Happy New Year everyone! Hope your holidays were restful and spent with loved ones. Let’s make 2023 awesome and full of music <3

Isabella

You’re working on Let’s Play Ball and Petite Minuet. 

Let’s Play Ball features a new note = B right underneath middle C. The LH plays this note in this piece.

Minuet is special because it’s your first piece in the 3/4 time signature. This means there are 3 quarter notes per measure/bar. An example of 3/4 music is any waltz or Happy Birthday. Sing happy birthday and count 1-2-3 on your fingers and you will see. When playing this song, count 1-2-3 aloud.

Recommended daily practice: 15 minutes. Play your C major one octave scale with each hand a few times to warm up. Then play your “skipping” exercise with both hands, the C-E-G one. Then play your pieces.

Jadon

Keep working on Transformers. I wrote in your book to work on getting the position changes down first, before adding too much of the melody. This would be doing beats 1 and 3 basically and turning them into half notes, and gradually adding in the rest. Great work with this one!

Sightread any little snippets from early on in your old method book for reading practice.

Marco

Congrats on getting BINGO over the Winter Break!

I challenge you to play the intro of Never Gonna Give You Up with the LH too! This will make you an upstoppable Rickroll-er. Think of the chords as you play them (ex. F-G-Aminor-G etc.)

Your new piece is March of the Penguins. This piece has a sort of AABA form, so we are learning the A section (first 8 bars) this week. Be sure to observe the tied notes in the LH! Once you know these first 8 bars, play the difference between the first sections ending, and the next A sections ending (we pointed it out today).

We didn’t do this today, but keep working on your C and G major one octave HS scales. Fingering is 123 12345 RH and 54321 321 LH. I’ll hear them next week :)

Daniel

Congrats on getting BINGO over the Winter Break!

For Jurassic Park, we wrote in the fingering today. Be picky with it, it makes it easier. Play through the LH seperately. The LH is what makes it sound so rich and awesome in the part of this theme everyone knows, even playing it today I was like “wow!” for such a simple arrangement it sure sounds great.

Your new piece is the Mournful Worm. I challenge you to try sightreading a lot of this without your Mom’s assistance. You can review things with her to fact check, but I know you have all the knowledge and skills inside yourself to learn this one largely solo! Notice your accidentals and appreciate the blues vibe.

We didn’t do this today, but keep working on your C and G major one octave HS scales. Fingering is 123 12345 RH and 54321 321 LH. You can also explore the F major scale, same fingering in LH, but RH fingering is 1234 1234 due to the Bb. I’ll hear them next week :)

Shelton

Great job remembering your C major scales and triads so well! Keep practicing them. Try the root position hands together like we did in class today as a warmup.

You’re now working on all of Starlit Melody. This piece combines steps and skips and all the notes we’ve learnt so far, so go slow and be easy on yourself. You did awesome playing it in class today. Keep your head up and focus on reading each note. The last line of the music, don’t really worry about reading, just use RH fingers 1 and 3 notes a skip’s distance apart (like C and E, D and F, E and G etc.) to play all the white keys up and make a beautiful ending. Float off of each note to the next one.

Recommended daily practice: 15-20 minutes