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, May 30th, 2021
Sahil
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 -20 minutes a day
What to practice: Middle C March, A Ten Second Song, and Driving the G Clef; Beyblade Burst Turbo, Beyblade Burst Evolution (triads only)
How to practice it most effectively: For the 3 Piano Adventures songs, we are now reading music on the grand staff! Treble clef is for RH, and bass clef is for LH. Most of these songs are RH only, and use middle C (floating below the staff with a line going through it) and G (important note, 2nd line of the staff). You may read ahead beyond these 3 songs if you’d like! For Beyblade Burst Turbo, continue playing the first 2 lines with RH and LH together, but spend some extra time really solidifying the RH melody for the next two lines. I’ll link the tutorial video below. I’ll also link the lyric video so you can start trying to sing along to this song! The Beyblade Burst Evolution, the LH chords we learned are E major (E-G#-B), F# major (F#-A#-D#), G# minor (G#-B-D#), and B major (B-D#-F#). Please practice playing these chords in order with your LH.
Nathalia
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: G major triads (one hand at a time), Rockin’ Robin
How to practice it most effectively: The G major triads are in the same family as the F major ones (so will have the same shapes and fingerings), except that now the 3 letters are G-B-D. Please make sure you’re using fingers 1-3-5 except for RH 1st inversion and LH 2nd inversion. For Rockin’ Robin, we are doing the A and B sections hands together – you can start speeding the first page up! Bars 13-16 on the 2nd page of the B section could use a little extra attention. RH only, please read ahead into the C section – the phrases are only 2 bars long, so you can isolate them like so: bars 17-18, then 19-20, etc.). There are lots of skips in this section, so watch out for line to line and space to space movement!
Sina
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Who’s On Third, Mexican Hat Dance
How to practice it most effectively: For both of these songs, please say the letter names out loud while playing. Remember your hands are always in C position, which means each finger has one note to be responsible for. Make sure you stay in this position for the whole song! This week, please memorize the important notes: for RH it’s G (2nd line of the treble clef), and for LH it’s F (4th line of the bass clef). Be careful with which direction the melody is moving in, as well as holding half notes for the full 2 beats.
**I will need photos of all pages beyond “Rock Song” as we move forward in this edition of the book – if you could please upload them to my teacher Google Drive that would be great, thank you!
Tuesday, June 1st, 2021
Anaya
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: Gliding, Balloons, and finishing #3 on page 55 (make sure your half notes look like “p”s!)
How to practice it most effectively: For Gliding, there is a step, repeated note pattern – the slurs on the pairs of quarter notes are meant to be played down-up with your wrist. After every “up” there will be a repeated note. For Balloons, watch out that your starting note for each hand is now D. Please remember that finger 4 is your ring finger. The last note in this song is a tied note, meaning we don’t replay the second D, we just hold through for a total of 6 beats.
Saskia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: “ooh-ah-ooh” warmup on 5ths, As the World Falls Down, and Stop in the Name of Love
How to practice it most effectively: For the warmup, it will still be the ooh-ah-ooh slide, but this time start on C4 to G4 then back to C4. From there you’ll move your bottom note up to the very next one and repeat. Doing this bigger distance will help us expand our range a little higher. For As the World Falls Down, please continue singing with the karaoke track. On the long note “down” – make sure your vowel is open and the sound is shining forward (don’t hold back – this is the big moment!). The one melody bit to be aware of is “Wasn’t too much fun at all”, where the word “too” dips down to a lower, slightly funky note. Here is a good lyric video to start singing Stop in the Name of Love to:
Gianna
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Monster, If I Can’t Have You, continue writing lyrics for new song
How to practice it most effectively: For Monster, the final thing to work on is really singing that 1st chorus up the octave (so same melody, just higher than he sings it). The guide notes for “What if I” are F-G-A. Please play these when that part comes up to help you get high enough. Good job enunciating all those lyrics! For If I Can’t Have You, focus on the melody for “Everything means nothing if I can’t have you”, since it goes through lots of notes quickly – you can slow down the YouTube video or rewind that line a few times until you really know it. For all songs please remember to sing with an open throat, with the sound coming forwards.
Ken
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: G major scale, Sakura, finishing bass clef intervals on the bottom of page 4.
How to practice it most effectively: For the G major scale, play one hand at a time using fingers 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5 for RH, and 5-4-3-2-1-3-2-1 for LH. G major has an F#. For Sakura, please play the RH once separately before going and playing the piece hands together. Double check your intervals – today we spoke about odd numbers (3rd, 5th, 7th) being the same (so line-line or space-space), and even numbers (2nd, 4th, 6th) being opposite (space-line or line-space). Note that the dynamic in the intro and outro is piano! For bass clef, we have sayings that help us remember the lines and spaces. These are All Cows Eat Grass for the spaces and Good Birds Don’t Fly Away for the lines. Please try to memorize these.
