B.Mus (Humber) in-progress
Adina is a singer-songwriter based in Toronto completing her Bachelor of Music degree at Humber College in vocal performance. Trained classically in piano since the age of 5, she has branched out into pop and jazz as well.
Vocally she is well-versed in many genres including jazz (she loves to scat!), musical theatre, pop, singer-songwriter, country, R&B, and acappella. She has 7 years of choir experience in both chamber and jazz styles. Adina has been writing and singing original songs since the age of 12, and has two singles as well as an EP out on all platforms under the artist name Adina V.
She has performed all across southern Ontario singing with the Toronto All-Star Big Band, as well as at various venues in the GTA with her own jazz duos and trios. As a member of the Cawthra Park Chamber Choir she performed at Roy Thompson Hall with the TSO for two years in a row. At Humber College she is part of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble led by Lisa Martinelli; this group performs advanced repertoire at events like the Ontario Vocal Jazz Festival.
Adina has been teaching music for the past 7 years and loves helping students meet their personal goals while fostering a love of music that lasts forever!
Get to know Adina…Beyond the Bio!
Hobbies: reading, puzzles, video games, painting
Musical Influences: Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Doris Day, Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, John Mayer
Favourite Food: Pad Thai
Least favourite food: eggplant
Favourite music: Indie rock and folk
Favourite song: All I Need by Jacob Collier ft. Mahalia & Ty Dolla $ign
Favourite movie: Matilda
Favourite movie music: The Pirates of the Caribbean theme
Favourite Musical: Dear Evan Hansen or The Last Five Years
Best Quote from your teacher: “It’s an amazing and wonderful experience to be able to be intentional about, in the moment, making music”
Favourite Quote: “Even as we are, we are becoming”
Favourite Book: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy – Stieg Larsson
Best thing about teaching at ABC: Sharing and fostering a love of music with students of all ages
Latest Homework from Adina
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Sunday, June 20th, 2021
Sahil
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Beyblade Burst Turbo (piano and singing), March on D-E-F, Mister Bluebird
How to practice it most effectively: For March on D-E-F and Mister Bluebird, we are introducing treble clef notes D, E and F. Note which of these letters are in the spaces (D and F) and the lines (E). When we are stepping, like in these songs, on the staff notes will move from line to space or space to line. On the piano we just play the very next letter (up or down). These songs are just for RH! For Beyblade Burst Turbo, please try playing the chorus (“Gonna take the victory…”) with both RH and LH. The LH chords are:\
- “Gonna take the victory” C major, G major
- “Bursting out in overdrive” E minor, D major
- “The warrior will take the lead” C major, G major
- “Beyblade burst turbo” A major, B major
Then it repeats for the second half! Please remember that LH’s C major and E minor chords come in before the RH melody. You can try singing the melody with lyrics along with the RH melody (take LH out while singing just so you don’t have to focus on 3 things at once!).
Nathalia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu
How to practice it most effectively: You can start off by playing this song hands separately – there is a lot of repetition in the melodic ideas! LH does the same 5th – step up pattern for almost the entire piece, you just have to check if the bottom note is G or low D. Remember that your accidentals last for a whole bar. G is the home note and our key for this piece – RH is often coming back to that 2nd treble clef line. There are many semitones in this song (like from A# to B, or F#-G-G#-A). As always, please try to follow the written fingerings, and use your clef sayings for the lines and spaces if you need help figuring out a note! Feel free to revisit songs like Rockin’ Robin or Bye, Bye, Love over the break. Thank you for your hard work and have a great summer!
Sina
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Old Uncle Bill, Love Somebody, reading ahead in your book!
How to practice it most effectively: For Old Uncle Bill, LH is playing together intervals (either a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th) while RH has the melody. RH make sure you hold your dotted half note while LH plays underneath. For Love Somebody, be really careful with the direction each hand is moving in when they play together. RH, do your best to play connected under the slurs. You’re absolutely ready to read ahead in your book this summer, as you move into playing with intervals like 5ths. Thank you for all your hard work and enjoy your summer break!
