The Process of Learning the Minor Pentatonic Scale

The Process of teaching students to learn how to play the minor pentatonic scale began by assessing my final goal and coming up with a sequential logical and fairly easy to follow process. First I created worksheets to introduce the scale to students in a clear and straightforward fashion. The student first study the scale both in class, and for homework and submit recordings of their studies through Schoology. After a week or two, I introduce the "Pentatonic Workouts and Technical Studies." in each of these the student is challenged by trying to play the scale in a variety of rhythms and in various intervallic combinations. Finally after weeks of study of the workouts and technical studies, the students are finally introduced to melodic fragments or scaffolded solos where the students learns segments of a solo created with the minor pentatonic scale, that put together create an entire sample of a improvised solo created from the notes of the minor pentatonic scale. The final step is free improvisation using the scale,and this is the ultimate demonstration and expression of mastery of the minor pentatonic scale. Once a student can freely and spontaneously create their own music using the minor pentatonic scale, it can be considered mastered, and at the point the student is ready to begins his students of the minor pentatonic scale in a new key.