Anaya
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: Gliding, Balloons, and finishing #3 on page 55 (make sure your half notes look like “p”s!)
How to practice it most effectively: For Gliding, there is a step, repeated note pattern – the slurs on the pairs of quarter notes are meant to be played down-up with your wrist. After every “up” there will be a repeated note. For Balloons, watch out that your starting note for each hand is now D. Please remember that finger 4 is your ring finger. The last note in this song is a tied note, meaning we don’t replay the second D, we just hold through for a total of 6 beats.
Saskia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: “ooh-ah-ooh” warmup on 5ths, As the World Falls Down, and Stop in the Name of Love
How to practice it most effectively: For the warmup, it will still be the ooh-ah-ooh slide, but this time start on C4 to G4 then back to C4. From there you’ll move your bottom note up to the very next one and repeat. Doing this bigger distance will help us expand our range a little higher. For As the World Falls Down, please continue singing with the karaoke track. On the long note “down” – make sure your vowel is open and the sound is shining forward (don’t hold back – this is the big moment!). The one melody bit to be aware of is “Wasn’t too much fun at all”, where the word “too” dips down to a lower, slightly funky note. Here is a good lyric video to start singing Stop in the Name of Love to:
Gianna
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Monster, If I Can’t Have You, continue writing lyrics for new song
How to practice it most effectively: For Monster, the final thing to work on is really singing that 1st chorus up the octave (so same melody, just higher than he sings it). The guide notes for “What if I” are F-G-A. Please play these when that part comes up to help you get high enough. Good job enunciating all those lyrics! For If I Can’t Have You, focus on the melody for “Everything means nothing if I can’t have you”, since it goes through lots of notes quickly – you can slow down the YouTube video or rewind that line a few times until you really know it. For all songs please remember to sing with an open throat, with the sound coming forwards.
Ken
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: G major scale, Sakura, finishing bass clef intervals on the bottom of page 4.
How to practice it most effectively: For the G major scale, play one hand at a time using fingers 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5 for RH, and 5-4-3-2-1-3-2-1 for LH. G major has an F#. For Sakura, please play the RH once separately before going and playing the piece hands together. Double check your intervals – today we spoke about odd numbers (3rd, 5th, 7th) being the same (so line-line or space-space), and even numbers (2nd, 4th, 6th) being opposite (space-line or line-space). Note that the dynamic in the intro and outro is piano! For bass clef, we have sayings that help us remember the lines and spaces. These are All Cows Eat Grass for the spaces and Good Birds Don’t Fly Away for the lines. Please try to memorize these.
Steve
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: Changing Moods, Aardvark Boogie, and Whirling Leaves
How to practice it most effectively: Changing Moods is a warmup, going between major and minor positions. Please do just the C and G positions (so the 1st 4 lines), remembering that when we change our 3rd note from a natural to a flat, all other notes stay the same. For Aardvark Boogie, please make sure you’re counting “1 and” on the quarter notes in bars 2, 4, etc. so you’re holding them long enough. The final step is making the song flow smoothly with fewer hesitations. Whirling Leaves has LH in the high A position. Be careful with the eight-eight-quarter rhythm that runs through almost the entire piece.
Gabe
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Liebestraum, Porcupine Dance
How to practice it most effectively: In Liebestraum, please be careful of when there are sharps in the LH part – our key is G major (so F# in the key signature) but there are lots of accidentals. Do your 1-2-3 counts as you play, and watch out for the tied notes (you keep holding through these instead of playing them again). For Porcupine Dance, now that the notes and patterns are well learnt you can try speeding it up! Remember to keep it light and staccato.
Isaac
Recommended minutes to practice: 20 minutes a day
What to practice: Burlesque in G Major, Pyranese Melody
How to practice it most effectively: For the Burlesque in G Major, let’s put it hands together this week! There are many repetivie patterns, with the main one being that each RH sixteenth note pair is always a skip. The hands also often move in parallel directions. For Pyranese Melody, keep playing hands together. Those staccato chords are really coming along! Keep doing the isolation to get them extra comfortable. In bars 9 and 11 RH has a down-up wrist articulation with those slurs.