Lesson 6

We are enjoying the spooky sounds of the C minor cadence in class! Please peek over at your child while they are practicing and remind them to use the correct fingers for each chord (check HW Booklet p. 68), as well to 'slide in' to keep a good hand position and not having twisting to reach the black keys.

Be sure your child is listening to the assigned songs each week — especially Magic Keys for this week! We are learning some fun (and challenging) new theory concepts, and those lyrics are really going to send it home for them.

Homework: p. 28–29 Color the keys used for the C minor chord.

Ode to Joy
We practiced hearing downbeats last year, now we’re listening for the upbeats as well. The downbeat is the first beat of the measure, and the upbeat just precedes that stronger downbeat. This song helps us feel that with our bodies --- and helps us to get to know a little bit about Ludwig van Beethoven along the way!

Halloween Night
This 'spooky' song is a great repertoire piece to give us a little more practice on our C minor cadence. Hands will play together in our new 3/4 time signature, and we will even have an opportunity to try a bit of improvisation as the semester continues.

Even the Muppets like to have a little fun with the upbeat in Ode to Joy. Enjoy this fun video!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnT7pT6zCcA

​For my convenience, I have preloaded content for the whole semester. I will update each future post with specific time-sensitive info before I send the link each week. If you choose to read ahead you might see details that don’t apply to your child’s class. For this reason I do not recommend reading ahead. Thank you!