Itai completed lesson 1 with Mr. Beethoven, who we learned a little bit about today. Do you remember where Mr. Beethoven lived?  How about something that happened to him that caused him some frustration and added a challenge, but also lots of emotion to his composing?  We talked about high and low notes (or High Bird notes and Low Whale notes, as Mr. Beethoven and Miss Melody call them) and different things that we hear that make high and low sounds.

Quinn completed lesson 8 with Mr. Bach, trying out some double notes with both hands and continuing to work on holding notes.

Miss Melody helped us remember what we learned when we visited the practice room.  Remember that practising just a few minutes a day will help you remember all the new things you will be learning over the next term.  I think that everybody enjoyed our visit to the improv room.  Do you remember what “improvising” means?  Next week we will listen to the songs you created.

Homework:  Listen to the sounds around you during the week and tell us at the next class about 3 high sounds and 3 low sounds that you heard.  You might want to draw a picture or write a word to remind you of the sounds you collected.

Here is a link to a word search about Mr. Beethoven.  Try to do this and bring it to your next class:  Mr. Beethoven – Word Search

See you all on Wednesday.

Kersti

Level 1A completed lesson 11 with your new teacher, Mr. Joplin, on 5 finger ant-tunnels.  And what nice ant tunnels they were.  Remember to keep your fingers curved and play on the ‘tip-toes’ of your fingers.  Also, be sure to put your thumb on middle C and then one finger on each neighbouring note.  Your technique looked great today!  Do you remember how Mr. Joplin learned to play the piano?  Fantastic work with your clapbacks and backwards musical alphabet!  You also did very well with the finger playbacks that we did on our knees.  You discovered that some fingers are harder to play than others, but with practice this will become easier and easier.  In the improv room today you added some double and holding notes to your improvisations and many of you visited the library briefly for some extra songs.  It was great to see some of the worksheets come back so nicely done!  Here is a new worksheet on finger numbers to complete this week and bring back to your new teacher next week.

Level 1B completed lesson 21 in which you learned to play Ode to Joy.  You are playing some grown up pieces with your grown up notes.  Good work.  Remember to use all your fingers and keep your writsts relaxed.  You worked hard with Miss Melody too.  Excellent work on your rhythm clapbacks! We didn’t have a chance to review naming our white keys today, but here is a worksheet on white keys to help you practice recognizing them.  (If you were absent from class, please be sure to give the worksheet a try as well.)

Thank you all for a wonderful term.  I have really enjoyed teaching you!  All the best for next session and keep up the great work!

Kersti.

Level 1 (now level 2) – you were very calm, cool and collected through your assessment and did very well.  Thanks for all the hard work you have put in this term. Keep enjoying and exploring music!

Level 2 – you are only a couple of weeks from completing this level.  Keep up the good work.  Today you learned F major.  Do you remember which accidental this scale has?  G major had one sharp, F major has one flat – which flat is it?  Remember that the right hand changes fingering to 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 to accommodate the flat, which would be very hard to reach with your thumb.  Your thumb tuck still works the same way, just goes after finger 4 instead.  The left hand fingering remains the same as for your other major scales (5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1).  Today you learned how to cancel a flat or sharp by using an accidental.  Naturals follow the same rules as flats and sharps – write them before the note on the grand staff (after if you are writing just the letter name) and they are valid through to the barline.  Lightly Row really sounded good today and your rhythm has improved 100% – great work!  Keep on working on Daydream Believer – the rhythm in this one is really challenging.  We also worked on playing staccatto the opposite of legato.  You remembered the wrist roll action that I had shown you in our first class together – good job.  Keep up the good work and enjoy the next session! Here is a legato and staccato exercise for you to work on.

We all played Row Your Boat together in a round – now you have first hand experience of just how important it is to keep a steady beat and you can imagine how challenging it can be to play with a lot of people all at once.  This is my “rushing” class – slow down a bit so that you don’t miss anything – then you can start running again!

