Anaya
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: Circus Day, page 42 RH warmup, and A Happy Song
How to practice it most effectively: For Circus Day, continue speaking the letters out loud as you play, paying attention to the endings of line 1 and 2 – they are close but not quite the same! When counting half notes and quarter notes while you’re saying the letters, always start at number 2, since saying the letter is already one beat. For the p. 42 warmup, you may say the letters as you play RH, but in A Happy Song don’t do this yet. Instead, point with LH to help RH watch the directions and any sneaky back & forth moments. The new important note we learned in RH’s treble clef is the 2nd line G.
Saskia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day (only if your voice isn’t feeling too tired!)
What to practice: 2 vocal warmups, Do a Deer
How to practice it most effectively: Please make sure you do a warmup every time before you sing, being extra gentle and soft with your voice. Start with a few sliding sighs from high to low, taking a big breath before each one. Then move into the “n-ah-n-ah-n-ah” warmup on one note at a time. Try to channel the sound through your nose and keep the same sensation whether you’re on the closed or open part of the exercise. The final warmup is the 3-note up and down on either “na na na” or “ma ma ma”. As you go up, switch to your head voice and think “choir tone” with a long vowel even if it might feel silly! Whenever we sing we want our chin to be a little tucked, creating space in the back of the neck & throat. For Do, a Deer, pay extra attention to the melody pitches in the “sol, a needle pulling thread”…”la, a note to follow sol”, “ti, a drink with jam and bread”, especially the notes in the middle of the phrase. If you need to slow the youtube video down to 0.75x speed please do!
Gianna
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: scale and skips warmups, Life is an Adventure
How to practice it most effectively: The warmups to work on this week are our C major scale using “na na na” syllables, and the skips warmup in C, F, and low A position on “ah”. The big focus for this week is Life is an Adventure! With the notes and lyrics in front of you, isolate two lyrics at a time, starting with “Life is like walking through the jungle, Life is like climbing a tree” the first day, then the ending “You never know what is going to happen next, You never know what’s going to hit you or me” the next. Your first half of the song is sounding very solid, so let’s get the second half feeling just as comfortable. Please remember to enunciate your lyrics – we want to hear what you’ve written!
Ken
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Changing Moods, The Queen’s Royal Entrance, Aardvark Boogie
How to practice it most effectively: Changing Moods is our warmup song again this week; the biggest focus here is to go a little slower to make sure both hands press their notes at the exact same time. The Queen’s Royal Entrance is almost recital ready! Bars 9 to 15 make sure your quarter notes are in time with your previous section and all even. There is also a rit in the second last bar so you can have a dramatic finish. For Aardvark Boogie, rhythm is the most important part! In all bars with tied notes be extra careful with your counting. There are many eighth note in this piece, so any time there’s a quarter note make it super clear that it’s a full count.
Steve
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Storms on Saturn, Cheers for D Chords, and This Old Man (RH and LH)
How to practice it most effectively: Cheers For D Chords will be a warmup song this week – we have D position chords in blocked and broken form, then C position chords. We always play chords like this with fingers 1-3-5. In Storms on Saturn, take your time especially with holding the whole notes. There are lots of dynamics in this piece to make it interesting! This Old Man has two versions: one with RH on melody, and the other with LH. Please double check that your hands are always in D position, and remember your F#s last for the whole bar.
Gabe
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: Porcupine Dance, Suitor’s Song
How to practice it most effectively: For Porcupine Dance, please focus just on the first 4 bars hands separately, getting really comfortable with going between positions using staccatos and 1-3-5 fingers. The rhythmic pattern here is 4 notes, then 3 notes, then 4 notes, then 3 notes. In Suitor’s Song, let’s count out loud with “ands”, especially once we get to bar 9.
Isaac
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: Blinky the Robot, Relay Race, and finishing page 66 of the theory book.
How to practice it most effectively: For Blinky the Robot, let’s keep playing the whole form through with the D.S. and coda. Remember to keep your staccatos light and bouncy the whole way through. Page 2 has lots of cool dynamics to start including. sf means suddenly loud. For Relay Race, let’s play the whole piece hands together slowly, connecting under all the slurs. The time signature is 6/8, meaning eighth notes get one beat, and quarter notes get two.