Hello everyone! I hope your Thanksgiving weekends were lovely if you celebrated :) and if you didn’t, I hope your 3 day weekend was restful!

Fiona

You’re working on Paper Airplane. I was very impressed by how clean you can play 5 finger scales! You’re playing with your fingerTIPS and it’s awesome! Now just remember to always keep your wrist supported and this piece will be fantastic! CHALLENGE: Can you play this piece with your LH just as well? Let me know next week.

Can you play Mozart’s 5 Names even better next week? Your rhythm senses are really good, so let’s just try and connect these notes together even more for a nice performance!

Recommended practice time: 15- 20 minutes

Marita

You’re working on the melody of Hedwig’s Theme. The melody in this piece will be the top notes (or the ones they connect a dotted line to). The F# marked at the beginning of the piece means all Fs will be sharp, unless the natural sign is before one! The natural sign is a square with two lines extending out of it. Use the fingering they wrote in for us.

You’re also working on your B Major scale. This is the one with only 2 white keys. RH fingering is 123 1234 5. LH is 4321 4321. Do these legato and staccato.

Recommended practice time: 20-25 minutes

Sara

You’re working on Arctic Voices. Try adding the pedal this week to thicken the texture. To help with note memory through the piece, feel free to write in the bass note for the perfect 5ths. Lovely job with the dynamics and tempo throughout, now we just need to get the notes under our fingers more.

You’re also working on This is Halloween. Do whatever you want with this one, even if it’s just the melody and the LH.

You’re also working on G minor melodic scales. These are the ones I had explained as “making an X at the top”. When you raise the 6 and 7 and then lower them, the notes seem to create an X shape in my mind. Same fingering as always.

Recommended practice time: 25-30 minutes

Julien

You’re polishing Braham’s Famous Lullaby. Keeping a consistent beat throughout, try playing the piece as slow as you need to. You have all the notes and fingers right, now just try keeping it steady and don’t stop, keep on pushing!

You’re also working on Mr. Haydn. The page encourages you to learn this piece in G (as written) and then to put it in C. Can you do that? All the patterns stay the same, the notes you play just change, but it’ll sound the same. Great work using your ear today to figure out all the white key 5 finger scales. You can practice those with the LH too at home and show off to me next week.

Recommended practice time: 20-25 minutes

Sina

You’re working on Whirlwind. This piece is ALL half-notes. This means none of the notes you play will have notes “between” them. You’ll be making a cool chromatic sound to simulate a whirlwind. It is easy to get uneven when playing this kind of repetitive phrase, but resist the urge and keep a strong beat. Just because you get louder, doesn’t mean to get faster, and quieter does not equal slower. Keep a consistent pulse regardless of the changing dynamics. Great work on last week’s piece by the way!

You’re also warming up with C, D, G, or A 5-finger major scales. Your hand technique throughout these is great, nice and rounded. These exercises are for finger independence so they’re great warmups! Like workouts for your hands :)

Recommended practice time: 20-25 minutes