Tulsa Guitar Lessons | Schema Prior Knowledge
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
As an instructor, it’s important to activate a student’s Schema during a lesson. So what is Schema exactly? Schema is any prior knowledge that a student of piano or guitar might have. So a piano student might come in from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and know the song twinkle, twinkle little star, but they’re unfamiliar with the Song ABC. Now as an instructor, you know that both the ABC song and twinkle, twinkle little star are the exact same melody. So what you could do is say, hey, piano student, I am going to teach you in our 30 minute lesson, a new piano song for beginning piano students. And I know that you know the song twinkle, twinkle little star. So let’s play it together. Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. Oh, awesome. That’s a great song. You did a great job. Well, today we’re going to learn a new song and this new song is called the ABC song.
And then you would demonstrate the ABC song and you would ask your piano beginning student during your 30 minute lesson. Hey, do you recognize that melody? And they might say, yes I do. It’s the same melody as twinkle, twinkle little star. You’re right. Okay, would you like to play this new song? And then they would say, yes, let’s learn the song together. So if you are a piano student who is learning a new song or guitar student that’s learning a new song, it’s important for your instructor to see what you already know and connect all new chords, tabs, songs, sheet music to what you already understand. This is going to make the instruction so much more powerful because with activating Schema, you already have a baseline to go off of during a lesson. So schema is just connecting any previous knowledge to newly acquired knowledge. I think this is where a lot of piano lessons in Tulsa get it wrong. So they might just go based upon what the instructor knows. So these are the instructors favorite songs and this is the order that we’re going to be teaching Tulsa guitar lessons. But that’s not always the case. It’s way better for the instructor to utilize what the student already knows because that way your 30 minute Tulsa guitar lessons are going to be so much more impactful students’ development.
So as a guitar instructor, it’s important to ask your student, Hey, what are your favorite songs? And if you’re not familiar with their favorite songs, take a moment, take a couple of days and just listen through their favorite songs and notice any patterns that might be recurring. Maybe it is a basic four chord song pattern, that you’ve already taught those chords. So now you can introduce that song to your student. Maybe there’s a strumming pattern that you would like to introduce to a student and you’re like, oh, I can connect this strumming pattern to this song. Let’s say the song was, um, let’s see. Hmm, what could the song be? The song could be blackbird. And you’ve been working on scales and you been working on fingerpicking. And so now you want to combine those two structures that you’ve talked about before and base your new guitar lesson around the Song Blackbird, which you can do.
So one, it activates the students Schema or prior knowledge because they’re already familiar with the song blackbird. They already know how blackbird is supposed to sound. They already are familiar with the lyrics to blackbird. They love blackbird by the Beatles. It is their favorite guitar song in all of history. So you have that to your advantage in your wheelhouse. Now you’re going to be thinking back upon what you have already previously taught in your 30 minute guitar lesson in Tulsa. Have we gone over all of these fingering positions? Yes or no? Okay? If the answer is yes, great, then they are more than capable of learning Blackbird. If the answer is no, you think to yourself, hmm, what finger position and strumming patterns do I need to teach my students? And they can be successful with sight reading the song, blackbird using tabs.
Okay, this is where I need to go. And so from there you can create a game plan or lesson plan that will help you figure out how to get your student to start playing the song. Blackbird by the Beatles piano students. It works the exact same. If you are an advanced piano student looking for advanced piano lessons in Tulsa, or if you’re a guitar student looking for Tulsa guitar lessons, you’re going to have much more of an easier time selecting songs from your favorites list because you are going to be well prepared and have a lot of background knowledge or Schema needed to tackle any new song that you would like to learn. So for you, the notes are familiar, the staff is familiar, time measures, rhythms are going to be familiar to you. And now it’s just taking all of your background knowledge or your Schema and applying it to a new song.
You might even start to notice, boom, the songs that I like, all are in three four time, I like the more Waltzy dance songs, which is great to know because then it will help you connect old songs that you’ve previously learned to new songs. And it will make all of these amazing pathways in your brain, which we can talk about next time. That will help learning songs in a shorter amount of time. So in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 30 minute lessons at Curtis Music Academy are just $1 for your first lesson. In your first lesson. If you are an advanced guitar student, you might be able to learn one whole song in one lesson. How amazing would that be? The instructor will need to take time to know what your favorite list of songs are, but we can make that possible at Curtis Music Academy in Tulsa, Oklahoma because our 30 minute Tulsa guitar lessons are centered around our students.
They are created with the student in mind and the instructor will go out of their way to help you activate your Schema or prior knowledge when it comes to song selection and playing abilities. If you are a beginning piano student in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we can also help you activate your schema. If you are familiar with the ABCs, then you are going to be familiar with how the piano is ordered and arranged. If you know how to count to four, then you are well on your way to understanding how beats per measure work. If you know the difference between four counts and one count, we can teach you the difference between a quarter and a whole note. If you have ever used change or money, we can help you in your first 30 minute piano lesson or Tulsa guitar lessons in tulsa. But how we’re going to do that is by activating your Schema or prior knowledge. So schema to sum things up is what you already know and how you can connect what you already know to new information. Prior knowledge is again, the same thing as Schema. It’s what you already know and we have to tap into what you already know to teach you new material.