Lesson 10

We are to working on absolute pitch (plucking middle C out of thin air) and relative pitch (using that middle C to find the F above it by singing 'Do, Re, Mi, Fa; F is Do'). If this sounds like Greek, just ask your child to show you what we did. You'll be amazed at their musical skills!

We figured out that when we play hand together (HT) on our 'Bug' Scale, our hands have to POP at different times! Please help your child practice this so they can successfully play HT in class next week!

It was fun listening to Mozart's 'Twinkle, Twinkle' variations. What is a variation, you say? Well, you should ask your child — they should know after our discussion in class!

Homework: p. 38–39 Students write in the counts (1–2–3–4) under the whole notes. Be sure they use a 'dash' to indicate that the note is holding for longer than one beat.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
This familiar childhood song is a great way to learn about theme and variation. You can still hear the main theme in each of the variations, it is just sort of disguised in different ways each time. As we continue to study this song throughout the semester we will discover that it is ALSO written in our classical ABA form, and will help our fingers play in an extended C position.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the most popular English nursery rhymes. It combines the tune of the 1761 French melody "Ah ! vous dirai-je, Maman" with an English poem, "The Star," by Jane Taylor.

It is often thought that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the original writer of this melody. Reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit and "Snapple Facts" (among others), many believe that the song was written by Mozart when he was four or five years old. Mozart was this age at the time the original French melody was written. Much later in his life, he did write 12 variations on the original theme-- which we hear on our CD! Check out this parrot singing his OWN variation of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!

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!