Hi everyone,
Here are your practice assignments for this week:
Aidan
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Rolls and drags on snare drum as well as sight-reading on xylophone.
How to practice it most effectively: Try to smooth out the sound of your drum rolls by relaxing your arms and not trying to play too fast. It is important to play without tension and to let the sticks do the work. Practice getting a equal number of bounces from each hand and it will make your roll sound great without having to play too fast. With the drags, remember that the last note is the one that lands on the beat, not the first note. Make the first two notes quiet and the last note loud, and play them as closely together as you can.
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: Accent patterns #1-10 from your book, and review Paradise by Coldplay.
How to practice it most effectively: Try to come up with some creative ways to play the accent patterns around the drums. Once they start to feel comfortable, then try switching it up by moving around the drums differently on each repeat. Also, try to keep a really steady and consistent speed when playing these patterns. If you have a metronome at home, practice with it and see what range of speeds you can play comfortably.
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 Verse and Chorus beats from Say It Ain’t So by Weezer.
How to practice it most effectively: Play through each beat by yourself several times. Be sure that you are playing what is written in the book, don’t just rely on your memory. Also, count out loud or in your head while you’re playing so that you don’t lose your place. After the beats start to feel comfortable, then try playing along with the recording. Be sure to listen carefully to recording so that you can hear how your part fits in with the other parts. If you get off, don’t just keep going but stop and start again.
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.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice playing along with the recording as much as you can. Focus especially on the chorus sections. Listen carefully to how your part lines up with the parts of the song (the vocals, the guitar, the bass). Work on keeping your rhythm and pulse very consistent throughout the whole song so that it locks in with what you hear on 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.
Oscar
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: “Fool In The Rain” by Led Zeppelin.
How to practice it most effectively: You’ve almost got it now. Just take it slow and work on keeping the ghost notes on the snare really quiet, and then playing the accented notes loudly. The second bass drum note should also be accented. If you feel up to it, try opening the hi-hat on the second bass drum note to highlight the accent, and then close it again on the very next beat. This is the last step in learning the beat.
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 we learned today on the xylophone and the opening of the Mario Brothers theme song.
How to practice it most effectively: Today we focussed mostly on the note C, E, and G, as they are the most important notes in the Mario song. Work on memorizing where they are on the keyboard. Remember that the second row of keys has a pattern: 2 keys, a space, 3 keys, a space, and then the pattern repeats. Using these groups of keys as your guide, you can find the position of the notes in the first row. C is just to the left of the group of 2 keys. E is just to the right of the group of 2 keys. G is in between the first and the second keys in the group of 3. If you can memorize the position of these three notes and visualize them on the keyboard, that will help a lot in learning the Mario theme song.
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 Verse and Chorus beats from All Star by Smashmouth.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice each beat slowly at first. Read what’s on the page before you start and count in your head as you’re playing. Focus on the bass drum and snare drum parts and make sure that you are keeping a steady pulse: don’t speed up or slow down as you are playing. Once you feel confident with the beats, then try practicing them along with a recording of the song.
How parents can support practice: Encouraging your child to practice regularly and helping them develop a routine is the best way to be supportive.