Gerardo:
Practice the A section of “Tchaikovsky’s theme” with both hands. Always keep counting in your head the six beats, until you can feel you have the rhythms solved. Once you feel comfortable playing with both hands, add the dynamic marks.
(rit.= gradually slowing down the tempo).
Also, take a few minutes of your practice time for The girl from Ipanema. We’ll do 1 make-up class for each piece.
Eliam:
Piano adventures p. 42, “March on D-E-F”. Make sure he’s starting with the right fingers. It would help a lot if the parent could make Eliam explain what he learned and ask questions (‘which note is this one? and this one?’)
Caedan:
Encourage him to hear the Mario Song a few times before practice. Tell him to play slow, so he has time to think about the next note. That way he’ll make fewer mistakes while playing.
About the book, maybe what he can work on in the meantime is to practice identifying the following notes in the staff:
If one of the parents can grab a staff paper and just make him tell you which note you’re writing, that would help him a lot.
I will do such an exercise next week since the make-up class is longer. In the meantime, if you can help him correct mm. 2-4 and m. 6 of “Li’l Liza Jane”, it would be great. If not, I’ll do it in the next class.
Also, encourage him to write another song using only black keys and A. He has a great ear, and he seems to enjoy it.
Zoe:
August: Use a metronome to practice, and practice slower than the original tempo, so you can be precise with the rhythms. Specially in the last part of the song, try to mentally keep track of the sixteenth notes at all times. That will help you with precision.
Memorize the structure so you don’t have to read the lyrics while you play.
Read up to the second line of “Little Piece” (RCM 3).