Level 1:  The ladies completed lessons 22 and 23 on half, quarter and whole notes.  Do you remember how many beats each of these notes has?  Our gentleman completed lesson 21 and learned Ode to Joy, written by your very first teacher – Mr. Beethoven.  You all did a great job with your clap backs and your musical alphabet backwards.  Keep working on recognizing the notes on the keyboard, using your musical alphabet – soon you won’t even have to think about which note you’re playing.  Nice work drawing line and space notes.  Remember that the stems or ‘tales’ go up on the right side of the note and down on the left.  Here is another worksheet to help you with the white keys and one to remind you about Mr. Villa Lobos – your current teacher.

Level 2:  You are no longer in level 2!  You completed lesson 65, the first lesson of level 3 which had lots of review for you.  Keep working with the woodpecker!  Frustrating as he can be, I can hear the difference in your rhythm!  Great job!  Here is another review worksheet to work on, because starting next week you will be learning all kinds of new things, which I am certain you will enjoy.

Level 3:  You completed the final lesson of level 3A on playing hands together (lesson 74).  Great work.  Keep working at reading notes on the grand staff.  Remember that recognizing skips and steps gives you a clue as to where to move with the note and don’t forget your musical alphabet can always help you along.  You are doing very well with all those accidentals too (sharps, flats and naturals).  Keep up the great work!  Here is a review worksheet that covers a lot of what we learned this session.

Enjoy the spring term everybody!

Eric and Michael completed lesson 9 and 10 with Mr. Bach, did a bit of a review of Mr. Bach’s life (and we even talked a bit about Mr. Beethoven – your first teacher).  Your double and holding notes are great and your rhythm clap backs are getting better and better every class.  Keep up the good work next term.  You are almost finished level 1A and will begin the next level in a few weeks.  If you have not done the double notes worksheet from last week, please try to work on it this week.

Matthew completed lesson 20 on the musical alphabet.  What do you remember about your teacher?  Here is a Ms. Mendelssohn word search to jog your memory.  Your 3 note playbacks and rhythm clap backs were very good.  Try to stay focussed on your lesson, so that you can spend more time on games and improvising at the end of class.  You managed to stay at a good distance from your keyboard today, so your hand position looked great and your fingering was very good today as well.  Keep up the good work!  You only have a few weeks left to go before you complete level 1B and go on to the next level.

Bridgid completed lesson 23 on whole notes.  Remember that a whole note has 4 beats, a half note has 2 beats and a quarter note has 1 beat. You also did well with your playbacks and with drawing line and space notes.  Great job on the falling leaf game!  Keep up the wonderful work!  Here is a Mr. Villa Lobos word search to remind you about a few things on your current teacher.

Joel completed lesson 42 on playing soft (piano) and loud (forte).  You did some great playbacks and then put what you had learned in the lesson to work in the improv room.  We reviewed note values and writing notes.  You are doing very well recognizing the white notes on the keyboard.  I hope you keep enjoying the composer history too! I’m sure you’ll enjoy this Mr. Tchaikovsky Word Search.  Great work!

Petra completed lesson 65 – a review with Mr. Dvorak.  We did some 2 bar clapbacks – that’s a lot to remember and you did very well.  Your playbacks were also very good.  We reviewed note values as well – remember that 2 eighth notes make up one beat (so each eighth note is only half a beat each).  Here is a review worksheet for you to work on at home.  Keep up the great work!  Your rhythm was excellent today.

Level 1A:  You did a double lesson today with Mr. Bach.  In lesson 9, you worked on notes getting higher and higher and lower and lower and then reinforced what you learned with a game of cliffhanger – great listening!  Remember when you have notes getting higher, not to play the highest note right away, because then you won’t be able to get any higher for the next note.  Same with the lowest note if you have notes getting lower and lower.  In lesson 10 you worked on moving towards middle C and created some pretty complex compositions with Miss Melody.  You all had a chance to visit the library and choose a piece to play and then in the improv room, you added some double and holding notes to your improvisations.  All that and some of you still finished early!  If you have any worksheets from previous weeks that you have completed and not brought in (linked to previous blogs), please try to remember to bring them next week.

