Anaya
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: A Happy Song, See-Saws, and Biking
How to practice it most effectively: A Happy Song will be a review piece this week – just work on smoothly playing it from start to finish (no break between the lines). See-Saws introduces playing legato – this means we connect between the notes (which you’ve already been doing!). For Biking, we drew in the slurs which tell us to play legato. Watch the melody direction especially over the barlines – the song is all steps. Once the notes are comfortable you can start playing with the speed notes (“slow”, “faster”) for fun! All these songs are in C position.
Saskia
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes a day
What to practice: “ooh-ah-ooh” sliding warmup, My Favourite Things (karaoke), start listening and singing along to As the World Falls Down
How to practice it most effectively: For the warmup, start on C-E-C, then once you hear how the warmup is supposed to sound, play single notes on your piano app going up in semitones (the closest possible note, including the black keys) to warm up higher in your range. For My Favourite Things, your notes and rhythms are very well learned, so we can start focusing more on the lyrics and how we deliver them. We spoke today about important words (like “favourite”, or “girls) versus not important words (“a”, “of”). The important words should get more of an emphasis! Also, whenever we have 2-syllable words, we like to put the emphasis on the 1st syllable (like “DRE-sses”, “PO-nies” instead of “dre-SSES”, “po-NIES”). Here is a good lyric video for As the World Falls Down:
Ken
**Here is a link for Piano Adventures Level 3A Lesson Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Level-3A-Lesson-Piano-Adventures/dp/1616770872/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piano+adventures+level+3&qid=1621387773&sr=8-1
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: Improvising in C minor and C major, Minor triads warmup (Cheers for Cm, etc), Jazz Blast, and Go Tell Aunt Rhody
How to practice it most effectively: When improvising, there is no set length of time you have to do – just play around with different melodic ideas and follow your ear! In the C major version, use an E natural but still keep that Bb. Pages 56-57 have some minor triad warmups for you to play through before starting your pieces. In Jazz Blast, please be extra careful with timing, especially LH’s rests in the final line. Today we spoke about swinging our eighth notes when they come in groups of 2 – the first one will be long, and the second one will be short. For Go Tell Aunt Rhody, we are playing using a lead sheet, meaning the RH melody is written down but the LH will be playing chords that are written with chord symbols. The rhythm for this piece is quite simple so there are no excuses for not counting! Once you feel comfortable in G and Gm, try the transposing the song in C and Cm.
Steve
Recommended minutes to practice: 15 minutes a day
What to practice: The Queen’s Royal Entrance, Peter Pan’s Flight
How to practice it most effectively: For The Queen’s Royal Entrance, do your best to make the staccatos extra crisp. Today we spoke about how to effectively do staccatos: there should be a little bounce in your wrists. In bars 9-14 make sure you keep the quarter notes in regular/moderate time so the eighth notes don’t have to be extremely speedy. In Peter Pan’s Flight we are in A position – similarly to D position, the middle note (C) is sharp. LH watch your octave – you are playing on low A. RH please remember that your quarter notes in lines 2 and 4 need to be twice as long as your eighth notes (they actually match up with LH’s rhythms).
Gabe
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: Prince of Denmark’s March, Porcupine Dance
How to practice it most effectively: For the Prince of Denmark’s March, please count out loud so you can really get the dotted quarter notes – eighth note rhythms. Today we spoke about how to effectively do staccatos: there should be a little bounce in your wrists. At the “end” of this song there is a D.C. al Fine – this means we go back and play the first page until the Fine, which is the real ending. For Porcupine Dance, you can now play the whole song hands together! Just notice which position the thumbs start in (is it B and C? C and D? or A and B?) and go from there. Again, the staccatos are very important for the character of this piece – keep it light!
Isaac
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes a day
What to practice: Pyranese Melody, preliminary look at the Burlesque in G Major (only if you want)
How to practice it most effectively: This week I’d like you to focus only on the Pyranese Melody, putting it hands together slowly. Today we spoke about how to effectively do staccatos: there should be a little bounce in your wrists. Notice how bars 9-10 and 11-12 are the same melodic pattern, just repeated down a step. If at any point you’re unsure of your interval notes, use the lines and spaces sayings to help.