Hi everyone,
Here are your practice assignments for this week:
Aidan
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Jazz/swing rhythms and the G Major Technical Exercises from the xylophone book.
How to practice it most effectively: When practicing the jazz rhythms, be sure that the ride cymbal and hi-hat parts are the most prominent and that you accent beats 2 and 4. The snare drum and bass drum should be relatively soft. On xylophone, review your scales and arpeggios, then practice each of the four technique exercises. Read both the notes and the rhythms carefully and go slowly through each exercises. Accuracy is much more important than speed.
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: Practice the beat from “Paradise” by Coldplay as well as the two new accent patterns.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice the beat along with the recording of the song (if possible). Listen carefully to how the beat lines up with the other elements of the song. With the accent patterns, concentrate on the concepts of a “downstroke” and an “upstroke” which we talked about in your lesson. With the downstroke, the stick starts high and ends low, and in the upstroke, the stick starts low and ends high.
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: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: The Intro/Verse beat from “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer.
How to practice it most effectively: First review the main beat of the song. Be sure that you can count out loud while playing the beat. Remember to keep a steady pulse while you play. The practice the half-bar that ends with a crash. Then try to put the two elements together. Once you can do this comfortably, then follow the form that I wrote down in your book: 3 bars on the ride cymbal + the half bar, then 6 bars on the hi-hat, then 3 more bars on the ride + the half bar.
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: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the kick drum syncopation beats that Pino gave you as well as the intro to “Can’t Stop” by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice the syncopation beats very slowly at first. Keep a steady pulse on the hi-hat and remember not to rush through the eighth notes. It is important that they are exactly twice as long as the sixteenth notes. For the song, have a listen to the recording a youtube a few times to get the sound of the song in your head. After that, try playing the intro and the verse beat along with the recording.
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: “Take the Money and Run” by Steve Miller Band
How to practice it most effectively: Practice the song with the notes that I wrote in your book whenever possible. Focus on the spots that we worked on this week where I added a couple of new fills (on the last page). Be careful not to rush the triplets at the end of the song. They should line up with the fast rhythm that the guitar is playing.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.