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021
Saskia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: various warmups, My Girl, Butter, reviewing any old songs we’ve done as well as singing other favourite songs with lyric videos!
How to practice it most effectively: The warmups we have done include:
- “ooh” unpitched slide (just start on a comfy middle note, and slide gently up and down, getting a little higher & lower each time)
- “na na na” C-D-E, E-D-C warmup (then moving into other notes as the bottom note)
- “ooh-ah-ooh” sliding warmup (can be small, C-E-C; or big C-G-C)
For My Girl, try to have a little, almost silent “H” before the “I”s so it’s gentler on your voice. In the chorus, the lead singer only does the first “My girl”, the other echos are background vocals. Note that the “hey, hey, hey”s are slightly different the 2nd time. If you do want to sing Butter along with the lyric video, just make sure you do a warmup that extends a few notes beyond C4 since that high note comes back again and again. Have a great summer break and thanks for singing with me!
Gianna
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: various warmups, Do a Deer, So Long Farewell, revisiting songs like Monster, If I Can’t Have You, Shake it Off as well as any others you enjoy, and songwriting!
How to practice it most effectively: The warmups we have done include:
- skips warmup (C-E-G-E-C, then moving around to other notes as well) on “na na na” or “ma ma ma” (make sure the vowel is nice and open).
- sliding down warmup (can do G to C, then moving down in your range) on “Hah” – the “H” at the beginning is important to achieve an open/forward sound quality.
- singing a C major and G major scale (saying letters or saying do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do).
For Do a Deer, continue to sing the ends of phrases (like “sun”, “run”, etc) with open vowels. Make sure you end these long notes early enough that you have time to breathe before the next phrase. For So Long Farewell, please use the video I sent you so you also have the verse (the beginning part) of the song. The word “auf wiedersehen” is pronounced “aw-vee-der-sen”. For all those long tones near the end on “good-bye“, please make sure you get a nice big belly breath in before singing them. Thanks for all your hard work and enthusiasm in class – have a great summer!
Wednesday, August 25th, 2021
Thank you for all your hard work this summer! Good luck to everyone in the fall :)
Diya
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: Mozart’s Five Names, Paper Airplane, vocal warmups, start to listen to Tomorrow
How to practice it most effectively: For piano practice, please continue practicing Mozart’s Five Names: notice when the melody is stepping vs. skipping, and use FACE in the space to help RH find notes. The line sayings are Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge for RH, and Good Birds Don’t Fly Away for LH. Note how bars 1-2 and 5-6 are the same pattern, just one step higher. Keep up the great counting! For Paper Airplane, we now have RH in high C position. The F of this position is “Fudge” in your saying – the G is the space above that. Have fun with the pedal in the last line of this piece. Please feel free to look back and review any of the songs you enjoyed in this book so far! For your vocal warmups, try to use all 5 vowels, and remember to only go as far up or down as you can without straining – warmups should feel gentle and good. A song I’d recommend for you to perhaps learn in the fall is Tomorrow from Annie – here is a lyric video for that:
Dvorah
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Ferris Wheel, Mexican Jumping Beans (feel free to try looking ahead in the book too!)
How to practice it most effectively: For Ferris Wheel, keep it nice and sticky, and make sure you’re still counting to 2 on all half notes. In bar 10, notice how the melody is all skips (space to space to space). Mexican Jumping Beans has the opposite of legato – staccato! When playing staccatos, we want our wrist (not whole arm) to be bouncy, like the piano is a trampoline. We also want the notes to be really short, like the piano is really hot! This song has both hands in C position, and the melody goes between the hands. You can try singing along to this one if you’d like!
