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Gary Maidment
Past Notes
February 3rd, 2020
Gary played through both songs for me that we've been learning they aren't really ready yet, he needs to focus on both hands, and playing without rushing - if you can help him with tempo, and staying steady that will be great.
We added a new one to help with keeping interest, and I shared my selection of worship charts with Gary and Joe (on Google Drive).
The new one is in A, it's Mighty to Save.
January 27th, 2020
We started with reviewing Cornerstone - it seemed like he was practicing some, but he wasn't as smooth as I wanted him to be after two weeks of going through.
I'd like him to keep working on Cornerstone, and also add Here I Am to Worship.
January 20th, 2020
We reviewed Cornerstone together, and worked on the left hand and right hand coordination, and I showed him a style of playing the right hand, which I call "rocking," which is playing the middle finger and pinky fingers together in the chord, and the thumb right afterward.
I also gave him a little keyboard which I have had kicking around my office for years and years, and never use. He can keep it. It has some dirty electronics, so if you have a can of compressed air, that might clean the contacts and help the various sliders and buttons work better.
January 13th, 2020
Gary played over Fosty the Snowman for me, first with both hands, which wasn't very well practiced.
I then asked him to play the right hand alone and he did pretty good. I asked him to repeat sections with lots of errors until he had it mostly right.
We did the same thing with the left hand.
I'd like him to keep working on this for next week.
We then reviewed scales (the C scale) and the proper fingering.
After that, we added Cornerstone by Hillsong Worship:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izrk-erhDdk
I printed out the charts I wrote for the church, and we talked about how to play this style of piano (without melody), using left hand as the "bass" of the chord.
January 6th, 2020
Gary won't be coming to lessons this week - Joe and Sherry are at a funeral in Hamilton for Joe's mom.
December 30th, 2019
The ice is a little treacherous, so Gary's not coming.
December 23rd, 2019
Perhaps Gary is not coming again today?
December 16th, 2019
I think maybe Gary's not coming today...
December 9th, 2019
Gary played through Silent Night for me - he's doing really well on it, especially the first three lines. I asked him to continue working on it, and especially focus on the lines that still need help.
I also asked him to add three note arpeggios to the left hand, going up (c e g c e g c e g etc)
We adde Joy to the World with melody and chords. TO change it up a bit, I asked him to add a percussive left hand - a bit rhythmic.
We had more time so added Frosty the Snowman. We didn't get through all of it though.
December 2nd, 2019
Looks like maybe Gary's not coming this afternoon.
Hope everything's okay! :)
UPDATE: Gary came 15 minutes late, so we went through his songs (he needs to keep working on them so he's not stopping at every chord change).
We then added a new song, Silent Night, just in time for Christmas! ;-)
November 25th, 2019
It looks like I forgot to save notes last week - we added "twos" on the right hand, and reviewed that again this week - he was pretty slow in switching chords through out Deck the Halls, and could use more practice to make the song smoother - it's pretty choppy as he stops, figures out where he is, then continues.
We'll keep doing both of those songs this week.
November 18th, 2019
Gary played through all his songs for me. Happy Birthday was a little less practiced / smooth than the other ones.
Also, reminder to work on the arpeggios in the left hand when doing Jingle Bells - try to pick it up so it's not such a "sad song." :)
We then added Deck the Halls in the key of F. I showed him how to do thirds harmonies by playing the note two keys lower than the one of the melody. Try to do that for Deck the Halls as well.
November 11th, 2019
Gary is doing really well - he's got a lot of natural talent! I just wish he could be practicing on a keyboard that worked better, so he could get the left hand and right hand better coordinated. But he's got an intuition to it, and is picking it up well in lessons.
We reviewed the songs he's been learning, and talked through a few different left hand chording approaches (he'd discovered one on his own, and I showed him another).
I wrote out Happy Birthday for him to work on, and we talked about two new concepts - 7 chords and inverted chords (F/C).
We also played informally through Deck the Halls - he can work on this one if he'd like to, and we'll add left hand later.
November 4th, 2019
Gary started slowly today, but by the end of the lesson, he was doing quite well.
I walked him through it, but getting him to play hands separately, and then together. I also played the left hand, then the right hand while he played the opposite, to help him put the whole thing together.
What I loved was that he slowed himself down, and deliberately worked through the notes in the arpeggio / melody section to help him acquire the coordination. That is KEY, and will make a big difference if he keeps doing that.
We also added Baa Baa Black Sheep at the end, and added two new chords: Dminor and Aminor.
October 28th, 2019
Gary was a bit late today - had a book, but didn't bring the music we wrote on paper. I wrote out Jingle Bells and Mary Had a Little Lamb again.
(He said his keyboard needs double A batteries by the way :)
We reviewed the two songs together, and then I showed him an arpeggio that he can do with his left hand while playing Jingle Bells. We went over that a few times, and he picked up the general idea pretty quickly.
In both songs, he needs to work on switching chords without slowing the song down.
October 21st, 2019
Today we did Jingle Bells, Ode to Joy, and Mary Had a LIttle Lamb.
We did them all in the key of C.
Gary is doing really well, he should practice all those songs, so that they're smooth sounding.
We talked about the pedals - the one on the right is a holding pedal, called the sustain.
Gary said his email is gm1fe10@limestone.on.ca - I can put that in to this program later so he gets a copy.
We talked about fixing the muddy sounding low notes by inverting - though I didn't get into that terminology.
October 7th, 2019
Gary knew the note names mostly, but not quickly, so I showed him the grandma and dog house system, We learned the difference between major and minor chords, and the three major and three minor chords of the key of C.
We went through Time After Time as an example song with these chords.
Bring a book next time, for us to write notes in.
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