Rock & Roll 101

June 26th, 2018

June 19th, 2018

This date (June 19) Lerissa will be at Canada's Wonderland.

June 12th, 2018

Lerissa did really well today with the Stitches song... we are done it!

So we added a nice country song, Play It Again by Luke Bryan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCwKk4pK4ws

June 5th, 2018

We played through Stitches, by Shawn Mendes and it was quite slow, so we focused on the transitions between chords that she was having trouble with, gradually putting them all together into one phrase.

We then played through the song again, at 65%. We increased the speed each time, eventually getting up to 100%.

We went through the left hand part before this, and I showed her how to put both hands together to play in time.

May 29th, 2018

Lerissa did a great job on Treat You Better - we went through it three times, at 80%, 90%, and 100% speed!

We then added a new song also by Shawn Mendes, called Stiches:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iNC0NXKyNE

May 22nd, 2018

May 15th, 2018

We went through Mad World a couple of times and I asked her to just work on evening out the timing between the Fminor and Bb chords.

We'll go over that again next week.

We then added a Shawn Mendes song, Treat You Better:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKia3wmPrvM

May 8th, 2018

Lerissa continued with Love Story, and is basically finished up on it.

We talked about either refining it, or adding a new song, and she was a bit undecided. I decided we might as well add a new song, so added Mad World by Gary Jules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa-ae6_okmg

May 1st, 2018

Missed Lerissa tonight - hope all is okay! :)

April 24th, 2018

We continued with Love Story today.

April 17th, 2018

Lerissa did a great job on the Climb, and we added a new song, Love Story, by Taylor Swift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB5rskV0bls

April 10th, 2018

We revoewed Fight Song, which is coming along great. We then added a new song by Myley Cyrus, the Climb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qolUC13bwMc

April 3rd, 2018

Lerissa did a great job playing through Fight Song - she decided she wanted to focus on inversions of chords in this song, which is a great idea; it will make a big difference in the end product.

We went through the chorus and second verse, and part of the bridge inversions; she can finish them up on her own.

March 27th, 2018

We reviewed Symphony , and went over it with dropping from the high octave to lower - if Lerissa keeps working on this song, I'd recommend getting used to doing that. It's always a good skill to have, to jump up and down octaves throughout a song, wihtout getting lost.

We then added Fight Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8qDOGLCSFo

March 20th, 2018

March 13th, 2018

March 6th, 2018

We went over Symphony again, focusing over and over on the lick in the intro / verses, with both hands. We tried to memorize / train the muscle memory to play it so that she doesn't have to slow down.

February 27th, 2018

February 20th, 2018

We went through Stay With Me together, and then added a new song by Clean Bandit, called Symphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_z9gofWxJs

February 13th, 2018

We worked through both songs from last week, and focused on the parts she was having challenges with (The G7, the G and E on beats 4).

I asked her to work on emulating the keyboards in the Rockabye song

Also work on making the volume dynamics in Stay With Me similar to the original song (softer and louder).

Then I asked her to think of the next song(s) to learn.

February 6th, 2018

Today Lerissa played Let it Go for me, and then we moved on to Clean Bandit's, Rockabye and since we had more time, we also added Stay With Me by Sam Smith.

Here are those videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=papuvlVeZg8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB-5XG-DbAA

Good job!

January 30th, 2018

I forgot to talk notes on Tuesday - we did James Bay, Let it Go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsPq9mzFNGY

She's getting close!

January 23rd, 2018

January 16th, 2018

January 9th, 2018

Lerissa played through O Come All Ye Faithful for me, and then we added Lost Boy by Ruth B.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY6IYZMdY4k

January 2nd, 2018

I missed Lerissa tonight - see you next week?

December 19th, 2017

Lerissa came with her brother today- nice guy!

We went through Silent Night and O Christmas Tree a few times; she didn't seem to have practiced much, so we just worked on the spots she was having trouble with.

We then added O Come All Ye Faithful.

December 12th, 2017

Lerissa played through the last two songs for me again, and then we added two new Christmas songs tonight: Silent Night and O Christmas Tree.

December 5th, 2017

We reviewed both songs, and went through the entire 12 days of Christmas- which is long!! :) She got better everytime through, and wanted to take the last few minutes of the lesson to keep practicing it.

She didn't work on the inversions for this week, so if she can keep focusing on that, it will help it sound better.

November 28th, 2017

Lerissa came at 5:30 this week.

