Anaya
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: G position warmup (hands together), D and F scavenger hunt, Wishing Well, finishing page 35 worksheet
How to practice it most effectively: In the G position warmup, please play slowly and carefully so that all notes are even and lining up between the hands. There was some confusion between the D and F keys on the piano, so please do a scavenger hunt (finding all the keys of that letter name on your piano) for each of these. Remember, D is right after C – part of the group of 2 black keys, and F is right after E – part of the group of 3 black keys. In Wishing Well, let’s do the repeat this week and practice playing with dynamics! Play your first time through forte (loud) and the second time through piano (soft).
Saskia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10 minutes a day
What to practice: Vocal warmups, Do a Deer, Dynamite
How to practice it most effectively: One of two vocal warmups we discussed in class are the sirens (low to high then back down, sliding on ooh –> ah) or sighs (just high to low, sliding on ah) which are done on no specific pitch, just sliding around your range. The other warmup is the 3-note “ya ya ya” scale up then back down – if you do get a piano app on a phone or tablet, consider getting one with the letters on the keys. Then you can have a clearer guide to the pitches of this warmup by playing C-D-E-D-C. From there, pick a new starting note and sing the same exercise slightly higher every time. For Do, a Deer, the chorus section is sounding very good and comfortable, so let’s try learning the short verse at the beginning using the lyric video from last week’s homework post. Dynamite has a lot of lyrics happening very fast, which is why I highly suggest singing along using that lyric video too so you know exactly what they are saying!
Gianna
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: C major and G major warmup, Life is an Adventure, Shake it Off
How to practice it most effectively: For the familiar C major warmup, please be extra careful to pronounce each letter’s vowels and consonants clearly (most are an “ee” vowel). In the G major warmup, remember that the one black key is an F# – this means that we play the first note in the group of 3 black keys instead of the white key F. For Life is an Adventure, your hand position for playing the notes is LH finger 1 on C, 2 on Bb, and 3 on Ab, and RH finger 2 on Eb, 3 on F, and 4 on G. From there you’ll never have to move! Be extra careful matching your vocal pitch to the two lowest notes. Please practice singing and playing the whole song, using a complete lyric and note sheet I’ve made: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q8xwAPiytqgH1z2uuJhQLDvQwLKsBBUjK0usJ_rUKnw/edit?usp=sharing
In Shake it Off, only focus on singing the main melody (no need to do little details like a giggle or any spoken parts you’re not comfortable with). For the chorus specifically, don’t sing the word or two at the ends of phrases – things like “and the”, or “baby”, or the “ooh ooh ooh”s so you can use that time instead to breathe!
Ken
**If mom or dad could please double check any settings on your keyboard that have made you lose the ability to play dynamics (loud vs. soft touch on the keys) – a few weeks ago you were able to do crescendos and decrescendos, but today you showed me that no matter how hard you played, the volume stayed the same.
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: E major scale (hands separately), Storms on Saturn, Cheers for D Chords, Memories
How to practice it most effectively: The E major scale uses the same fingering as all our other scales, but with another added sharp. The new sharp is D#, and we still have F#, G#, and C#. Storms on Saturn uses the foot pedal to create a cool holding effect – keep the pedal pressed down for the whole piece! The initial position is LH finger 4 on Gb, and RH finger 1 on D (finger 5s do not play). Please make sure whole notes hold for 4 counts! Don’t just rush through them to the next new note. Cheers for D Chords uses D major triads (2 stacked skips, with an F#) – careful with the hands crossing over each other and which octave they’re meant to play in. Absolutely continue playing Memories on piano – I found this YouTube piano tutorial (might be the one you’ve already used) which is quite good!
Steve
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: The Puppet Show (warmup song), Moonlight Melody, and Kitch-iti-ipi
How to practice it most effectively: The Puppet Show is a song that uses only semitones – play this as a quick warmup once through before playing your other pieces. This week add dynamics in Moonlight Melody, making the first and 3rd lines piano, and the 2nd and 4th lines mezzo forte (except the ending, of course). Notice the pattern in RH’s eighth note lines and how it’s the same for both the 2nd and 4th lines. For new song Kitch-iti-ipi, RH starts by paying a chromatic scale: this is when we move from C to C using all semitones. Please use the written fingering, this is very important! Use your clef sayings to help you find the triads in the second half of the song, and be careful when RH switches from all lines to all spaces.
Gabe
Recommended minutes to practice: 20 minutes a day
What to practice: Habanera, Canon (RCM)
How to practice it most effectively: For Habanera, remember to play bass clef notes staccato – think sneaky! This adds to the character of the piece. RH, on your first page make sure to differentiate between the first time through the line (with the G#) and the second time through (G natural). LH, notice where the D to D pattern changes to include Bbs, and later thirds. RH can continue reading ahead into the second section – this is the melody you are familiar with, except that sometimes there is an interval underneath as well (this will only ever be a 3rd or a 6th). Please continue to practice the Canon, since even though we did not get to it today, we will start with it next week.
Isaac
Recommended minutes to practice: 20 minutes a day
What to practice: Blinky the Robot, page 63-64 in the theory book
How to practice it most effectively: For the first page of Blinky the Robot, please aim to make your staccatos crisper and more energetic. They should be very short – not simply detached. Once it becomes more comfortable, also start adding in dynamics for this page. For the newer second page, go through it slowly, noticing familiar or repeated shapes. For those crunchy chords in the first part of the second page, think of them as simply B-E fourths for RH and an E-B fifth for LH; then add the semitone under the top note. Do be careful in the parallel movement sections since we found a few repeated intervals! (The A and Es).