Flash Cards

[Paul Wolfe]

Okay, it is 2:38 AM here in Washington State and I woke up an hour ago unable to sleep, so, of course, I started playing around with Neck Diagrams (doesn't everybody do this?)...

I got to thinking, after drawing up a B Major scale with 2 string groupings, that it'd be cool to create flash cards as a study tool and/or teaching aid.

Let me explain: I'm thinking about a set of cards in a given key with the Major scale diagrammed on one card, 2 string groupings of the scale on the next 5 cards (say 1st and 2nd string on a card, then 2nd & 3rd, etc), 3-note-per-string layouts (6th string root & 5th string root) on the next 2 cards, a couple cards with scale patterns ascending across the strings (a lead pattern thing where you start on the 6th string and climb diagonally up the neck, it's the wee hours and I can't think of how to explain this), next would be a card for each of the triad chords in the key, and finally a card each for the major, minor & diminished arpeggios.

My personal practice routine consists of doing things in a specific key each day - E on Sunday, F on Monday, G on Tuesday, etc. So I was thinking along the lines of having a batch of flash cards and on a given day shuffle through them and pick, say, 4 cards to work on before turning my attention to songs, etc. That way daily practice isn't monotonously specific but, rather, gets changed up each day while maintaining the topics needed to be practiced.

Is this making sense?

So I looked at the Avery site for Flash Cards and they do have cards for printing this sort of thing (Avery has everything)... Here is the Avery product.

I'm wondering now how I would go about getting my diagrams from Neck Diagrams to the Avery template. Would it work best to copy/paste into the template on MS Word?

Justin, I realize this is kind of a specialized idea, but maybe down the road you could find a way to print from your software into an Avery template like this? It seems to me that it'd be quite a handy tool for an instructor to make available to a student and it could be personalized to a particular student's study program (create a new card for the student's set for each mode as they are introduced, for example). Add a laminator machine to make the cards more durable and you've got a unique addition to your teaching arsenal.

What do you think, does this seem like a good idea or is it just the odd mentality that comes in the middle of the night?

2 String Groupings B Major.jpg

[Nick]

Hi Paul,
Some good ideas in there Paul!! And yes, it all makes sense!
Ive added your suggestion about the label templates and printing to our ticket system, but its unlikely to be in v2 right off the bat but perhaps v2.1 or another later update.

For now copy/pasting into the template in Word sounds sensible (usual caveats re image sizing in Word though - if it's not showing at the original 100% size then Word does horrible things when it resized images!)

Hope this helps a little!

Regards,
Nick

[Paul Wolfe]

Thanks Nick, life has gotten in the way of my diagramming... When I have a chance to get my hands on some of the Avery Flash cards I'll print some up and include a picture.