May the 4th be with you all !!!

Liam

Camptown Races – Have fun with the new LH accompaniment pattern. This is another one with the DC al Fine form where you play end to end, go back to the beginning and then end where it says Fine.

Duel of the Fates – great progress!! Practice the little D# F# E G bassline part that comes in every so often slowly along with the RH to get it nice and clean. Try and keep a consistent tempo between all the parts that aren’t the vocals (they can be slower and more dramatic), the rest should be a pretty consistent rhythm pushing forward to build tension.

Jadon

Canon x Memories – explore slowly hands together with recording and without, making note of which notes land hands together. I also found help playing the Memories RH melody along with the actual memories song by Maroon Five. Don’t worry about taking any of this up to tempo yet, just learn how it feels in your hands very securely first at a slower tempo and it will be easy to speed it up.

Find out the concert key of the piece you’re doing the trio for.

Marita

Far Away – all black keys, not too fast. A nice beautiful airy piece with lots of echos one octave up (8va).

Angelfish – nice work!! Work on keeping a very consistent tempo that doesn’t hesitate for anything this week, that might mean going slower overall, and that’s great!

Heavenly Blue – This piece will sound so beautiful to play once you get more comfortable with it. Start thinking in longer phrases, like don’t just try and complete one measure cleanly, try and string together up to 4 bars together in a nice singing melody to truly feel this piece.

Sara

Mock Exam – great work! Today I gave you an 87 on our mock exam, your examiners will likely be a little tougher, but you’ll be 7 weeks better! Things I made note of are:

Sonatina – gotta fix that high RH G in the last line of the 1st page.
Harlequinade – try going a tad slower this week and see if you can get an even higher level of accuracy.
Clowns – when you get to the forte section at the end, get LOUD! Especially at the very end where it says risoluto, be Loud loud loud!

The technique had great shaping, please maintain that, it really sets you above the masses! Your ear and sight was also well done, keep working on those at home (thanks Dad for your help!) and sightread easier pieces all the time.

Le Coucou – WOW! Ensure that you do not let anything become messy while trying to be speedy. If you can do it cleanly and slow, you’ll be able to do it fast so keep that in mind. Watch for moments of tension as well, relax your hands when you can and be sure you’re breathing :)

Sina

2nd page of Tilt-A-Whirl. This week spend 70% of practice time on just the 2nd page, and you can review the 1st page the other 30%. For the sequence (repeating pattern) in line 5 of the whole song, you have to move your RH higher to reach the notes as they go up, The orange finger 2s will help you to notice this. Be sure you are playing staccato (bouncy and detached) for most of the piece.

Hands together C Major scale. Woohoo, you did this with perfect fingering in both hands today! Now we’ve got to train your brain the correct way so it sticks. Remember the fingering is the same going up as it is going down (imagine someone videoed you playing up the scale and then played the video in reverse). Below is the fingering chart: