Lesson 7

How about another Showtime?! Wasn't it fun to celebrate your child playing a piece by themselves? Before next lesson, I'd love for you to send me a quick video of your child playing Alouette with both hands (and singing!). You can use Marco Polo (preferred) or just send a text.

Ask your child why the stems for the Bug Scale notes go in different directions. They should be able to tell you that notes below the 3rd line have stems going up on the right, while notes on or above the 3rd line have stems going down on the left. "1-2-3 Wheee!" I always say that the stems don't like to stick out of the staff!

We are also working on rests by writing in half and whole rests in Alouette. Ask your child to show you their rests! And then ask them if Alouette is in 3/4 (lollipop) or 4/4 time (watermelon). They'll tell you what that means!

Homework: p. 30–31 Students color the keys used for chords in the key of F Major.

F Major Cadence
How exciting to play our primary chords in a new key! We will learn to strengthen and stretch our fingers in a new way. The fingerings will feel familiar, but we will also need to use our newly acquired knowledge about 'magic keys' as well as our ear training to play our chords correctly.

A Royal Problem
Like all of our puppet shows, 'A Royal Problem' (Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, 3rd movement) aids in the intelligent listening of classical music. We learned to recognize major and minor tonalities, staccato and legato themes, and continued our study of classical ABA (ternary) form.

Our Royal Problem puppet show is really the 3rd Movement of Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This work has elicited varying interpretations from critics, but the most common perception today is that the symphony is tragic in tone and intensely emotional. Watch a full orchestra performance HERE. As you watch with your student, ask them to label the A (problem) and B (not a problem) section for you. This will prepare them for their homework next week.

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!