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Kersti TacreiterSo, today was week 8 of 10. That means that next week is our last lesson before our recital. Our recital is the last half of the last class, which means it will be at 6:30 on December 9th. This will be your first piano recital, so it is of course very exciting, and you are free to invite anyone you want to come watch you. We will do a little demo of the software we use in class and show you a bit of what we have been learning in the three different levels, and play Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. That means everyone with a keyboard or piano at home should be practicing Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, with EXTRA practice on the hard parts (ie lines 2 and 4.) I’m excited to hear it!
Oh, and Happy Birthday Colby! We forgot to sing to you in class, but I hope you had a great day!
Level 1A
Today in Class
Today we completed lesson 11, where we learned more about your finger numbers for your RH, and playing with a nice ant tunnel (rounded fingers) with fingers 1 2 3 4 5 on C D E F G. This is wear your fingers go for Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, too! If you have a keyboard at home, practice playing this one line at a time, singing the finger numbers out loud as you go! Watch for holding notes! Notes above the line are for RH, below the line are for LH. Your fingers are numbered from your thumb to your pinky, 1 to 5 on both hands. We also spent some time in the game room and improvisation room, and on the floor working on finger numbers and notes that get higher and higher and lower and lower. Great work today everyone! And don’t get frustrated with your recital song, you aren’t supposed to be really good at it yet, new songs never sound good the first day, it takes practice! Work in small sections so that you can have more success!
This Week @ Home
- In CMJ volume 1 (if you have it) review lesson 11 and have fun in the practice room. In the Games Room there are 3 games for you to play.
- Practice Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, the whole thing this week, as explained above. This is our recital song!
- Put your right hand on your right knee, like we did in class, and practice wiggling each finger independently. Next, have an adult at home give you a playback challenge to try (eg. 1 2 3, 111, etc, start easy!) and you see if you can play those fingers on your knee. Then challenge your adult! This will build up the finger independence we will need to play our recital piece!
Level 2A
Today in Class
Today Ethan was sick, so Jessica worked alone to complete lessons 34 to 36. Wow! She reviewed notes C D E for the right hand in the Treble Clef, and learned about notes C B A for the left hand in the Bass Clef. Nice work! We played a few fun games in the games room too, to practice note reading, note values, and white note names, and worked on Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. We will do some review and some games to go over this stuff some more next week, and get Ethan caught up!
This Week @ Home
- If you have CMJ volume 2 at home, you should review lesson 34, 35, and 36 with Mr. Mozart and Mrs. Beech, and head to the games room.
- Keep working on Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. Remember to put both thumbs on Middle C and LEAVE YOUR HANDS THERE! Please don’t peck out each note with your pointer finger, we want ALL your fingers to get strong and used to playing! Nice curved fingers please!
- Play the C Major scale, RH and LH together in contrary motion, using the fingering 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5. Aim for a smooth (legato) sound and once you get used to it, work on having only one key pressed down at a time so it doesn’t sound too blurry.
- Keep working on Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (handed out in class, email me if you lost it) and Pop Goes the Weasel. Both of these pieces use both RH and LH, and so watch carefully for whether the notes are written on the top staff or the bottom staff, so you know which hand to use.
- Start Get Up. You will need to count! Also, consider if you want to play a solo at our recital. It can be anything you have learned this term at MusIQ Club. We’ll discuss this next week.
- This week complete the practice test I handed out in class.
Filed under: Trillium Woods Elementary Tagged: | Trillium, week 8
were do i find Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. is it in the software or was it a handout?
Hi Bill, It was a handout in class a few weeks ago, but I’ve emailed it to you just now as well. See you tomorrow!