Have a great week everyone! Enjoy the first few days of May as they arrive :)

Isabella

My Friends – Watch for the tied note across the bar line, you will hold it for beat 4 and 1 (because it is two quarter notes added together)

E major scale – 4 black keys this time, F#, G#, C#, D#. Same fingering as always: RH 123 12345, LH 54321 321.

Reminder to try and practice even just 10-15 minutes each day. That would look like warming up with your scales for 2-3 minutes and then playing your new piece a bunch until it’s easy and finishing off the session playing through an older favourite piece of yours.

Grace

Goldberg Variations – In the second half of the piece, the 5th and 6th measure, explore doing a crescendo throughout each bar, or perhaps a decrescendo in each bar but either way there needs to be some shape of the cascading sequence.

Op28 Chopin Etude in E minor – Play the RH by itself to figure out how you would like to shape it, imagine it is a vocalist. Then try adding thick long chords of the LH and playing it overtop of that. Then try playing individual voices of the LH with the RH overtop like I did today. Experiment with how it should sound to you and run with it!

Daniel

*New* The Wind – dynamics, tell a story of a great big storm that starts as a small quiet breeze and quickly becomes a huge gust!

Ditty of Yimeng Mountain – nice effort! Good fingering will make this so much less awkward, I have circled the finger numbers where you have to go over or under. Practice these hands separate in little two bar chunks until it happens naturally. Rolled chords begin rolling on the beat.

Allegretto – nice work on the B section! It’s much more comfortable, now add in the dynamics where it gets quieter each repetition of the sequence. For the RH C major 4 note chords you need to use fingering 1-2-3-5 to eliminate the hole in the sound when you hop your pinky.

Formula pattern – you’ve got the pattern down! Congrats! The only thing holding you back now is your fingering, review it playing scales as normal, and ensure you’re still doing the normal fingering in the formula. Multiple octave scales means having to put your thumb under finger 4 more than you’ve been used to, but that’s so you can start the new octave on finger 1 and use your classic fingering.