 How is your child’s mastery of Melodic Patterns and Chord Fingerings? Plan to spend at least 5 minutes with your child this week before Lesson 7 checking to make sure they can confidently play p. 16 Melodic Patterns and p. 14 Primary Cadence with correct notes and fingerings in both hands! Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: pp. 14–15 Students identify all the Middle Cs with a red x, then identify the various melodic patterns by circling them with a specified color. These melodic patterns are used in SO many songs and students will benefit greatly in their future music making endeavors by being able to quickly identify and play them! Also, be sure to listen to the specified CD songs and practice each piece. Sitting with your child at the beginning of the practice week will instill good habits and allow you to correct any fingering or note mistakes. Then they can successfully practice on their own the rest of the week!  Melodic Patterns We get to PLAY all of the melodic patterns this week! The goal of this daily practice technique is to SEE, SING, and PLAY each pattern all at once. Though their well-trained ears might tempt them to play each pattern by ear, insist they look at the book with their goggles, binoculars, laser beam eyes, telescopic vision, x-ray vision, heat vision, freeze vision, or night vision eyes while they play and sing! Here are the verbal cues we sing in class with our hand signs. Invite them to sing these cues, finger numbers, or be creative and make up different words on the pitches of each melodic pattern. MRD-Baby Steps Down SFMRD-Baby Steps Go-Ing Down SMD-Skip-Ping Down SSD- Same Same Leap-up SLTD-Baby Steps Going Up Can’t Bug Me Drumroll please…..Introducing BEAT BUG! “The BEAT is the BUG and the others play a long!” The Beat Bug sets the tempo on the metronome! He might go fast or slow but the beat is a ‘bug’ (quarter note) and the other rhythms (beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, butterflies, slugs) follow and fit within that given tempo. Lullaby and Goodnight & Go to Sleep After we solidify the chord transitions in our lullabies, we will make them sound more serene and calm by stylizing them with broken chords. Feel free to invite your child to color the chords in their piano book to make this an easier transition. Primary Chord Song/Primary Cadence Time to put on a show for the family! Your child can play ALL chords with BOTH HANDS! Invite them to perform the chords Ray Charles style while singing the chords out loud! Play them hands separate, then try hands together with the correct fingerings!  Why the importance of chords in piano playing? Kristi Ison, a Let’s Play Music teacher in Mesa, Arizona, shares the Top 10 Reasons for Learning Primary Chords!
Thank you for coming to class this week! Be sure to practice keyboard letter names with the Alphabet Pieces Game. Remember that students should be using the visual cue card in the back of their songbook, rather than counting up to find their notes. Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: pp. 12–13 Students fill in keyboard letter names and identify notes. Bass C and Treble C The 3 C’s are in a family; they have different first names and the same last name! We’ve known Middle C since last semester. This week we introduced Bass C: 2nd Space in Bass Clef is Bass C! AND Treble C: 3rd Space in Treble Clef is Treble C or 1-2-3 treble C! These anchor notes on the staff will help orient us as we expand our keyboard skills. C Major Scale Now that we know where Treble C is on the keyboard we can play the C Major Scale going DOWN. The technique is exactly like the Left Hand, but instead playing it with the Right Hand! Practice this SLOWLY to ensure correct fingerings and bubble hand position. 1) Begin with RH finger number 5 on Treble C. (This is the C right above middle C.) 2) Play Do, Ti, La, Sol, Fa using fingers 5-4-3-2-1 with a rounded bubble hand. 3) To play Mi, POP finger number 3 over thumb. 4) Reset the BUBBLE and proceed to play Mi-Re-Do with finger numbers 3-2-1. I am Robin Hood Shoo-oot the Ar-row, Waa-atch it fly---, teaches us how to feel and play the dotted quarter eighth note pattern right on target. To feel this rhythm more accurately dance with the music, stomp out the rhythm with hands and feet, or even sit them on your lap and bounce your knees up and down to the rhythm while chanting the song together. Mix up practice with this song by playing the bass clef 5th an octave lower to really sound like a deep drum! Hickory Dickory Dock This song introduces parallel motion by following a steady beat through a metronome (a tick-tock is what we call it in class). Mr. Rest Could you believe all the musical symbols Old MacDonald had on his musical farm? A rest, though played with silence, is a very important aspect of music. Mozart said, “The music is not in the notes but in the silence between.” Rests are powerful! Playing the Alphabet Pieces game every day will help us solidify keyboard geography by learning the names of ALL of the white keys. Enjoy playing this game with its theme and variations!
Reminder: Parents attend next week and tuition is due. Be sure to put your yellow stickers on Bass Clef Notes B, D, G for the left hand. Homework: pp. 10–11 Students write the finger numbers on the keys for C position and Middle C position. We went over this several times in class but students can certainly use the Reference Section p. 55 to check out the answers. C Position & Middle C Position We learned where the RH and LH rest on the keyboard for both of these positions. With C Position the RH Thumb (Finger 1) is on Middle C and LH Pinky (Finger 5) is on Bass C. With Middle C Position both Thumbs (Fingers 1) share Middle C. We liken this position to a butterfly. The two thumbs resting on middle c together are the butterfly body and their hands are the wings. Are their soft wings (fingers) resting gently on the keys? A fun review is to chant each position, simply moving the LEFT HAND back and forth. Practice in the air, at the kitchen table, in the car running errands, and of course on the piano! C Major Scale We learned how to play UP the C Major Scale (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do) with our LEFT HAND. We don’t have enough fingers to play this scale, so we learned how to POP our bubble hands and then reset them to complete the scale. Practice this SLOWLY to ensure that your child plays this correctly. 1) Play Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol with 5-4-3-2-1 fingers with a rounded bubble hand. 2) To play La, POP finger number 3 over the thumb. 3) Reset the BUBBLE and proceed to play La, Ti, Do with finger numbers 3-2-1. I am Robin Hood Enjoy ‘drumming’ the slow slugs on the piano with the interval of a 5th using Left Hand Bass Clef fingers 5 and 1 when practicing this song. Sing the melody together while parents drum along on laps, the edge of the piano, clap along to keep a steady slug beat or drum with any can, canister, or container from around the home. Switch places so parents can play and kiddos can drum! Do You Want to Build a YELLOW Snowman? This bottom heavy snowman built with a 3rd on the bottom and a 4th on the top is melting from the YELLOW sun! We play this chord with fingers 5-3-1. Place Left Hand in C Position. SLIDE Finger 5 (pinky) and Finger 3 (middle finger) down one baby step while Finger 1 (thumb) stays put. Now time your musician for 30 seconds and count how many bass clef Yellow Chords they can play! We call our new puppet show “The Pirate Ship” but the real title is Hungarian Dance No. 5 by Johannes Brahms. The Hungarian Dances are a set of 21 lively dance tunes based mostly on Hungarian themes. They are among Brahms' most popular works, and were certainly the most profitable for him. Each dance has been arranged for a wide variety of instruments and ensembles. Brahms originally wrote the version for piano four-hands and later arranged the first 10 dances for solo piano. The most famous is HungarianDance No. 5.
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Clara McDonaldAs a music educator of 25 years, my passion is infusing others with music! Archives
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