We went through Frosty Together, and then added "12 Days of Christmas."

It's a long one with lots of different changes - I suggested she work out the inversions if she can make the time to practice them this week. It will take lots of work to figure out the best inversion for each chord so you're making as economical movements as possible.

See you next week!

November 21st, 2017

We did Frosty the SNowman, and I wrote out the piano part for her.

Also, if she could get The China Clipper up to speed, that would be great.

November 14th, 2017

Lerissa isn't able to make it this afternoon.

November 7th, 2017

I missed Lerissa tonight at 5 -- but she came at 5:30, and I have that spot open, so that works. Just let me know by email if she's going to come later so I won't wait in my studio for her.

We went through all the songs, and focused on the end of Beautiful Brown Eyes, and the whole song of China Clipper which she said she hadn't practiced. We kind of made the lesson a practice time, going over the various parts multiple times.

I gave her the option to add another song, (Mississippi Riverboat) or to spend the last five minutes just working on China Clipper, and she chose the latter.

October 24th, 2017

We reviewed Lovely Spring, Music Town, and Beautiful Brown Eyes, and added China Clipper.

Remember to make it musical, and smooth... try to memorize so that you don't get stuck and have to relearn.

October 17th, 2017

We worked through:
1 Lovely Spring
2 Music Town
3 Beautiful Brown Eyes

We then did some exercises in the other book.

I wrote out chords to Mary Had a Little LAmb with a treble clef melody, and Lerissa had no problem doing it the first time with Arpeggios.

October 10th, 2017

We did Lovely Spring and Music Town, and a piece in 3/4.

I'd like Lerissa to keep playing the exercises in the beginning of the book to help her memorize all the notes.

October 3rd, 2017

We worked through the exercises book up to first harmony, and then learned the spring song from the l'Auberge book.

September 26th, 2017

Here's the games page:
www.readsheetmusic.info/games

We worked through the exercises up to five fingers in the first book.

We then looked at the "Spring" song in the third book.

She should go through each of these songs every day for 10 minutes.

September 19th, 2017

Larissa said she hadn't practiced much this week, but she had written out Mary Had a Little Lamb and Ba Ba Black Sheep, and it was nearly perfect.

We reviewed what we'd been working on and then looked at two of her books, working through the first few lessons.

She should practice those lessons this week and next week we'll continue moving through.

September 12th, 2017

We went over I See the Light once, and then talked about reading notes.

I did a lesson on how to read 1, 2, 3, and 4 beat notes, and pitch using the "G" clef, (the treble clef).

I loaned a piano book to her that had some simple melodies in it.

June 28th, 2017

June 21st, 2017

Lerissa came Tuesday this week - we worked on the song I See the Light, which is coming along but just needs more practice.

June 14th, 2017

June 7th, 2017

Lerissa played through the song we've been working on, and it was quite good. A few places near the end could be focused on some more, but we'll move on to a new song.

We added I See the Light:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyrYgCvxBUg&feature=youtu.be

May 31st, 2017

We went through the song again, and it's getting a bit smoother. I'm curious why it's not smoother after this amount of time, but suspect maybe not enough practicing. ;)

After that we worked on scales... we did the C scale with both hands, in both directions, and combined them together.

We also worked on inversions again, doing the C F and G inversions with both hands

We introduced the G scale as well.

May 24th, 2017

May 23rd, 2017

Larissa is coming tomorrow.

May 17th, 2017

We worked on How Far I'll Go, especially concentrating on switching chords quickly, playing the right rhythm of the melody, and doing it with both hands.

We then reviewed Rudolph, and went over the C scale with both hands.

May 16th, 2017

Lerissa didn't make it tonight.

May 10th, 2017

We reviewed Rudolph, then I wrote out the chords for a new song that Lerissa had written in her book. It was called How Far I'll Go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPAbx5kgCJo

We also worked on the C scale with both hands, using the "thumb-over" and "thumb-under" technique to keep from running out of fingers.

I'd like her to practice this with both hands.

May 2nd, 2017

We went through Rudolph a few times, and I added the second half of the song.

I introduced her to 7 chords today, as well as talking about the difference between minor and major chords on the piano.

April 26th, 2017

Started a little late in this lesson, but made the most of the time - Lerissa played through Jingle Bells, and then we did Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. (LOL)

April 18th, 2017

We learned Jingle Bells with the melody in the right hand and an arpeggio in the left hand. We learned in the key of C.