Linda
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-25 minutes a day
What to practice: Early One Morning, Tired Turtle Express, More
How to practice it most effectively: For new song Early One Morning, keep practicing hands separately for a bit before trying together. For the RH, you can try thinking in scale degree numbers (with G being 1, since we are in the key of G major). Also, RH should try to follow all fingering guidelines except for the repeated Gs – you can do those all with the same finger. For Tired Turtle Express, the counting for the recurring rhythm in bar 3 must have the first LH quarter note holding for a full “1 and”, or “long-short”. Take your time with this one when putting it hands together – it’s meant to be a pretty slow song! For More, a good thing to do before playing is to play the Eb major scale (Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D-Eb; notice how there’s one of each letter name in order) and then build the diatonic chords of this scale. More essentially has two sections – the cheeky I-VI-II-V and then the minor cliche line with the slash chords. In the minor cadence D-7b5 to G7b9, try to do the single note movement in the RH – from C to B and every other note stays the same. Good luck and have fun with it!
Ken
Recommended minutes to practice: 20 minutes a day
What to practice: Scarborough Fair, Sleigh Ride Holiday, Campbells are Coming, look ahead in your book if you’d like!
How to practice it most effectively: Scarborough Fair can be a review/warmup song this week. You can add pedal now! Just remember to count to three for each bar, and notice how for the most part the dynamics ask you to play softly. For Sleigh Ride Holiday we are now in 6/8 time! Notes are worth the same as in 3/8 time, just that now there are 6 beats a bar. Keep up your good counting, and play HS for now. We circled all the finger/position switches. LH please double check all notes in your chords. For Campbells are Coming, you can play hands together from the get go! LH do your best to do the staccatos, and RH use the written fingers – they will help you with this spread out melody. RH, please double check your chords in bars 17-23. Good luck and feel free to look ahead to a new piece or two before the fall!
Preferred Books for Adina’s Students
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Alfred's Basic Piano Library Lesson Book 1A
This easy step-by-step method emphasizes correct playing habits and note reading through interval recognition. Lesson Book Level 1A begins by teaching basic keyboard topography and fluent recognition of white key names in relation to black keys. It focuses on simple rhythms and prepares students for intervallic reading with entertaining songs that focus on “same,” “stepping up” and “stepping down.” It then introduces lines and space notes in treble and bass clefs, melodic and harmonic intervals of 2nds, 3rds, 4ths and 5ths, and graduates to reading on the grand staff. It also introduces the flat and sharp signs. This course is most effective when used under the direction of a piano teacher or experienced musician. Songs Include: Balloons * Batter Up! * The Donkey * A Friend Like You * Hand-Bells * A Happy Song * Horse Sense * Totem Pole Song * It’s Halloween! * Jingle Bells! * Jolly Old Saint Nicholas * July the Fourth! * Just a Second! * Love Somebody * Merrily We Roll Along O’er the Deep Blue Sea * Mexican Hat Dance * My Clever Pup * My Fifth * My Robot * Old MacDonald * Old Uncle Bill * Play a Fourth * Raindrops * Rain, Rain! * Rockets * Rockin’ Tune * Rock Song * Sailing * Sea Divers * See-Saws * Skating * Who’s on Third? * Willie and Tillie * Wishing Well * The Zoo
Alfred's Adult Basic All-In-One
Alfred’s Basic Adult All-in-One Course is designed for use with a piano instructor for the beginning student looking for a truly complete piano course. It is a greatly expanded version of Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course that will include lesson, theory, and technique in a convenient, “all-in-one” format. This comprehensive course adds such features as isometric hand exercises, finger strengthening drills, and written assignments that reinforce each lesson’s concepts. There is a smooth, logical progression between each lesson, a thorough explanation of chord theory and playing styles, and outstanding extra songs, including folk, classical, and contemporary selections.
The Brown Scale Book
This essential resource includes all major and minor scales, triads, arpeggios, dominant sevenths, and chromatic scales organized by key. A favorite for decades, The Brown Scale Book belongs in every student’s library.
The Real Vocal Book
The Real Vocal Book has many of the selections from Volumes 1 and 2 of the instrumental Real Books, but now with complete lyrics added to the pre-existing melody line. This edition features 300 essential songs arranged for low voice, including: Alfie * All of Me * Autumn Leaves * Bewitched * Bluesette * Don’t Get Around Much Anymore * Fever * Georgia on My Mind * Misty * Moon River * My Funny Valentine * Satin Doll * and more. Looking for a particular song? Check out the Real Book Songfinder here.
