Rock & Roll 101

December 28th, 2020

December 21st, 2020

Wyatt was unwell this evening. I didn't charge since we're coming into a new lock-down.

December 14th, 2020

Wyatt is sick today

December 7th, 2020

We went over Silent Night a number of times, trying to get the melody smoother, without so much looking back and forth at the paper, and trying to play it at the speed someone would sing it.

I think he just needs to focus a bit more on memorizing the music (with both hands).

He has a bad habit of using the ring finger in chords instead of the middle finger, and also forgetting the black note (F#) in the D chord.

We worked on memorizing together - first the melody and then the chords (separately). We didn't put them together yet, but he can try to do that at home.

We spent the last minute playing with the drums.

November 30th, 2020

November 23rd, 2020

Wyatt and I went through Down by The Bay once, and then through Frosty the Snow Man. We did the melody and the chords separately, and not together, but he can try to put both hands together on that one this week.

For the last five minutes we went over the drums, and he played the drum beat along with Jingle Bells and Frosty.

November 16th, 2020

November 9th, 2020

Wyatt played through Down By the Bay for me a few times, but it was a little hard to keep his attention - maybe being that much later in the evening.

We went over it about 10 times, in different ways, and I encouraged him to try playing it without looking at the music, which he was able to do sort of.

Memorizing will make a big difference in playing smoothly, and even enjoying it. :)

The last five minutes we did a quick drum lesson. If it's okay with you, I'll use that to motivate him to play through the first 20 to 25 minutes.

I told him I'd give him 600 points for memorizing this week. Points are worth nothing. ;-)

November 2nd, 2020

Wyatt wasn't able to get picked up today

October 26th, 2020

We started with reviewing Down by the Bay - still a way to go with this as far as being able to play it smoothly with both hands at the singing speed.

We then used the remainder of the lesson to practice You Are My Sunshine. There is so much potential there, but just needs to practice more, and get both hands committed to memory so that he doesn't have to read every note and chord, and slow himself down at each change.

I don't want him to get discouraged, so if he's communicating frustration at home, please let me know so we can change gears a bit to keep his interest.

Thanks!

October 19th, 2020

Wyatt is absent today.

October 5th, 2020

Wyatt and I went over Down By the Bay, working on both hands - we timed him going through it, trying to get a little bit faster without stopping. We got to 30 seconds with one hand. With two hands was 1 minute 20 seconds. We should be able to do it a bit faster, so keep practicing that.

Then we did You Are My Sunshine, but ran out of time before getting to two hands.... so keep that up too.

September 28th, 2020

Wyatt and I had fun today, really taking the time in the lesson to practice, as he hadn't worked on the stuff he needed to.

He seemed fine with this, and didn't mind. I broke the various two-handed sections into pieces, and had him play them over and over (10 times each), to increase familiarity and comfort with it.

Sometimes practicing a whole song with two hands can be discouraging, so if you tell him to play the first line 10 times, or something like that, it is easier to notice the improvement.

September 21st, 2020

We reviewed You Are my Sunshine and Happy Birthday with both hands. He said he hadn't practiced with two hands because it was too hard, so we went over them together and re-remembered how it all works. If he keeps at it, it will become more natural over time. :)

We also added Down By the Bay, also with two hands.

See you next week!

September 14th, 2020

Wyatt and I reviewed the music from last year, and then added "chords," with the left hand - using the pinky, middle finger, and thumb, and working up the scale.

We then put left hand chords with Happy Birthday,

We also revisited You Are My Sunshine.

If he can continue to work on all of these, that would be fantastic!

March 13th, 2020

Wyatt forgot his book today, but he had memorized Baby Shark, so we played through that (and I was quite amazed at how well he played it!!)

He said he really didn't want to do You Are My Sunshine anymore (maybe that's why the book was left behind?) so we added Rain Rain, Go Away. This is two hands again. - he tends to want to swap the notes around, so maybe keep an eye on him while he's practicing that he keeps the notes in the right hands.

March 6th, 2020

Wyatt played through Baby Shark for me at the beginning of the lesson, and then said his grandma really wanted him to learn (or loved the song?) You Are My Sunshine, so I wrote that out for him, this time sneaking in a little more complex chording in the left hand.

We played it through 3 or 4 times in the lesson, and he did fairly well, though I had to keep reminding him to play the left hand.

We ended on a high note with another rendition of Baby Shark. That might be a good one for the recital.

