Rock & Roll 101

June 28th, 2017

Will not be coming on June 28th.

June 21st, 2017

Keith and I mostly reviewed what we'd learned this year. We went over his favourite songs together. Have a great summer!

June 14th, 2017

June 7th, 2017

We went over a few of the recent songs together, and added the new song mom had written in the back, "Imagine" by John Lennon.

May 31st, 2017

Looks like I forgot to include the notes from last time, sorry!

We worked again on House Party by Sam Hunt, doing it at a slower speed so he could switch fast enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI3nc8G9SDU

He is doing much better at switching this week!

We also did the songs in the back of the book, Country Roads and Hallelujah.

May 24th, 2017

May 17th, 2017

We went through I Met a Bear and Bottom of the Sea, and then started to add another campfire song, but Aaron wanted him to learn a Neil Young song.

We tried "Heart of Gold," which may be a little advanced for him, but we'll see how it goes. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fXaC07X5M8

May 10th, 2017

We started by working on "I Met a Bear" at half speed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMzmSnQjEdY

We went through it a couple of times, then added "There's a Hole On the Bottom of the Sea:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nea3VnQniMQ

We started listening to another song to possibly add, but mom came in at the end. Hole in the Sea is pretty easy, so shouldn't take long to work on.

May 3rd, 2017

Keith and I went over Count On Me, Finished up Rudolph, and reviewed Spirits.

He expressed interest in campfire songs, so we added the first verse of the Other Day I Met a Bear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMzmSnQjEdY

April 26th, 2017

Keith was a little distracted in the lesson. We tried to work on Count On Me, but his heart wasn't in it. :)

He wanted to add "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (LOL!) so I wrote out the song for him to work on.

April 19th, 2017

We started Bruno Mars' song, "Count On Me" - it's perfect for the ukulele, and Keith is doing well on it (he was a tad inquisitive / distracted tonight, but overall fine).

(
NOTE TO SELF:
Other songs to Keith is interested in:
“Somewhere over the Rainbow”
“We’re going to be Friends” Jack Johnson
)

April 12th, 2017

We went through Spirits at 50% speed today, and Keith is doing quite well at it. I'd like it if he could continue to pick up the speed on it, and try to get to 75% at least.

We then added London Bridge as a new song which is quite easy. The new song we tried last time seems to be a bit too hard for him right now. If he continues to practice switching quickly to the new chords in that song we can try it again later.

If he can list other songs he'd like to learn, that'd be great.

April 5th, 2017

March 29th, 2017

We went over all the songs in the book as review for the first 10 or so minutes, then worked a little longer on playing the tab from the last couple of weeks, including the new one, "Smoke on the Water."

We didn't have time to review the Strumbellas song, Spirits.

March 22nd, 2017

Keith and I went over the scale together, first looking at the book, and then without looking. He was able to go up and down the C scale by memory... albeit slowly.

He should work on committing this to memory.

We then went over Mary Had a Little Lamb (the melody).

Finally, we added a new song by the Strumbellas, called Spirits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9kXstb9FF4

March 15th, 2017

March 8th, 2017

Tonight in lessons we started with going over Oh Canada two times-- the first time there was quite a pause between chords... but by the second time through Keith was doing much better, even switching chords without looking at his hands.

We then went over the chords on his chord page, and added some SUS chords.

March 1st, 2017

Today we went through Hakuna Matata twice at slower speeds and once at a full speed. We then added O Canada, and finally finished with Down By The Bay (which he seems to love!)

Good lesson, big improvement on the strumming!!

February 22nd, 2017

We started by reviewing all the chords Keith has been learning, and he's doing quite well. There are a couple that are a bit of a reach for him- as his hands get more dextrous, we can try them again. I'd like him to continue to work on even the hard ones.

We then reviewed some of the easier songs we've learned.

Finally, we went over Hakuna Matata a few times first without the music, and then with the music slowed down to 65% of speed. He's coming along quite well. He should pay special attention to not playing at varying speeds, but strumming evenly and equally.

February 15th, 2017

Andrea sent me some songs he might like to learn:

- Hakuna Matata (from the Lion King)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zG1Tnt5A8&feature=youtu.be&t=89


- Baby Beluga (Raffi, I think?)
(in a hard key - if he gets a CAPO we can do it.)

- “Toes” by the Zack Brown Band
(in a hard key - if he gets a CAPO we can do it.)

We took some time to look at Hakuna Matata to start, the real song part is at 2:41 minutes into the video.

We also reviewed the other songs and chords.

February 8th, 2017

Keith was in a mood to learn new chords this week! We added 10 new chords, but he didn't really show as much interest in playing songs.

This is common when students have difficulty switching between chords quickly. It's also common when students don't have a lot of 'favourte songs' that they want to learn to play.

If you can help Keith think of some songs that you might hear on the radio, or listen to on TV, that will help us continue to move forward in playing music.

THANKS! :)

February 1st, 2017

January 25th, 2017

We went through a few songs together from the last couple of weeks, then added a few new chords, like G7 and D. We did some races to play them as fast as possible, and then did some basic "TAB"

January 18th, 2017

Keith did really well in his second lesson.

We reviewed Down by the Bay. He's getting the chords, but should try hard not to use his other hand to place the fingers on the strings.

It will help if he puts his thumb along the back of the neck, instead of along the side or top. Also, not holding the ukulele flat will help.

We added the F chord for Down by the Bay, and then added another song and a couple of other chords.

January 11th, 2017

Keith did a great job tonight - I was impressed at how focused he could be for only grade one!

We learned some starting chords, and the first part of the song "Down by the Bay"

He should work on it a few minutes every day to get comfortable with the finger positions.