Sahil

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day

What to practice: Baby Shark, Old MacDonald, C-D-E-F-G March, Men From Mars, Ode to Joy, Beyblade songs

How to practice it most effectively: For Baby Shark, play RH and LH together: LH’s chords are G major, then C major, then back to G major, then D major. This loops over and over again when you add the singing lyrics in. A bonus thing you can try is going back and forth between the major and minor versions of these chords. Remember that to make a major chord minor, we move the middle note down 1 semitone. For all the songs in your piano book, always double check which hand is meant to be playing. RH will have stems going up, while LH has stems going down. All of these songs (except Old MacDonald) are in C position. For Old MacDonald and Men From Mars, you can sing along once your piano part feels comfortable! Here is a good link for the Beyblade Burst Turbo song: only follow the RH part for now from 0:14-0:46. Changing the speed from 1x to 0.75x is also very helpful when starting out.

 

Nathalia

Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day

What to practice: Rockin’ Robin

How to practice it most effectively: This week we started Rockin’ Robin. Please play the first section (until bar 8) hands together. The LH part is just 5ths, with ties (so you don’t have to replay the dotted half note F and C). Please use the sayings for LH spaces (All Cows Eat Grass) and RH spaces (FACE) to help you with sight reading. RH is always going back to that top Eb. Continue swinging your eighth notes long-short as we did with Runaround Sue.

 

Sina

Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day

What to practice: C position warmup hands together, Playing in a New Position, Sailing, Skating, and Wishing Well

How to practice it most effectively: For the warmup, both hands will have C as the bottom note (for LH this means finger 5 is on C). Try walking up C-D-E-F-G then back down, making sure both hands are always on the same letter. In all your other songs, please double check which hand is meant to be playing! RH will have stems going up, while LH has stems going down. We learned a new time signature (3/4, meaning there are 3 beats per bar), and a new note (dotted half note which holds for 3 beats). Make sure you’re counting either in your head or out loud!