Avril – As you arrived late this week and were unable to have a complete lesson, review the homework from last week: Practice is CUMULATIVE. This means that everything we have been working on, you keep working on, even as we add more stuff. So continue playing around with Auld Lang Syne, analyzing Bohemian Rhapsody, and practicing your scales and chords. In addition, you can work on the first two pages of ‘The Young Pianist’. Just as a challenge: try playing each piece in a different key than it’s written in, and then another. If you have the time, play each piece in THREE different keys – the written key, and two other keys of your choice.
Julie – Review the Sicilienne, focusing especially on DYNAMICS. If it will be beneficial to you, use highlighters to make dynamic changes clear to you. Review the Bach invention with NO decoration. Practice oscillating between two notes like this: 60BPM, 121, 131, 141, 151, 232, 242, 252, 343, 353, 454 – on both hands. Focus on allowing the oscillation come from rotation of the wrist, rather than your fingers alone. Keep playing with ‘Functional Ear Trainer’. Review our theory charts from last week. Here they are on imgur. Hopefully you can access this. https://imgur.com/a/oiREUZu
Kristen – Continue to practice Czerny repertoire, and transpose every Czerny piece into another key. In addition to this, practice ALL white key major scales and their relative minor scales – harmonic and melodic, 4 octaves (that is C, D, E, F, G, A, B majors, and a, b, c#, d, e, f#, g# melodic and harmonic minors). Do this with your metronome at a slow tempo (60 max), 1 octave at quarter notes, then 2 octaves at 8th notes, then 3 octaves at triplets, then 4 octaves at 16th notes. All fully white triad sequences, broken and solid. Find what metronome marking works best for you. You can/should also check out some jazz gigs. Here are some suggestions: Claire Daily with Adrean Farrugia on piano on February 7th and 8th at The Rex. Bernie Senensky Group on February 23rd at The Rex. He is a marvelous pianist and organist. Barry Romberg group on February 24th. No piano in this group to my knowledge, but still a good group.