Level 1B:  You completed lesson 20 on the musical alphabet with Miss Mendelssohn.  Remember to use your left hand to play the notes below middle C and your right hand to play the notes above middle C.  Doing this will also give you a clue which side to put the stem on when you are drawing grown-up line and space notes – which you did very well today.  The stem or ‘tail’ goes down on the left side for the left hand notes that we know below middle C and up on the right side, for the right hand notes.  You did a great job playing treasure hunt today – that requires some very attentive listening.  Keep up the good work.  Here is a worksheet on naming white keys on your keyboard to work on this week.

We finished the class off with a game of hot potato while singing the musical alphabet backwards to the tune of  “Twinkle, Twinkle little star”.   Great work!  See you all next week.

We did some 4 note playbacks today to give you an extra challenge and you did a great job with them.  Keep listening for whether the notes are getting higher or lower and if they are stepping or skipping down.  Your scales are sounding fantastic.  Nice and even, legato and great fingering.

Level 1:  You worked on two new songs today – the Mexican Clapping Song and Get Up.  As you practice this song, count out loud so that you keep the rhythm steady and if you have any trouble with just one or two bars, practice those bars a few times over, then put them back into the whole piece.  Try to memorize the piece that you have chosen for your assessment, but don’t worry if you aren’t able to – I’ll have copies of the music handy.  We reviewed intervals and how to identify them.  Remember to count both notes and each line and space in between.  You remembered that harmonic intervals are played at the same time (with the notes written one over the other) and melodic intervals a played seperately with one note following the other.  This Interval Naming worksheet is good practice for identifying your intervals (you may have already completed and just forgotten to bring it in).  We also reviewed all of the note and rest values that you have learned, the parts of the grand staff and the meaning of legato.  Don’t forget to bring back the practice test that I gave you.  We will correct this together next week and answer any questions you may have before proceeding to the actual test – which is in exactly the same format and has the same type of questions as the practice test – nothing to worry about.  You are doing a great job.

Level 2:  Your C and G pentatonic scales are really sounding good and the fingering is coming more naturally.  You put Daydream Believer hands together – great job.  There is some tricky rhythm in this piece as well as some accidentals.  Try to count the last few bars as you play them – all the ties can make it pretty confusing, but if you break each bar down into 1+2+3+4+ and match up the notes accordingly, it will make more sense.  This piece also has a lot of dotted quarter notes, which take up 1.5 beats, so they are always followed by either an eighth note or eighth rest (to complete the missing half beat).  Take your time and don’t forget to hold the longer notes and rests for their entire value.  Do you know who wrote Daydream Believer?  It is by another famous  60′s band.  Try asking some adults or check on the internet and let me know what you find next week (I may actually have mentioned it in a previous blog) – if you can, bring one interesting fact about this group to share with us.  We also learned about flats today – the opposite of sharps – which make a note a semi-tone lower and then you spent some time in theory thinker (3-3) reviewing tones and semitones.  Here a couple of worksheets for practicing sharps and flats.  You had a few minutes to look at Lightly Row and started to learn the right hand part.  Keep working on this piece.  Keep up the great work!

Level 1B:  You met a new teacher today in lesson 21 – Mr. Hector Villa Lobos.  Do you remember where he came from?  He was very proud of his country and he helped many people in his country learn more about their folk music when he created a nation wide school music education program.  He also brought the sounds of Brazil with him when he toured abroad.  Mr. Villa Lobos taught you a very famous piece by your first teacher – Mr. Beethoven.  It is called “Ode to Joy” and is part of Beethoven’s last symphony (#9).  You had a new game today – ‘falling leaves’ – which helped you to work on recognizing the notes on the keyboard.  Remember to use your musical alphabet going forward as notes get higher and backwards as notes get lower to identify them.  You all remember “2 black notes down to C”.  Keeping in mind “3 black notes down to F” will help you find F and its neighbouring notes more easily. This worksheet will give you some more practice in Naming the White Keys.  Great work creating your own version of Mr. Villa Lobos’ piece “The Balloon falls and Falls” in the improv room today.

Level 2C:  Fantastic work today – congratulations on completing all the material for this level.  Please remember to do the level 2C review worksheet that I gave you and bring it back next week.  You practiced with Miss Melody for the Recital with Mr. Chopin (lesson 60)  and did a lot of work on your repertoire.  I know that the woodpecker is not your favourite, but he is a very good practice tool to help you play the pieces using the correct rhythm.  Remember to keep your hands ready in middle C position as you play a piece, so that you have all the notes “at your finger tips”.  You had a chance to play all 10 games today – I hope you enjoyed that.

