Robert Scales

Lessons about: Pentatonic scales, major and minor scales, guitar licks, triads, guitar speed exercises, greek modes …

The peerless Takacs Quartet recently nominated for a Gramophone award for their second disc of Brahms's string quartets, continue their exploration of the Romantic chamber music tradition with this disc of Schumann. The Piano Quintet is by far Schumann's most popular chamber work and one of the most beloved works in the genre. Schumann was the first romantic composer to pair the piano with the string quartet. Schumann studied the string quartets of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn and his quartet Op. 41 No. 3 demonstrates these influences. However, it contains many highly original strokes, particularly the casting of the scherzo as a set of variations. The Takacs Quartet are joined by Marc-Andre Hamelin in an invigorating partnership that has already been widely acclaimed on the concert platform.

Can your students understand and even generate performance scales? Academic standards call for increased rigor, but simply raising complexity is not enough. Students need to be able to understand learning goals, embedded in performance scales, which include application of knowledge. They should even be capable of generating their own learning scales. In turn, teachers must become adept at providing rigorous learning goals and planning and scaffolding instruction to meet students' needs. Creating & Using Learning Targets & Performance Scales: How Teachers Make Better Instructional Decisions explores explicit techniques for mastering this crucial strategy of instructional practice.