Lesson 10

The students are mastering the fingering placement for the yellow chord and gaining confidence as they continue to have successful experiences in class as well as at home.

The Blue Chord will be taught next week!

Celebrate Connection
A few ideas to bring playfulness to practice time!

• Play with the practice tracks on your cd.
• Play (and sing) dramatically and try not to laugh.
• Sing your song in a grandpa voice.

Red-Yellow Chord Transitions
Remember when playing songs with chord transitions, it's important that the whole hand NOT lift completely off the keyboard between chords. If it does, then students must search to find out where it should land! Instead, remind your child for the red to yellow transition, ONLY the thumb should slide using fingers 1-2-5.

Bunny’s Birdhouse
The rat tat tats in Bunny's Birdhouse help with independent finger movement, in which one finger alone must press down to play the melody. It is important that the other fingers NOT lift way, way up off the keys (fly-aways!). Try to play with each finger gently staying on its key, so that the hand is always in C position.

Also while practicing the rat tat tats, the top note is a G which is on the 2nd line. When practicing you can sing 2nd line, middle C, 2nd line again OR 5-5-5, 1-1-1, 5-5-5-5-5. Or Sol-Sol-Sol, Do-Do-Do, Sol-Sol-Sol-Sol-Sol OR Number 5, Number 1, Number 5 Again! Sol or G should be played with finger number 5 and the middle C with finger number 1 or the thumb. The ending is a Sol-Fa-Mi-Re-Do played with descending fingers 5-4-3-2-1.

Turtle Shells
Did you know that intervals can be played ANYWHERE on the keyboard? Any two keys right next to each other are a 2nd, skipping one key creates a 3rd, and skipping two keys creates a 4th. Ask your child to play for you a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th anywhere on the keyboard. They are pros at this!

BEEF, it’s what’s for dinner! Our new puppet show comes from a ballet named Rodeo written by Aaron Copland. Enjoy learning more about the composer and watching some excellent choreography while listening to the 4th movement of this ballet, Hoedown. Yee Haw!

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!