Level 3A:  You worked on playing with both hands at the same time with Ms. Chaminade in lesson 73.  Your hands fall into a very nice position when you sit away from the keyboard and give your arms some room, so remember not to sit too close.  Remember to use your musical alphabet to figure out and play the correct note, rather than just hitting random notes until you get the right one.  I know that when you take your time, you can figure it out – don’t rush.  Great work recognizing and playing your accidentals (sharps, flats and naturals).  You had some challenging pieces in this class and did very well with them.  You also did a great job with the rhythmic dictations that I clapped for you and you remember all of your notes values.  We finished off with the C major scale going up with the right hand and going down with the left – your fingering ( 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5) was perfect.  Keep working on getting the thumb tuck nice and smooth, so that it connects right from the next note.  You thumb can start tucking as soon as it is free from playing the C, so when its next turn comes, it is right there.  Keep up the good work! Here is Ms. Chaminade Word Search to help you remember some of the things you have learned about her.

Good work playing interval “go fish”.  Remember that intervals that are played at the same time (with the notes written over and under each other) are called harmonic intervals and those that are written in sequence, side by side, are melodic.  When you are identifying your interval, make sure to count both notes and every line and space in between.  When the interval is on the same note, it is called unison, when it is eight notes apart, it is an octave (8ve) – this means that the notes are the same, ie. middle C and treble C, besides that, we have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th (just like you would write the date).

We reviewed note values – whole (4 beats), half (2 beats), quarter (1 beat) and eighth (half a beat – so 2 eighth notes make up one beat).  I’m glad that the pizza diagram helped.  We also reviewed the corresponding rests.  We made sure to understand the difference between 3/4 and 4/4 time (remember that the top number tells you how many beats are in a bar) and reviewed our grand staff terminology (including treble and bass clef) and musical term legato – which is how you have been practicing your scales – smooth and connected.

You did very well with the Mexican Clapping Song.  Maybe next week we can try playing it all together.  Remember not to start too quickly, so that you can maintain a steady beat throughout and be sure to give the rests their full value.  You also each chose a solo for your assessment next week.  Feel free to change your mind, if you decide you would prefer to play another piece, but be sure to practice this piece and try to learn it from memory.

Don’t forget to write your practice test to prepare for next week.  (You each took a copy of the practice test home with you, but I have included a link to it, in case anything happens to the hard copy).  We will correct them and answer any questions you may have at the beginning of class next week, so please remember to bring them back!  And don’t worry about the test – it is only a few minutes and is only to give you and me an idea of what you know well and what you may need to work on a little more.  You are all doing great and I am very proud of the work you have done this term.

See you next week.

Level 1A completed lesson 11 on 5 finger ant tunnels with a brand new teacher – Mr. Scott Joplin.  Do you remember how Mr. Joplin learned to play the piano and what kind of music he composed a lot of?  It was a type of dance music played in households all over.  Great work with your rhythm challenges – your counting is getting really good.  Keep up the good work!

Level 1B:  Molly and Ryan, you worked on lesson 18 – more playing and singing songs.  Remember that trying is the most important tool in learning.  I know you both can make some beautiful ant tunnels with your hands in middle C position – make sure you try to use this position while playing the pieces – it will be much easier to play one note after another that way and always keep your fingers on top of the keys and remember that each finger gets its own note, but don’t skip any white keys in between.  Your rhythm is excellent – thank you for the rhythm challenges you made up for the rest of the class.  Jeremy – you started learning grown-up notes in lesson 19 – great job.  I know it can be challenging, but try to stay focused on the lesson and think positive – I know you can do it, because I saw you breeze through the first half of the lesson.  If something is too hard, just ask and I will explain it some more.

Level 2B – great work on your grand staff songs in lesson 48.  You are recognizing steps and skips in the music.  Now, as you play, try to think to yourself (or say out loud) what note you are playing – remembering to use your musical alphabet going forward if the notes are moving up and backwards if the notes are getting lower.  As you start to recognize the notes on the grand staff more and more, reading music will start to feel like reading a book – you won’t have to hesitate to find the note – you will just know exactly what it is and your fingers will react to play it.

