 This week we played broken chords with the LH. It is imperative we play all chords with correct fingerings as this transfers over to every chord structure with all 15 major and 15 minor keys! Celebrate Connection A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!
Homework: pp. 24–25 Students identify the bugs used and the solfege patterns. They are reading challenging music notation now! P.S. I have openings in Sound Beginnings (ages 0–4) and my 1st year Let’s Play Music classes for the Fall. If you know of anyone who is interested, please send them my contact information or direct them to the studio website: http://www.infusingmusicstudios.com/group-classes.html.  The Wheels on the Bus sing Melodic Patterns Melodic patterns are found in every song. How many Sol-Mi-Do’s and Sol-Sol-Do’s can you hear in this version of a favorite childhood song? I Gotta Shake Get ready to play the rests in this silly song! Our fingers must rest from playing or holding down the note when we see a quarter rest sign. 1st say ‘sh’ or ‘rest’ while playing. Then play again hearing the rest inside while playing the silence in the song. How to Skip Keep skipping with fingers 1-3-5 in the RH saying the middle anchor notes. Play the LH separate while singing 1st the chord color and 2nd the melody with this favorite song. We will put hands together soon! Tinga Layo Duet time with shakers! Invite your child to play the chords on the piano while you or a sibling play shoot-the-bug-bug rhythm with a shaker. Switch! Make your own shaker with rice, beans, pennies, small beads, etc. in a plastic egg, empty spice container, or baby food jar. Shake away!  Charles Gounod was born in 1818 in Paris, France. His mom was a piano teacher and his father was an artist, so he started receiving music instruction very early in his life. He attended excellent musical schools. By the time he was 21, he was receiving awards and prizes for his compositions. He also taught other musicians, most notably, Georges Bizet. Today people still recognize his songs, O Divine Redeemer, Ave Maria, and Funeral March for a Marionette (our current puppet show known as March of the Gnomes!) Can you hear the kings heavy down beat in this recording?
Thank you for attending class! I love seeing students’ faces light up when they get to show off to Mom or Dad! End of Year Recital Saturday, May 21 4:30–5:45 p.m. Trinity Heights United Methodist Church 3600 N Fourth St Please join all of the Let’s Play Music students to enjoy a fun afternoon showing off all of the skills and songs we have learned. Recital rehearsal will take place during class on May 17/18. All Let’s Play Music students will perform the opener and closer together, perform in small groups, and Year 3 students will perform their own compositions. Enjoy a time of fellowship after the recital while munching on refreshments. (A refreshment sign up list will be sent out in early May.) A digital invitation you can use to invite your family, extended family, neighbors or friends will be sent out soon. $15/student. Register at http://www.infusingmusicstudios.com/performances.html. Registration is due by April 22. Celebrate Connection A few ideas to make the alphabet pieces game more playful! Super Skippers: Your child draws out an alphabet letter and places it on the keyboard as a 'starter'. Next, she chooses another piece and checks to see if it can make a skip up or a skip down from the starter. If not, discard it and player 2 gets a turn to play (player 2 should start her skipping chain on a different octave from player 1). Keep taking turns until someone makes a chain, by adding skips at the top or bottom, that is 7 letters long and wins! Parking Lot Cars: Draw a letter from the lot and park your car on the white key "parking space" that matches. Works great with cars like these from the learning shop. Keep going until you run out of cars (or whatever counters you have). Cowboys and Indians: Start one tiny plastic character (ANY tiny plastic figures you have will do: Pokemon, animals, cowboys, princesses, etc.) at one end of the keyboard on a white key, and another at the other end. Draw a tile out and move the low guy up to that key. Draw another tile and move the high guy down to that key. Keep going until they meet (and battle, or shake hands, or whatever you pretend!) Homework: pp. 22–23 Students write in the letter names of the notes. Page 56 in the Reference Section can be used if needed!) Bug Scale We can now