that a Cmin7 then it would be C,Eb,G,Bb which is a Minor 3rd (C-Eb) and a Minor 7th (C-Bb). To make this a Dominant 7th it is C,E,G,Bb because it is a Major 3rd (C-E0 and a Minor 7th (C-Bb).

I found a barre chord chart that shows the 5th and 6th root forms for the Major, Minor and Dom 7th barre chords.

Click below to see this great overview of how to finger the chords

barrechords from their master chord shapes

Here is Connie’s data entry approach to the same thing with examples like Dave’s she is continually building on it and both students are able to figure out this harmony because they understand melodic intervals and how they pertain to chord chemistry…

Click below to see Connie’s summary

Chords overview

James’ Summary of intervals:

Intervals according to James

Josiah’s Summary of intervals:

Summary of intervals