David Zada

Avril - Your focus this week should be on the first few pages of the Czerny book. Also continue to practice Auld Lang Syne (With pedal, if you have access to a piano), and Bohemian Rhapsody. Julie - Practice oscillating between two notes like this: 60BPM, 121, 131, 141, 151, 232, 242, 252, 343, 353, 454 - on both hands. Focus on allowing the oscillation come from rotation of the wrist, rather than your fingers alone. Keep playing with 'Functional Ear Trainer'. Review the baroque ornamentation chart which can be found on this page, just scroll down http://www.pennuto.com/music/jsb_ornm.htm Kristen - Continue to practice Czerny repertoire, and transpose every Czerny piece into another key. In addition to this, practice ALL white key major scales and their relative minor scales – harmonic and melodic, 4 octaves (that is C, D, E, F, G, A, B majors, and a, b, c#, d, e, f#, g# melodic and harmonic minors). SPECIAL ATTENTION TO SHARP KEYS. Do this with your metronome at a slow tempo (60 max), 1 octave at quarter notes, then 2 octaves at 8th notes, then 3 octaves at triplets, then 4 octaves at 16th notes. All fully white triad sequences, broken and solid. Upcoming jazz gigs: Claire Daily with Adrean Farrugia on piano on February 7th and 8th at The Rex. Bernie Senensky Group on February 23rd at The Rex. He is a marvelous pianist and organist. Barry Romberg group on February 24th.

Avril - As you arrived late this week and were unable to have a complete lesson, review the homework from last week: Practice is CUMULATIVE. This means that everything we have been working on, you keep working on, even as we add more stuff. So continue playing around with Auld Lang Syne, analyzing Bohemian Rhapsody, and practicing your scales and chords. In addition, you can work on the first two pages of 'The Young Pianist'. Just as a challenge: try playing each piece in a different key than it's written in, and then another. If you have the time, play each piece in THREE different keys - the written key, and two other keys of your choice. Julie - Review the Sicilienne, focusing especially on DYNAMICS. If it will be beneficial to you, use highlighters to make dynamic changes clear to you. Review the Bach invention with NO decoration. Practice oscillating between two notes like this: 60BPM, 121, 131, 141, 151, 232, 242, 252, 343, 353, 454 - on both hands. Focus on allowing the oscillation come from rotation of the wrist, rather than your fingers alone. Keep playing with 'Functional Ear Trainer'. Review our theory charts from last week. Here they are on imgur. Hopefully you can access this. https://imgur.com/a/oiREUZu Kristen - Continue to practice Czerny repertoire, and transpose every Czerny piece into another key. In addition to this, practice ALL white key major scales and their relative minor scales – harmonic and melodic, 4 octaves (that is C, D, E, F, G, A, B majors, and a, b, c#, d, e, f#, g# melodic and harmonic minors). Do this with your metronome at a slow tempo (60 max), 1 octave at quarter notes, then 2 octaves at 8th notes, then 3 octaves at triplets, then 4 octaves at 16th notes. All fully white triad sequences, broken and solid. Find what metronome marking works best for you. You can/should also check out some jazz gigs. Here are some suggestions: Claire Daily with Adrean Farrugia on piano on February 7th and 8th at The Rex. Bernie Senensky Group on February 23rd at The Rex. He is a marvelous pianist and organist. Barry Romberg group on February 24th. No piano in this group to my knowledge, but still a good group.

Avril - Practice is CUMULATIVE. This means that everything we have been working on, you keep working on, even as we add more stuff. So continue playing around with Auld Lang Syne, analyzing Bohemian Rhapsody, and practicing your scales and chords. In addition, you can work on the first two pages of 'The Young Pianist'. Just as a challenge: try playing each piece in a different key than it's written in, and then another. If you have the time, play each piece in THREE different keys - the written key, and two other keys of your choice. HAVEN & MALEEYA - Work on reviewing the notes in the lines and the spaces in the treble clef. Remember: for lines it's EGBDF (every good band deserves funding) and for spaces it's FACE (like that thing your nose sits on). Also, go through your books and clap the rhythms while counting. A quarter note is 1 beat, a half note is 2 beats, and a whole note is 4 beats. Maleeya, you can work on the new song we discussed (Snowman), and you can also practice singing with solfege symbols and hand signs. Do, do re do, do re mi re do, do re mi fa mi re do, etc. Julie - Focus on the three pieces we have been looking at, as well as major scales in C, G, D, A, and E majors. Focus on the Sicilienne this week, because we may have our violinist next week. Download the following apps: Functional Ear Trainer, and Soundcorset Metronome. You can also review the interval and key signature stuff we worked on. I'll have it on paper for you next week but for now it can be found at the bottom of this post. Kristen - Since you were absent today, my advice for you is the same as it was last week: practice your scales and broken chords as we've been doing, but add minors too, as follows... MAJOR SCALES in C, G, D, A, and E. NATURAL, HARMONIC, AND MELODIC minor scales in c, g, d, a, and e. BROKEN CHORD SEQUENCE in F, C, & G majors, and d, a, & e minors. Continue playing the prelude and the Czerny repertoire, and transpose every Czerny piece a 5th up.

