Happy March everyone!

Liam

Great work on Star Wars! Keep playing it for funsies, only if you wish. You’ve made a great effort the past 2 weeks with it :)

This week you’re working on On Top of Old Smokey in the Lesson book and Dark Eyes in the Performance book.

For Smokey, keep using the little rainbow/half circle motion for the LH accompaniment pattern.

For Dark Eyes, go slow slow slow until you get the dotted rhythm accurate between the hands. I have drawn lines where the RH note goes “between” then LH notes. Notice the Bb in the key signature, in addition to the accidentals throughout the piece. This is a moody piece so it doesn’t need to be fast anyways.

Congrats on learning all 12 major scales!! This will benefit you greatly. This week try exploring your C Major Triad pattern. A triad pattern uses the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of a scale, and reorders them so each gets a turn being the bottom note. For C Major you’ll play CEG, EGC, GCE, and then CEG again. Try with both hands, but seperate, using fingers 135 or 125 whichever is most logical for each group of notes.

Fiona

We’re learning about sharps now! They look like this #, and affect whichever note they are placed beside for the WHOLE MEASURE, and then the bar line resets the note again. Practice playing Merlin’s Wand and notice how when they write an F#, the next F in the same bar is STILL sharp.

Keep playing Grumpy Old Troll as a warmup, remembering to play the LH whole notes by themselves in line 2.

I hope to see you in person next week, as I have a copy of the level 1 Performance book you can borrow to explore other really cool pieces!

Marita

Your new piece in the Etudes book is Heavenly Blue. This week please work on the first 12 bars. For the first bit, both hands are in D position, then the LH moves lower to A/B/Bb. This piece has beautiful dynamic swells too, getting louder as the notes get higher etc. Great work reading this today, and “getting” the 3/4 feel.

When you are reunited with your repertoire book:
– keep working on All of The Snake, paying close attention to the fingering in line 3. You can begin to add the little dynamic swells too! Is this piece a soundtrack for the snake themself, or perhaps a snake charmer is playing this melody to try and lure the snake in? You choose and convey it in your playing :)
– All of Mist, working to eliminate hesitation as the LH changes chords.
– All of Minuet in C, working to keep a steady flowing beat throughout. Your consistency with the fingering in this one is awesome!!

Sara

Here is a link to practice your interval recognition by ear. It will play major 3rd/minor 3rd/perfect 4th/perfect 5th both ascending and descending. This is how I drill my ear as well, it works great on mobile or desktop.

RE: Formula patterns – the length you’re doing them right now is correct. They consider it two octaves, though that’s a mindteaser for me!

• Sunset on the Beach. Wow! Great work going hands together! Notice the few things I wrote on the paper, but otherwise keep plugging away how you’re doing! I would perhaps practice the coda by itself to strengthen it a bit more.
• Clowns – Awesome. Work on the last bar until it’s brainless, and then practice getting “in” to it as well (play the measures leading up to it until you can do so with no hesitation). As always, challenge yourself to how contrasting you can get the piano section.
• Sonatina – check your tempo, I think you can be playing this a bit slower actually, as it is the contrasting middle movement and is meant to be the slowest of the three. Great trills.
• Harlequinade – Awesome! Also check tempo, I’m not certain it needs to be so fast, but it’s very impressive!

Begin memorizing your repertoire only. Challenge yourself to begin in random spots throughout the piece, this is so if your memory has a momentary lapse, you have tons of mental checkpoints you can start up from and you’ll never lose! Closer to the exam we will make these checkpoints on the physical paper and I’ll ask you to play from them to solidify this. I like playing from memory with the book open beside me on the bench so I can peek at it if I need to.

Sina

Together. This piece introduces 2/4 time, meaning there are 2 quarter notes per measure. Count yourself in like 1 2. Each 4 bar phrase is one musical sentence, so play each phrase as smooth and connected as you can. Notice the one F#, as well as the contrary (opposite) direction parts. Great reading today!

Here is my arrangement of Ready as I’ll Ever Be. Explore as much of this as you can! We can add in finger numbers later and other details, but for now, the first 8 bars the RH is in D position (and the thumb must also reach down to play middle C).

C Major triad. Play with both hands, seperately. Use fingers 1 3 5 (or 1 2 5 if it’s easier). For the RH the thumb always plays the bottom note of each grouping, for the LH the pinky will do so. Look up a youtube video of “C Major broken triad” if needed :)