Today in MusIQ Club!

Hello! We had a great first class of the winter term, and it was so nice to meet some new students and see a few returning students from last term.

It is a real pleasure for me to introduce your children to piano. I have been teaching both private and group piano lessons for about 15 years, and have a music degree in piano performance from the University of Western Ontario. I started up with MusIQ Club shortly after we moved to Halifax when it was just in the piloting stages and really liked the approach, so I accepted the position of curriculum developer there, as well as continuing as a teacher. When we decided to move to Barrie in 2008 it was an easy decision to become the Program Director for the Barrie area. I am looking to continue expanding this year, so if you know of another school that you think would be interested in the MusIQ Club program, or someone you think would make a great MusIQ Club teacher for me to hire, send me an email! Likewise if you have any questions about the software we use or the finer points of our approach to teaching piano, I love to talk about pedagogy so I’d be happy to tell you all about it.

Level 1A

These are the students in Kindergarten and Grade 1 without previous experience, or in this case, Liam and Thomas. We will be using a software program called Children’s Music Journey Volume 1.

Today we were introduced to the piano keyboard by Mr. Beethoven. We learned that the high “bird” notes are located on the right hand side of the keyboard and the low “whale” notes are located on the left hand side of the keyboard. We learned to use our right index finger to play high notes and our left index finger to play low notes. This went really well so we also completed Lesson 2 where we learned how to find all the Cs on the piano, especially the Middle Cs. We played a couple of games reinforcing these concepts. On the floor we made up our own songs by placing high bird and low whale magnets on the white board in whatever order she wanted. Great job today!

This Week @ Home

• Listen around you during the day for high sounds and low sounds.
• Which side of the piano are the high bird notes on? Which side are the low whale notes on? Remember, Low and Left both start with L, which can help us remember!
• The Musical Alphabet is A B C D E F G. These letters are used to name the white keys on the piano. Today we learned how to find Cs (Group of 2 [black keys] Down to C).
• If you have a piano, try finding all the Cs from low to high or high to low. Can you show an adult at home ow to find Middle C?
• Here is a worksheet for you to print and do at home. Please bring it with you next class!
• You can also have some fun making up you own music!
• If you have CMJ at home, review Lesson 2  with Mr. Beethoven, then head to the Practice Room with Miss Melody. You can also play the 2 games in the Games Room, and make up your own music in the Improvising Room.

Level 2A

This is Kayla and Jarrett. Today we did Lesson 26, where we learned/reviewed where the high notes and low notes are, how to read notes that are getting higher and higher or lower and lower, the Musical Alphabet (ABCDEFG), how to use the groups of 2 black keys to help us find all the Cs,  and finger numbers (1-5, with 1 being the thumbs of both hands, and moving out to the pinkies which are 5s). There were games of course, and some floor time to review finger numbers and note reading on the whiteboard. I also handed out a finger number tune Love Somebody for you to practice so you can serenade your mothers by Valentine’s Day.

This Week @ Home

• Review your finger numbers (thumbs are #1).
• This week we want to get those fingers working. With your RH one day and then your LH the next, put fingers 1 2 3 4 5 on the keys, with your thumb on Middle C, just little Mr. Dvorak showed you today. Practice keeping a nice “ant tunnel” with curved fingers, and your fingertips on the front half of the keys, not up in between the black keys. Play each finger 3 times nicely, trying to keep all the other fingers relaxed and resting on the keys. This is tricky, and won’t happen the first time you try, but it is our goal, and you should see an improvement in the independence of your fingers over the week. If you do not have a keyboard or you don’t have time to get to the keyboard each day, you can try this on a table or desk, too.
• Practice Love Somebody with your RH, fingers 1 2 3 4 5 on C D E F G.
• If you have the CMJ2 software and a keyboard, you can review all these things by doing Lesson 26 with Miss Melody, and playing the 2 games that have been unlocked so far in the Games Room.

Level 2B

This is Keilan, Daniel, Ethan and starting next week, Dimitri. Today the boys completed Lesson 37 with Mrs. Amy Beech, where they reviewed playing songs that use CDE and CBA on the Grand Staff. They also practiced playing rhythms in time to the beat with the woodpecker, which they did very well with! Some of the boys were a little rusty on their note values but we reviewed these on the floor and they reviewed them playing the soup game in CMJ. On the flor we reviewed drawing Treble Clefs and did some fun spelling games using notes on the staff as a code to spell words like DAD, CAB, BAD, etc. They did very well with this game. Overall, a little hyper but they did some good work!

This Week @ Home

• Review Grand Staff notes with this worksheet.
• Practice Love Somebody. Email me if this handout didn’t make it home.
• This week’s focus was mostly on playing with a steady beat, so it is rather difficult to give you an assignment for this. One thing you can try is to find the beat in different songs that you hear on the radio or on a CD and clap along. Some songs are slow and some are fast, so you’ll have to listen carefully to find the beat!
• If you have the software and a keyboard you can review Lesson 37 with Miss Melody and have some fun in the games room.

Thanks again, and I look forward to our second class next Thursday!