Avril - Practice our new version of Auld Lang Syne, and experiment with improvising on it. Continue to work on playing your scales and broken chords, up one octave only, in C major, G major, and A minor. Add D major, A major, E major. ALSO analyze the Bohemian Rhapsody arrangement you have been playing. Tell me: a) what are the chords? and b) where was the transcription different from the recording? HAVEN & MALEEYA - For both of you, the homework is the same. Work on 'Small World' with the proper rhythm. You can also work together on identifying notes at the piano (where is D? Where is B?) Maleeya, work on singing with solfege syllables "do, do re do, do re mi re do, do re mi fa mi re do' and so on. With hand signs. Julie - Focus on the three pieces we have been looking at, as well as major scales in C, G, D, A, and E majors. For the Sicilienne, focus on voicing, accuracy of rhythm, and lighter pedaling in the middle section. For the Invention, ornaments should be your priority, with special attention to how the WRIST is involved. In the Prelude, focus on playing the LH chords SOLIDLY, and pedaling in a way that doesn't blend chords together and make it sound muddy. Download the following apps: Functional Ear Trainer, and Soundcorset Metronome Kristen - Practice your scales and broken chords as we've been doing, but add minors too, as follows... MAJOR SCALES in C, G, D, A, and E. NATURAL, HARMONIC, AND MELODIC minor scales in c, g, d, a, and e. BROKEN CHORD SEQUENCE in F, C, & G majors, and d, a, & e minors. Continue playing the prelude and the Czerny repertoire, and transpose every Czerny piece a 5th up. Tanya - BY EAR: In addition to everything we've discussed try the number exercise we did... 'one, one two one, one two three two one, one two three four three two one'...etc.

Avril - Continue to play Auld Lang Syne, both as written and as improvised/re-composed by you. Play around with it, and be creative! Also work on playing your scales and broken chords, up one octave only, in C major, G major, and A minor only. We'll expand to more keys next week. ALSO analyze the Bohemian Rhapsody arrangement you have been playing. Tell me: a) what are the chords? and b) where was the transcription different from the recording? HAVEN & MALEEYA - For both of you, the homework is the same. Work on 'Small World' with the proper rhythm. Next week, come ready to focus, learn, and play. We DON'T want to waste more time. Julie - Focus on the three pieces we have been looking at, as well as major scales in C, G, D, A, and E majors. For the Sicilienne, focus on being precise with the rhythm, getting those grace notes closer to the downbeat in the Eb major section, and experimenting with different pedaling approaches. For the Invention AND the Prelude, it is best to focus on the ORNAMENTS this week, as that is the thing that's giving you the most trouble. Finally, download the Functional Ear Trainer app for your phone and start playing around with it, we'll get into more specifics on it later. Kristen - Practice your major scales in contrary AND parallel motion. Practice them with a metronome, as quarter notes (1 octave), eighth notes (2 octaves), as triplets (3 octaves), and as sixteenth notes (4 octaves). START THIS SLOWLY. 40 beats per minute is a perfectly acceptable place to start, and I wouldn't recommend exceeding 60BPM for the sixteenth notes yet. Still with the metronome, practice your broken chords (in groups of 3) both as 8th notes AND as triplets. Speaking of the metronome, use it to practice the 2:3 polyrhythm that we worked on today. Continue practicing the Prelude as discussed. Finally, play as much as you can of the first few pages of the Czerny book. Every piece you come across, play in two keys: the written key, and the key a 5th up. So if it's in C, play it in G. If it's in F, play it in C. If it's in D, play it in A. etc. Tanya - BY EAR: O Canada and Crazy. SIGHT READING: The first 2 pieces in the Czerny book. TRANSCRIPTION: Play the Czerny pieces both in C major AND G major. Broken chords and scales, 1 octave, hands together. C major only.