Eliana

Eliana should practice 4-5 times per week for 30-45 mins per session.

  • Tchaikovsky – articulation -> staccato playing on the 8th note chords, and play with liveliness.
  • Scamp – Work on this at a very slow and steady tempo, take your time to count (in 8th notes) and understand the rhythm with a metronome (hope the written rhythm counting helps!).
  • Sunset in Rio – Great work on this piece! Keep on practising hands separately, and slowly work on playing hands together (wherever you can get to comfortably).
  • Sonatina in C (first movement) – Work up to the repeat sign with the correct articulation and rhythm, hands separately.

 

Anastasia

Anastasia should practice 4-5 times per week for 15-20 mins per session.

  • Beyer – Do exercise No. 1-7 -> keep your eyes on the music as you play (looking at the direction of the notes, steps, skips, jumps), and count the rhythm.
  • Lightly Row – Great work today! Now our goal is to work on fluency (getting familiar with the notes, especially bar 7-7, and 15-16 (steps/skips).

 

Vivienne

Vivienne should practice 4-5 times per week for 15-20 mins per session.

  • Alpine Melody – let’s play this with musicality (dynamic, and “sing” the melody lines with your fingers smoothly)!
  • Waltz Pantomime – Keep working on playing hands together for the first section, and try to learn the second section hands separately.
  • Maple Leaf Rag – work on left hand alone for the whole piece, especially the second page.

 

Chantal

Chantal should practice 4-5 times per week at 15 – 20 mins per session

  • Review and perfect our exercises from A Dozen A Day.
  • Forest Drums – great job on playing with loudness/softness! Now work on fluency, especially the right hand single-note melodic lines.
  • Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Great job on learning to play with our new left hand accompaniment today! This week, work on playing hands together fluently.

 

Alyssa

Alyssa should practice 4-5 times per week at 30 mins – 1 hr per session.

  • Technique – for all scales, chords, and arpeggios, practice with metronome at the required tempo with finger accuracy and clarity.
  • Repertoire & Etude – fluency, fingering, and attention to articulation details (staccato, staccatissimo, slurs, rests, dynamic changes, voicing, phrasing, smooth playing/detached playing).
  • When Rivers Flowed – Work up to the required tempo on this piece, with musicality (dynamic, phrasing, rubato)!
  • Minuet in E – Like how we practised in class, work on the detached quarter note chords with “dance-like” movement of the wrist. Remember, we don’t want to push the keys down, but to tap and lightly lift your fingers off the keys.
  • Sonatina – Polish up the articulation, and slowly work up to the required tempo (quarter note = 100 bpm) by moving up about 2-4 on the metronome once we’re comfortable with our current tempo (80).

 

Maria

Maria should practice 4-5 times per week at 15-20 mins per session.

  • Oh Susanna – You know and play your right hand melody very well! Start learning the left hand part for the whole piece, and work on playing hands together for the first half of the piece!

 

Claire

Claire should practice 4-5 times per week at 15 – 30 mins per session.

  • Phantom – Great job on dynamic changes! Do remember to play with staccatos and short slurred phrases on the indicated notes (middle of first page, top of second page, and the end).
  • Humoresque – Great work on learning the notes and playing hands together! Keep working on playing hands together for the entire piece with repeat, as well as the articulation we worked on in class (loud accents, short slurs, staccatos).