Hakim

My Invention – this teaches our landmark notes = bass F, middle C and treble G.

Use the corner of your thumb when playing. The thumb is like a really important beam holding up a deck (the rest of your hand) and it needs to be strong to keep your nice piano hand posture from collapsing.

Maria

Etude in D Major – HT m1-8. HS 8-16. You’re doing way better than you think! When putting the hands together, notice which notes are played together, and you can stop on each of them to check you’re doing it right. I put stars around each of the sections you should do spot practice on.

Arctic Voices – first 8 bars. LH begins in the bass clef. In the second line, every single collection of notes is a perfect 5th, which makes reading easier.

Melodic minor scales –  Raised 6 and 7th going up, lower them when going back down. Going up the top half of the scale should be like a major scale, and then going back down, the top half will be like a plain minor scale.

Shakira

Technical exercises – using the papers from last week as well as this week at the keyboard (or at a desk using the correct fingering and saying the note names aloud), practice these to get comfortable with note reading.

Session 32 – written on the back of the technical exercises paper. Play along with the recording to learn the rhythm.

WindanSea – Notice which parts repeat and how some of the endings of phrases are different. The LH repeats the same profession for every line except the last line of this piece.

Noreet

Haunted Mouse – this piece uses your new skill of staccato. When playing staccato (light and detached notes) be sure your loose is light and flexible. It should feel like knocking on a door, or a chicken pecking the keys. Resist the urge to move your RH, and try to use the written fingering. Fingers 2 and 4 might be weaker than 1 and 3, but not if you practice using them!

C Major Scale RH and LH.
RH goes 123 (thumb under, to F) and then 12345.
LH goes 54321 (finger 3 over on A) 321.

Practice habits: it is better to do a little bit every day, than a lot on one day. Instead of playing each piece from beginning to end, choose small sections and work on playing them fluently. Repeat small sections until you can play them without hesitation or mistake. Then choose another small section to work on. Eventually you could then put those two sections together and work on doing the whole big section without pause.

Gerardo

Infinity Session – the bass line is a similar chord progression to the Swing. The RH uses a lot of dotted quarter notes, so be sure that your counting adds up to 3 beats per bar.

LH patterns – this paper gives you some inspiration on LH patterns to be used in improv/lead sheet playing. It also provides you with rhythms and note guidelines to improvise within in the RH.