Hi everyone,
Here are your assignments for this week:
Will
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Review all your scales and arpeggios up to three sharps or flats, and also practice playing the scales in thirds.
How to practice it most effectively: To play a scale in thirds, you start with your left hand on the first note of the scale and your right hand on the third note of the scale. Then you play all the notes of the scale in this order (ascending) alternating left and right hand: 1 3 2 4 3 5 4 6 5 7 6 1 7 2 1. Then, to play the scale descending in thirds, start with your right hand on the top note of the scale (1) and you left hand a third below that (6). Then play the notes of the scale in this order (descending) alternating right and left: 1 6 7 5 6 4 5 3 4 2 3 1 2 7 1.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Review beats #7-12 this week and work on developing consistency and speed.
How to practice it most effectively: Great work with the beats this week! Aim this week to be able to play each beat at least 8 times in a row without stopping or changing speed. Once you can do this, then pick a faster speed and try to play it 8 times in a row again. Keep doing this until you can’t go any faster without making a mistake. Practice each beat at your maximum speed, but make sure that the speed is not causing you to make mistakes through 8 repetitions.
Jared
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Review beats #5-8 this week and see if you can learn beat #9 as well.
How to practice it most effectively: Playing slowly and counting out loud is the best way for your brain to learn these beats. They are more complex than anything else that we’ve done so far, but they follow the same basic concepts that we have been using all along: sixteenth notes on the hi-hat, 2 and 4 on the snare drum, and different combinations of notes on the bass drum that create the rhythm. Aim to try to play each beat at least 4 times in a row without stopping. Consistency is really important so play as slowly as you need to in order to achieve consistency.
Noah
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the main beat and the intro from “Good Times Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin.
How to practice it most effectively: Focus on the rhythm between the hi-hat and the cowbell in the intro of the song. First work on nailing down the pattern and playing it slowly with consistency. Then, once it starts to feel comfortable, try to play it faster, closer to the speed of the song. You can also take a look at the fill at the end of the intro which leads into the main beat. If you want to challenge yourself this week, you can also review the jazz rhythms that we worked on over the last few weeks and practice playing them with A) the bass drum only on 1 and 3, and B) no bass drum at all.
Koel
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice playing all the way through the final chorus of “When I Come Around” by Green Day.
How to practice it most effectively: After the guitar solo section of the song, the chorus is repeated one final time. This chorus is the same as the other chorus except that the last line is repeated 3 times. Practice playing the chorus as usual after the guitar solo and then repeat the main beat until the song is finished. Next week I will finish writing out this final chorus for you and we will practice playing all the way through the song.
Caroline
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice playing all the way through the Weezer song.
How to practice it most effectively: The main things to work on this week are the guitar solo section after the bridge and the final chorus. The fill at the end of the guitar solo is really faster and it needs to drive the song forward, not drag it back. So practice staying light when playing this fill rather than playing it heavy. Use your wrist and fingers as much as possible rather than your elbows. In the final chorus, there are a few rhythms that are different from the other choruses. If you can hear what these rhythms are when listening to the song, then try incorporating them when you play the final chorus. Next week we will run through the whole song from top to bottom.