Steve
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Changing Moods, Aardvark Boogie, and Whirling Leaves
How to practice it most effectively: Changing Moods is a warmup, going between major and minor positions. Please do just the C and G positions (so the 1st 4 lines), remembering that when we change our 3rd note from a natural to a flat, all other notes stay the same. For Aardvark Boogie, please make sure you’re counting “1 and” on the quarter notes in bars 2, 4, etc. so you’re holding them long enough. The final step is making the song flow smoothly with fewer hesitations. Whirling Leaves has LH in the high A position. Be careful with the eight-eight-quarter rhythm that runs through almost the entire piece.
Gabe
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Liebestraum, Porcupine Dance
How to practice it most effectively: In Liebestraum, please be careful of when there are sharps in the LH part – our key is G major (so F# in the key signature) but there are lots of accidentals. Do your 1-2-3 counts as you play, and watch out for the tied notes (you keep holding through these instead of playing them again). For Porcupine Dance, now that the notes and patterns are well learnt you can try speeding it up! Remember to keep it light and staccato.
Isaac
Recommended minutes to practice: 20 minutes a day
What to practice: Burlesque in G Major, Pyranese Melody
How to practice it most effectively: For the Burlesque in G Major, let’s put it hands together this week! There are many repetivie patterns, with the main one being that each RH sixteenth note pair is always a skip. The hands also often move in parallel directions. For Pyranese Melody, keep playing hands together. Those staccato chords are really coming along! Keep doing the isolation to get them extra comfortable. In bars 9 and 11 RH has a down-up wrist articulation with those slurs.
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
Diya
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: Lonely Pine, Li’l Liza Jane, vocal warmups, Reflection with lyric video
How to practice it most effectively: For Lonely Pine, RH is only doing skips within FACE in the space! Just be careful that RH’s position changes from C position in the first line to F position in the second line. LH will just hold through all those ties so it’s a full 6 beats of holding every time. Don’t worry about dynamics or pedal yet, we can add them next week. Li’l Liza Jane has lots of skips but also some steps to watch out for. In bars 3-4 and 7-8, the two hands are playing the exact same notes and rhythms. Do your best to land both hands – 3 notes – all at the same time for the beginning. The vocal warmups to do this week are the “ya-ah” sliding down from E to C then moving lower by 1 semitone each time, as well as a triad skips warmup (starting on C-E-G-E-C then shifting up on white keys only) on “da da da”. For this second one, notice when the chords sound major or minor. For Reflection, please sing along to this lyric video – this week I’d like us to focus on learning the melody correctly without any karaokes. (***you can skip the intro to around 40 seconds!)
Dvorah
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: p. 5 warmup in C and G position, Firefly in C and G position, Little River, memorize bass clef spaces (All Cows Eat Grass)
How to practice it most effectively: For the warmup, see if you can speed it up little by little now that the notes and pattern are learnt! For Firefly, try transposing it to G position – the melody will still sound the same and use the same fingers, but the letter names are different. New song Little River has us playing legato, which means smooth and connected. Play slowly with bent fingers, and make sure one finger doesn’t let go until the next one presses down.
Oliver
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Young Hunter, reviewing sayings for treble and bass clef
How to practice it most effectively: For Young Hunter, let’s try the first and third lines (which are the exact same!) hands together, but leave the second line hands separately. In this second line, notice how each hand is doing skips which always go back and forth. This song has LH in F position and RH in E position. Using your sayings will help when playing this one, especially for RH: Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, and FACE.
Linda
Recommended minutes to practice: 20 minutes a day
What to practice: Bb major chords of the scale warmup, marking diatonic chords in I’ll Be Seeing You, Minuet in A Minor, and new song Tired Turtle Express
How to practice it most effectively: For the Bb chords of the scale warmup, remember that Bb and Eb will always be there regardless of which octave you’re in. For reference of chord qualities, this is what they always should be: Imaj7, II-7, III-7, IVmaj7 V7, VI-7 VII-7b5. For Minuet in A Minor, continue working on smoothness between bars, as well as staying within the 1+2+3+ counting grid whenever there are dotted quarters and eighth notes. For Tired Turtle Express, let’s swing the eighth notes to make it groovier! Note when phrases start on the “short” (offbeat) part of the beat. Go slow, hands separately, being extra mindful of all the clef changes. The articulation marking for LH is called a tenuto, which you can think of as a type of accent where you just play heavily/plodding on the keys. “simile” just means to continue playing with the same articulation as before.
Ken
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: scales + interval warmups, Cossack Ride
How to practice it most effectively: Please continue doing a warmup of scales and intervals (from page 19), starting with C major hands together then moving into G and F, being mindful of the key signatures. For the new song Cossack Ride, please start hands separately and thinking of it in 4/4 time, counting with “ands”. For this week, don’t worry about dynamics, just notes and rhythms. RH has many low ledger line notes, so be careful whether pitches are As (2 ledger lines down) or Cs (1 ledger line). LH plays lots of 5ths! Just watch when the bottom note shifts around. In bar 15 it will be easier to reach the sharp in the chord if you slide your hand up into the keys. Towards the end of the week please feel free to play it hands together and start working on speed.
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.