play UP the C Major Scale with our RH! Place the RH in C position and play with fingers 1-2-3 (CDE) then POP UNDER with the thumb to make a new bubble and continue playing with fingers 1-2-3-4-5 (FGABC). Choose your favorite BUG to practice this new skill. One way to remind where to pop is to insert POP with the bug like this: Butterfly, Butterfly, Butterfly, POPPERfly, Butterfly, etc. As always, we try to make our technique drills so fun that the kids don't even notice they are getting practice! A Warm Welcome to Middle B and Middle D The 5 anchor notes used in 2nd year include the members of the “C” family: Treble C, Middle C, and Bass C and the Middle Friends including Middle B who is B-elow Middle C and Middle D who is Down under the first line on the staff. How to Skip We will master all of our middle anchor notes with this song: Middle B, Middle C, Middle D. Use the same 3 fingers for the entire song: 1-3-5. Simply move your thumb to the appropriate starting note. Sing "C-skip-skip-skip, D-skip-skip" etc. emphasizing each anchor note. This is where the practice of seeing and playing those middle anchor notes connect! I am Robin Hood If your child can play each hand of "I am Robin Hood" comfortably, they are ready to put both hands together! Isolate 1 or 2 measures at a time to have a successful experience, then continue to add 1-2 measures until they can play the entire song with confidence! While practicing with your child, you can guide their eyes by pointing note by note with V fingers. Hooray for Hands Together! How instinctive is your child getting with their keyboard geography playing the Alphabet Pieces Game? Time your child for 1 minute and see how many pieces they can put on the piano. Your student will treasure this craft and game idea as they continue to solidify all of the notes on the keyboard! 
Parents attend next week and tuition is due! Celebrate Connection A few ideas to make the alphabet pieces game more playful! Alpha-frogger: Pretend each alphabet foam piece is a tiny frog. Have your child choose an alphabet frog, then hop it across the keyboard helping froggie find all keys of that letter. These frogs don't croak—each time the "frog" lands on one of her special lily pads, sing the letter (on pitch!). Hiss: Place one letter on the keyboard as a starter snake. Each player takes turns drawing a letter and checking to see if they can add it to the head or the tail with baby steps to make the snake longer. If not, start a new snake somewhere else on the keyboard. Anytime someone makes a snake with 8 or more segments, they get to remove it from the keyboard and keep the points (1 per segment)! Play until the pieces run out. It's pretty cool if you are able to join 2 snakes by drawing the missing link between them, and win a really long snake! You might enjoy non-piano Hiss, too. Silly Songs: Have your child draw out 5-10 alphabet notes and line them up along the music stand. With her right hand in C position, play each note with the finger touching that key. If the note is a B, slide the thumb down to yellow position to reach it; if the note is an A, slide the hand into blue position to reach it. This might be a wacky song, or it might be something cool. If you like the tune, play it again. Oh, When the Saints & Lullaby and Goodnight D-O-W-N and that’s the DOWN-BEAT! The downbeat is the strong beat that tells us when to begin playing a song. Sometimes the downbeat is on the first word of a song, sometimes it is not. Ask your child what word the DOWNBEAT is on in both of these songs! Tinga Layo: Our toe-tapping donkey dances a shaky, stylized rhythm called CALYPSO. See if you can hear this fun rhythm while singing along! I am Robin Hood It’s duet time! While your child plays the melody, you or a sibling can clap or pat drumbeats on lap in a repeated slug pattern. Then switch! Once your child is confident playing the melody by themselves, invite them to pat their own leg while playing. Impressive harmony! When listening to Don't Put Your Trash, encourage your child to do the actions to the part he hears during the harmony. It is also creative to change up the lyrics especially when encouraging chores: Don't put your SOCKS (insert any noun) in my BEDROOM (insert any place) my bedroom's full!
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Clara McDonaldAs a music educator of 25 years, my passion is infusing others with music! Archives
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