Hi everyone,
Here are your practice assignments for this week:
Aidan
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Rolls, flams, drags, and paradiddles on snare drum as well as your xylophone test for school.
How to practice it most effectively: When practicing your drum rudiments, always strive for accuracy and consistency. It is very important that both arms/hands can do the same things with the same motion in order to create a consistent sound (particularly with the roll). And with the flams and drags, you should practice leading with the left hand as well as the right hand. On xylophone, continue to practice finding the notes on the xylophone quickly and identifying patterns of notes to make it easier to learn your music.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.
Will
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Paradise by Coldplay as well as the rhythm review that I wrote in your book.
How to practice it most effectively: With the Coldplay song, be very careful not to get ahead of the recording. This is particularly difficult at the beginning and during the bridge. You need to listen carefully to the different instrumental parts of the music and hear how your part fits in. With the rhythm review, read each one carefully and identify which notes are eighth notes and which are sixteenths. Then, see if you can identify where the pulse of the beat is within each rhythm.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: The transitions into and out of the Bridge and Guitar Solo sections of Say It Ain’t So by Weezer.
How to practice it most effectively: Read carefully all the notes that I wrote in your book about how many times to repeat each measure of music and where each of the fills go. Also, listen to the recording so that you can hear how each of your beats and fills fits in with the song. Then practice small sections of the music that are challenging, particularly the transitions. You don’t need to always practice the song from the very beginning every time.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.
Alexy
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Can’t Stop by the Red Hot Chili Peppers as well as the snare and bass rhythms that I wrote down in your book.
How to practice it most effectively: With the Chili Peppers song, focus on playing the Chorus beat really consistently and lining up the rhythm exactly with what you hear in the recording. The first half of this beat is still sometimes a little out of sync. With the snare and bass rhythms, practice keeping a really steady pulse on the bass drum and then lining up the rhythm on the snare. Ideally, you should always play the snare with your dominant hand on the main beats (with the bass drum).
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.
Oscar
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Fool In The Rain by Led Zeppelin and the opening section of Log Cabin Blues.
How to practice it most effectively: With Fool In The Rain, practice the transition fills between the main beat on the hi-hat and the secondary beat on the ride cymbal. With Log Cabin Blues, focus on really feeling the beat and transitioning from chord to chord smoothly without a hesitation or a break. Even if you have to practice it very slowly, you want to be able to get from the beginning of the section to the end without stopping. This should be your goal this week.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.
Nate M.
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Review the notes that you have learned so far from the Mario Bros theme song.
How to practice it most effectively: Think carefully about the movement of your hands as you are playing the notes. Think about where each hand needs to be positioned in order to play each note accurately. Also, try to identify patterns in the music that will help you to remember the notes. Also, remember to review Take the Money and Run by Steve Miller Band.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.
Nate O.
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The beats and fills from All Star by Smashmouth.
How to practice it most effectively: Great work with this song! It sounds a lot better than the last time I heard it. Review the fills that we worked on and read the notes that I wrote down in your book. Practice each of them individually and then try playing along with the recording. I think you should do this song at the recital next month!
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.