Thank you all for the great 2 bar rhythm challenges.  Remember that we count in groups of four, so that instead of counting all the way to 8 in two bars, we count to 4 twice.

Here are your worksheets for this week.  Try to bring them with you to class next week.

Level 1A:  Finger numbers

Level 1B:  Line and Space notes

Level 2B:  Drawing barlines in 4/4 time

Eric and Michael – you completed lesson 7 (practice room for Michael, lesson for Eric) on more holding notes and then proceeded to lesson 8 on double notes.  You did very well at playing two notes together with both hands at one time and you are counting your holding notes very precisely.  Remember to always keep your hands and all of your fingers on top of the piano keys, so that any finger could be ready to play at any moment.  After you lesson with Mr. Bach, you visited Miss Melody, who played some of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concerto for you.  Do you remember the two different ways of playing the violin that she explained to you?  One makes bouncy sounds, while the other makes smooth sounds.  You learned two Italian words that we use to describe this way of playing – “Staccato” and “Legato”.  Do you remember which means bouncy and detached and which is smooth and connected?   This piece of music painted a picture for our imaginations – we could hear and imagine the summer thunder storm starting all of a sudden.  You did very well at practicing playing “staccato” and “legato” in the improv room at the end of class.

Matthew – you completed a lesson 19 with Miss Mendelssohn on grown up notes.  Great work.  Your fingering was wonderful today – very precise.  Remember to keep back a bit from the piano, so that your arms and wrists can extend comfortably.  What do you remember about your teacher, Miss Mendelssohn?  We didn’t have a chance to practice drawing grown up notes in class today, but you can try this at home – draw a circular note and then add a stem or ‘tail’ – the notes for your right hand have a stem going up on the right side of the note, the notes for your left hand have a stem going down on the left side of the note.  In the improv room today, you tried finding beat 1 of the accompaniment.

Brigid – you completed lesson 22 on half and quarter notes with Mr. Villa Lobos.  How many counts does a half note have?  How about a quarter note?  Do you remember where Mr. Villa Lobos was from and what instruments he played?  He was in charge of creating a music program for school children across his country, which helped to introduce them to the folk music from their own country as well as music in general.  You did a great job finding the different notes that I asked you to find on the keyboard and are doing very well at reading your grown up notes.  In the improv room today, you improvised with half notes.  Keep up the great work!

Joel – you completed lesson 41 with a new teacher, Mr. Tchaikovsky, who taught you a new note – right hand F.  Do you remember where Mr. Tchaikovsky was from?  He did not start out working as a musician, but eventually quit his job in law to pursue music full time and was fortunate enough to have a patroness who supported him (even though he never met her in person), while he composed lots of wonderful music.  When you are playing your pieces, remember that the bass clef staff has notes for your left hand, while the right hand plays the notes in the treble clef.  Try to keep both hands ready in middle C position so that you can transition smoothly from one hand to the other.  In the improv room today, you tried improvising a bit in middle C position, using C as your home base – so you started and ended the improvisation on middle C.  Keep up the fantastic work!

At the end of class we all listened to and recognized notes getting higher and lower on the flute – a member of the woodwind family of instruments.  We also reviewed how to clap holding notes (clap on 1, then dip your hands for each beat that the note is held) and after doing a great job at clapping back the rhythms that I gave you, you each tried your hand a creating a rhythm on the drum for the whole group to clap back.

Here are some worksheets for you to complete over the week:

Eric and Michael – Mr. Bach Word Search, Double Notes

Matthew – Line and Space notes

Brigid – Spelling with white keys

Joel – Notes in the treble clef

Level 1A:

