Rock'n Roll Guitar Notation Learning Game
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Game description
The Rock'n Roll Guitar Notation Learning Game is a classic `quartet´, or, what it is usually called in British, `happy families´ [1]. You can find the best description of the two classic ways to play it at [2].
Here are a few general rules:
- The highest number is always the best. As not every player is a guitarist and knows what the numbers stand for, this is important to know.
- Online beats offline (think of the word meaning your mental state and you´ll remember)
- The name of the string has no significance, it is just for interest
- The same applies to the note and TAB graphics next to the picture.
- For those who want to know: The parameter `Tonhöhe´ is actually the number of the according piano key - There are six groups of 4 guitarists each (E,F,F#,G,G# and A) and six groups of 3 guitarists each (Bb,B,C,C#,D and D#). If you play the collecting version, you have to be aware of this. The winner is the one with the most cards, not groups, so you can win with less groups if you have all the ones with 4 cards in them.
- Each group consists of four notes with `the same´ name. They are NOT the same, though, but different octaves. The names are used in official music theory. For the note `F´ they are: F (the big F), f, (the small f), f2 and f3, going UP in octaves.
The ultimate goal of the game is of course not just to play it, but to really learn the notes. So always take your time playing it so you can look at the note and TAB graphics. If you really want to learn, you can use the cards like vocabulary learning cards and ask someone to check you knowledge. You could make a game of that, too, the winner would be the one to get the most right answers.
There are probably other ways to play with the cards, just try yourself! And have fun with this Rock´n Roll card game.
Personal reflection on the game
Background
As the idea of a card game for guitar pupils had interested me for quite a while, I had no difficulty in choosing this game as a project. Half a year ago, I had actually made `note cards´ form normal playing cards and tried to get students to do the same (so they could learn while making the cards), but it did not work. On one side of the playing cards I had glued the note and on the other side the corresponding tabulator (a graphic representation of the strings and a number indicating the fret with the right note). There were two major problems: The cards were not at all attractive and there was no new game to play, apart from the usual card games.
The whole idea of using a quartet game to teach notes was mainly one of necessity: I wanted to make it possible for my guitar students to learn the notes easier and faster, as this is one of the biggest problems for beginners, especially on the guitar, as many mainly want to play rock music, where not so much knowledge of reading music is needed.
Also, a quartet is something most children remember from their earl childhood days, so they can relate to it. The fact that it not virtual, but real, is of advantage, because the students can check their playing cards always and everywhere, without switching on a computer, if they cannot remember a note.
As many musicians (especially guitarists, it seems) like to play, not to say they often have nerd-like qualities, a quartet seemed a good choice.
Process & Difficulties
The process of designing a quartet was very interesting. I am actually not quite sure if I started out with the idea of a quartet at all, I think I only had the vague idea of a card game. When I had decided on a quartet, I knew that the part I could not do without was the notes themselves, so I made a chart of these. As a quartet usually consists of 32 cards, but a normal guitar has at least 44 notes, I did not decide on a definite amount of cards yet.
Then I searched for parameters of these notes that would vary enough to make the game interesting and had similar `qualities´ as those of a real quartet. For example I remembered that it was great fun, as a child, to shout `sticht!´ after offering a number that appeared on many cards. In my cardgame, this is the parameter `Online-Offline´, signifying whether a note is represented on a line or between lines in sheet music.
I thought it was also a nice idea to incorporate the little wordplay of online/offline. As most of the parameters had fairly small values, I made sure there would be at least one or two with higher ones, as big numbers are part of the fun, too.
As a next step, I decided on how the notes should be grouped. I thought about chromatic steps (one note after the other), chords (e.g C-E-G), but ended up simply putting all notes with the same name in one group. So group one consists of E, e, e2 and e3, these being the different names according to which octave they belong to. This meant I would have mostly groups with 4 cards, which was ideal, but also a few with only three, which I hoped would not be a problem.
The next problem was the composition of the card. I knew I needed the title and the parameters, but I was not sure what should be in the middle. I needed the tablature graphic, but what else? My first Idea was to have a picture of every note played by a famous guitarist in close-up, so it would really be possible to see the left hand (or the right for Jimi Hendrix). When I realized that this idea was more or less utopian, I decided to forget about the note and the hand and simply take the famous guitarist. I soon realized that a posing rockstar was exactly what the game needed to make it exciting.
I began searching for guitarists´ pictures in the internet and tried sorting them into categories (e.g. blues legends etc.). When I had collected enough, I wondered about how to link them with the note names. The obvious thing to do was to use the Letters of the notes and the letters of the categories, e.g. note f - `Fantastic 70s´. I made up some names of which I am quite proud. First, I completely forgot about the halftones, though. These proved to be especially tricky. I ended up with names such as `C is beautiful´ for Cis, `Fish´n Chips - British Heroes´ for Fis, `Disrespectful R´n Rollers´ for Dis and `Gibson Masters´ for Gis (the only one I cheated with a bit). Of course, the note names are actually `C sharp´, `F sharp´ etc. in English, but I did not want to make it more complicated than necessary.
There was some fine tuning left to do, as I had to make sure that I had four (or sometimes three) guitarists in the right groups. After having added a few new ones, it all worked out, though. Having decided on the complete design, the next big problem was how to put it all together in Photoshop. Having worked with the program before, I knew about most of the important functions, but I would not have thought of actually putting it all together in only one file by using layers without help.
For the backside of the cards, I again had a look at other quartets and made a similar design consisting of electric guitars.
Possible improvements
A problem I had not really thought about is the copyright of the pictures. It is quite probable that most of the pictures I used have one, so I cannot make the game accessible for anyone. On the other hand, it would not have been half as exciting without these pictures.
Another nice idea would have been to have different colours for the different groups (e.g. `E/ Electric pioneers-group – blue), but actually I quite like the `minimalistic´ design. I hope I will get people to test play the quartet in future, and I am sure there will be details to adjust and improve.
Michael Sk.
Printable Card Set
Link to the printable cards [3] (You need access to the CommSy project room "Pedagogical Media Theory and Game Based Learning")
Disclaimer:
This cardset is solely intended for non-commercial, academic purposes, as an example for the integration of a learning objective into the mechanic of a game. It is accessible as example only to students of this or similar courses.
