Great work everyone!! Enjoy the rest of the weekend and following week :)

Hakim

Haunted Mouse – dynamics are important to this piece, it begins “piano” which means quiet (like a mouse) and by the end it is loud! When playing the solid 3rds, they should feel light and bouncey like your hand is a woodpeckers beak. A loose wrist is important, your arm or hand should not feel tense. Listen here.

C major scale – hands together. You’re doing this exactly right. Choose a slow enough tempo that you can perform it perfectly in time without hesitation.

C major triads – hands separate, broken and solid. You can watch here, where he plays them solid. Playing them broken means to play them one at a time in the direction you are going. The notes will be CEG, EGC, GCE, and then CEG again. The “outside” notes will always be played by your thumb and pinky, while finger 3 or 2 can be used for the middle note, whichever is most ergonomic for the hand/inversion. Go slow and think of your hand as a crab laterally and smoothly walking up the keys.

Maria – have a great Holiday!!!

Tattoo – First page – I’m so proud of your accomplishments on this piece!! For the 2nd “section” of the piece, the melody over the 1st, 3rd and 4th chords is an offbeat start. The melody fragment over the second chord begins right on Best 3.

All I Want for Christmas Is You – intro. This piece is in G major (F#s). The main chords used are G, E minor, C and D. A C minor is also added in to create that jazzy sound.

Shakira

Jingle Bells – HT. Practice hands separate first, perhaps looking at a chart that labels which key is which on the keyboard would help you find the Cs Fs and Gs with your LH… Play the RH, and when confident, put them together.

C Major scale – both hands. RH fingering is 123 12345. LH is 54321 321 (starting from the bottom).

Noreet

Jingle Bells – Play each line on the first page twice each practice session. In the last line on the first page, after the 5 staccato Gs with your RH pinky, bounce just up one white key to play the A with your pinky and then move back to the normal position. Feel free to keep going and add the classic Jingle Bells part on too.

Half Time Show – this piece only has F A and C, but the catch is, we just learnt what treble C looks like in the staff. Both hands are in F position. Middle C is still middle C, the next C UP the keyboard is treble C (it is an octave higher). You can play along here (20 and 21).

C major scale – RH. It is awesome that you want to play beyond the one octave HOWEVER we have to be careful we don’t confuse our brain with the wrong fingering…. If you do keep going past the octave, keep the same fingering going to your thumb should only ever play C or F. 123 12345 is the fingering.