We started out the day by recognizing notes getting higher and higher and lower and lower on the flute.  You also recognized that even though notes are getting lower and lower, they can be all high, or low notes can get higher, but still be all low.  You practiced listening and recognizing which way notes are moving some more with your new game – Cliffhanger.  Everybody had a chance to do a rhythm challenge for the class to clap back – wonderful creations!  Mr. Bach introduced you to double notes today in lesson 8 and you took turns playing through the pieces he gave you.  Remember to play the notes at exactly the same time.  Miss Melody played some more of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concerto for you and you heard the sudden thunder storm begin in the summer section.  You learned about two different ways that the violin can be played – plucked it sounds bouncy and detached and the Italian word you learned for this is “staccato”.  When the bow of the violin is used, the sound is smooth and connected and the word we use for this is “legato”.  You tried out these two ways of playing in the improvisation room.  Keep up the great work everybody.  We finished off the class with a quick game of musical alphabet hot potato, with Potato the Rooster – keep practicing your musical alphabet backwards – you did very well with it.   Here is a Mr. Bach Word Search for you to remind you of a few things that you have learnt about him and in this worksheet you can work on identifying Double Notes.

Level 1B:

You had a very important lesson with Miss Mendelssohn today on grown up notes (lesson 19) and you did very well with them.  We also practiced drawing some line notes and space notes and adding the stems or “tails”.  Remember that a stem going up is always on the right side of the note and a stem going down always comes off the left side of the note.  Your technique is very nice – remember not to sit too close to the piano.  Beautiful ant tunnels most of the time too!  You are also keeping your hands in middle C position while you play your pieces, which means that you don’t have to pause in between each note and the notes are easier to find.  Great work!  You practiced playing “piano” and “forte” in the improv room today.  What do these terms mean in English?  Do you remember why they were used to name the instrument you are learning to play – the “pianoforte”?  We will have a new computer teacher next class, so just so that you don’t forget about her, here is a Ms. Fanny Mendelssohn Word Search for you to complete at home.

Have a wonderful March Break everybody and see you in two weeks.

Your rhythm is getting steadier every week.  On Top of Old Smokey and Pop Goes the Weasel are starting to really flow and you are playing them with much more ease.  You C position playbacks, as always, were very good.  We were able to play Row Your Boat in a 3 part round – I certainly had fun with that – I hope you did too.  Keep reviewing these songs and try to learn them by heart.  Here is a new song, Get Up, for you to start working on at home.  Before you try playing it, clap and count the rhythm and then try saying the note names while clapping the rhythm.  Speaking of note names, you did a great job of your grand staff note placement game today.  What a fantastic job you did with C major – you have figured it out hands together in contrary motion going in both directions.

Away from the keyboards we had a game of interval Go Fish  (thank you for all your help before class preparing the game cards).  You remembered exactly what harmonic and melodic intervals are and learned to recognize the difference between the way that we write a harmonic and melodic 2nd.  Remember, when counting the intervals, to count each note and all the lines and spaces in between the two notes of the interval.  Congratulations on winning the game! We also looked at eighth notes and eighth rests.  Do you remember the two different ways that you can write eighth notes?  How do you write them on their own?  How about in a group?  Each eighth note or eighth rest takes up half a beat of music.  Good job clapping the beat, while counting eighth notes and then clapping the rhythm that I wrote down for you.  You then went back to theory thinker section 1 – 2 on eighth notes to review what we had learnt about eighth notes.

Level 2:  Keep working on Daydream Believer and if you would like to add another piece to your repertoire, give Lightly Row a try. You’ll find them both in Piano Player.  If you would like to do a little research, look up The Monkees, who wrote Daydream Believer.  We missed having you in class today.  Hope you are feeling better soon.

Enjoy your March Break and see you in a couple of weeks.

Level 1 worked on more grown up notes and learned how to recognize some other notes from your musical alphabet on the keyboard (some of you caught up on lesson 19 and everybody completed lesson 20).  You have known “group of 2, down to C” for a long time and you were able to identify all the C’s on the keyboard.  Then you learned “group of 3, down to F” – so now by looking at the groups of black keys, you can recognize C’s and F’s and then count up or down to figure out the other notes.  Remember that to figure out notes lower than the one you recognize, you have to move backwards in your musical alphabet (e.g. the note just below C on the keyboard is B) and to figure out a note higher than the note you recognize, you move forward in your musical alphabet (e.g. the note 2 keys above C is E).  You all had time to play some games – including treasure hunt, which is a real challenge to your listening skills (and you did very well at it) and then you improvised playing piano and forte.  You will have a new computer teacher next class, so before we move on, here is a word search to review a little of what you know about Miss Fanny Mendelssohn.

