Adina Vlasov

Dvorah

For our scavenger hunt this week let’s look for the letters D (inbetween the two black keys in the group of 2) and E (to the right of the two black keys in the group of two).

Balloons – Please still practice this song this week to solidify your knowledge of where letters C-D-E are on the piano. Make sure the correct finger is on C (4 for LH, 2 for RH) – remember, any finger can play any note!

Merrily We Roll Along – This song is in the same position as Balloons. The R.H. stands for right hand and L.H. for left hand. After the first few notes the finger numbers disappear! – use the letter names to guide you.

Old MacDonald – This week try to ad dynamics – the fs and ps (louds and softs) as well as speeding up the piece! No matter how fast we go, remember that half notes still hold for 2 counts!

Frere Jacques – For the second half of this song, put your finger 4 on G instead of finger 5; then you will have all the fingers comfortably on the correct notes without having LH reach over.

Marco

This week please complete theory page 36. Also, for your composition let’s fix the stems for your facing-down notes (they should looks like ps, not qs) and rewrite/change any notes that you are playing differently. To make things more interesting, write in some dynamics (fs and ps)

Allegro – Please still practice this piece this week. Ideally we want the whole piece to be one speed, so slow the first two bars down so the rest of the song can keep up. Try adding the dynamics in this song, and speed it up a little! The term “allegro” means fast.

Elephant Ride – This piece also uses a lot of skips, but this time we go from space to space. Note how skips are happening between LH and RH as well. There are still quite a few stepping moments, so watch out for these (especially in bar 6!). Use Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge to help with the RH line notes.

Oliver

This week we will do a G position warmup (5 finger scale up and down) but this time make your Bs flat. This makes the position minor instead of major. Please make sure you start on G and go up first.

The Clown – Take this piece 2 bars at a time, and remember to use the correct sayings for each clef. Remember that bass clef, where LH plays, has the animal theme. This piece is in the G minor position we do our warmup in! Many times when RH is doing steps it’s just like our warmup.

Alice

Lose You to Love Me – In the chorus where we want to sing louder and the notes are higher, make sure your vowels are nice and open – more resonance = more power. I’m especially thinking of the notes on the words “lose” and “hate”. Spend some extra time with the verse lyrics you don’t know quite as well as the first verse; ideally all of them should sound equally comfortable.

Frogs on Logs – This piece has RH changing positions a bunch; work on smoothing out the transitions so we don’t hesitate every position switch. Please watch the directions of your steps (steps are when we go line-space-line-space in order to the very next note).

Let’s Play Ball – LH has a new note! B is a step down from C and we play it with finger 2. The second line has a stepping pattern – learning to recognize steps will make reading notes easier! You can use Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge to help you memorize the lines in treble clef (where RH plays).

Linda

For your 4-note chord warmup this week, try it in the LH!

The Swing – LH has ties – these occur between two notes of the same letter and indicate you should not play the 2nd of the two, but hold for the full value. We spoke about recognizing intervals on the staff: odd intervals are on the same (line-line or space-space) and even intervals are on opposites (line-space). Play this piece hands separately except for bar 20 to the end (the phrase makes much more sense hands together).

What a Wonderful World – When going to the B-7b5 from Cmaj7, it’s much easier to go 1 step down rather than a whole 7th up. Practice going between A-7 and Abmaj7 back and forth a few times. C and G stay, A and E change to Ab and Eb