Level 2C completed lesson 58 on ties with Mr. Chopin and then did some recital preparation in lesson 59. Good work.  Do you remember the new word you learned today for the ‘collection of pieces that you know’ (it starts with an ‘r’). Ties a very useful tool to help composers write notes that do not fit into one bar.  Remember that you only play or clap the note once – if a note is at the end of a tie, you just hold it and add it’s value to the first note you played (so two half notes tied together would equal 4 beats, a whole note and a quarter note tied together would equal 5 beats).  I think you must be quite good at math, as you caught onto this concept very well.  Here is a ‘ties’ worksheet for you to complete at home to get even more practice in counting ties.

Level 3A completed lesson 72 on naturals (and those absent last week also completed lesson 71 – a review on ties).  Naturals cancel a sharp or flat that appears earlier in the bar. Naturals have the same rules as flats and sharps.  Do you remember these rules?  They are written on the same line or space as the note that they ‘naturalize’ and are valid for the whole bar (or until another sharp or flat appears).  Flats, sharps and naturals are called ‘accidentals’ and they change the pitch of the note that they are written in front of.  What does a sharp do to a note?  How about a flat?  We also talked about Ms. Chaminade.  Where did she live?  She played you a piece that she wrote called a ‘Tarantella’.  Where does this name come from?  Do you remember the secret code you learned last week? (We didn’t have a chance to review it today, but don’t forget it 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 – because we will come back to it.)  Here is a naturals worksheet for you to complete at home for some practice on drawing naturals and understanding how they work.

Have a wonderful March Break and see you in two weeks.

We reviewed the landmark notes on the grand staff, which help read music more quickly and clarified some confusion there.  You can quickly identify 3 C’s (middle, treble and bass), bass F and treble G by using your landmark notes, so then you just need to remember your musical alphabet to count up to the other notes – move forward in the musical alphabet ( A B C D E F G) to identify higher notes and backward (G F E D C B A) to identify lower notes.  This made placing notes in the Grand Staff note placement game easier and much more accurate today.  We also reviewed whole, half and quarter rests and looked at eighth notes.  The ones that we saw in our new music today were connected by a ‘beam’, but many of you have also seen a single eighth note with a ‘flag’ coming off the stem.  You did a great job clapping on the beat (1 2 3 4) as you counted eighth notes out loud (1+2+3+4+).

Everybody reviewed On Top Of Old Smokey individually and some of you tried it with the timing and rhythm feature.  It is hard to play with the metronome, but it certainly makes you pay attention to the rests and is a good practice tool.

You did a good job of clapping the rhythm of our new piece Get Up and when we clapped and read the note names, we made the discovery that the piece only has 3 notes to recognize – it is the rhythm that makes it a bit tricky.  The other thing you noticed in the piece was that instead of 4/4 or 3/4 as the time signature, there was a “C” – do you remember what this stands for?  It also indicates 4 beats per bar.

We did a few playbacks in C position and you are doing extremely well with this ear training.  Please remember to respect your classmates and keep your keyboards and voices silent while they are trying to hear their notes to playback.  Good work on playing C major hands together in contrary motion (with both thumbs starting on C).  We also tried C major descending with the right hand (though some of you had already figured out how to do this).  Remember that the fingering on the way down is exactly opposite of fingering on the way up, so it is 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1, with fingers 2 and 3 crossing over your thumb on the way down.  Keep practicing this and give the left a try coming up (if you’re ambitious, you can try coming back to middle C hands together as well).

Unfortunately, we ran into some technical difficulties when we tried to review Row Your Boat, so we didn’t get to play it in a round, but keep practicing and we will try again after March break.

Here is a worksheet to practice your Note Naming and a landmark notes reference sheet.  Take a look at this sheet on eighth notes and rests and we will work on it together next class.

Keep practicing Row Your Boat, Pop Goes the Weasel, On Top of Old Smokey and Get Up.  Please pick one piece in addition to Row Your Boat and try to learn it by heart (so that you don’t need to look at the music).  I would like everybody to work on learning Row Your Boat by heart too.

Have a wonderful March Break and see you in two weeks.