February 28th, 2020

We started out going over both hands of Jingle BElls just as review, and then added a new song, Baby Shark... I accidentally wrote it out in the wrong key of C instead of the key of G, so after we did it a couple of times I rewrote it in G, and ripped out the mistake page!

t's a good song to learn because it's so repetitive, but sorry to mom and dad for having to listen to it! :( It's a little crazy!

February 14th, 2020

Wyatt forgot his book today, so we did some other stuff to get him used to future lesson topics.

We started with a review of notes, and then I wrote out the first two lines of Jingles Bells to encourage him to try to use two hands.

He took to it quite well, though resistant initially. I recorded a video of him doing it, and when I get a chance, I'll upload them to YouTube and share (as a private video).

January 24th, 2020

Nice new book!

We went through Happy Birthday, and just touched on the left hand a bit - showing him how the notes in the left hand work while you play Happy Birthday with the right hand.

He wasn't especially enthusiastic to do Happy Birthday again, but wanted to learn Old Town Road:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ysFgElQtjI

The required some steep learning curves, so we talked about sharps, how chords are built, using the thumb, middle, and pinky fingers of the right hand to play them, etc.

We mostly concentrated on the first two chords before running out of time. Each chord should be played two times, and the chord pattern cycles continually throughout most of the song.

January 17th, 2020

Wyatt forgot his book again, and I didn't have notes so we wrote out Happy Birthday for his dad, and played it a number of times. I videoed it and the link is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzylAmoarH8

This is set to unlisted, so no one can see it unless it's shared. If you'd like me to delete it, just ask.

He is playing with the left and right hands in the video, but I want him to practice with just the right hand.

January 10th, 2020

I'm just seeing now that my notes for Wyatt didn't save!

Did they get emailed to you?

December 20th, 2019

Wyatt didn't seem to be very well practiced, so we went through all his songs a few times in the lesson. I asked him to try much harder over the holidays to play through all the songs, and work on the areas where he stops a lot.

We added "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as well.

Have a very hice holiday! Merry Christmas! Don't forget the Christ-child this week! :D

December 13th, 2019

We reviewed the songs he's been learning - it seemed a bit like he hadn't been practicing much, the songs weren't too much improved from last week.

I think he may have been intimidated by O Christmas Tree, as I had to really break it down for him and play little sets of notes over and over (we did sections 5 times in a row before moving on).

By the end he was able to play it through fairly confidently, but a week of practice is definitely needed.

Good job buddy! Keep working.

December 6th, 2019

Wyatt is such a cutie.

He went through the songs he'd been practicing, and did a good job, however to be fair, he does struggle quite a bit with using the right hands. He switches between hands while playing and prefers the left hand. I am not making a HUGE deal out of it, but if you can reinforce every time you see him switching hands, or preferring the left, that will help in the end.

After the songs, I asked him to play through the "twos" from bottom to top with the left hand and top to bottom with the right hand. He should keep working on this.

The "threes" are harder for him, and he resists using his thumb to play the notes, but we need to get there eventually, so that's another thing to remind him of when he practices - "do a few threes, Wyatt. :)"

We added a new song, "O Christmas Tree." This jumps octaves quite a bit, so he may need to be reminded to watch the arrows so he knows which direction to take the next note.

November 22nd, 2019

Wyatt played through Twinkle Twinkle for me, first reading the music, and then by memory.

I then wrote out the next song, in time for Christmas, "Jingle Bells." I included a left hand note for him, which should help him remember to use the right hand for the melody. :)

After going through that twice, we added "Silent Night." I introduced his first sharp (#) symbol, an F#, which is the black note immediately to the right of the F. Sharp means 'higher'.

We went through Silent Night twice before running out of time.

Good job!

November 15th, 2019

Wyat played through Mary Had a Little Lamb for me, first with the book, and then without the book. Then we wrote out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and he played it three times for me.

Keep working on Mary and also on Twinkle this week.

Next, I quizzed him on where notes were located on the keyboard - it took him a while to get into it - if you can help him with this by quizzing him at home, that will help him in the future.

Next we talked about chords, and tried to start with three note chords, but this was confusing to Wyat, so we simplified to two not chords - which I called "twos."

These are two white notes, separated by a not-played white note, which he plays starting low, and moving up to the top of the keyboard, then high, and moving back down to the bottom of the keyboard (the low notes).

Ideally, have him play with both left hand and right hand, to get used to using the right hand more.

He should also play the aforementioned melodies with both hands.

November 8th, 2019

This was Wyatt's first lesson.

We started with familiarizing ourselves with the piano keyboard, and note names. I wrote out the letter values on the keyboard, along with little pictures to help describe the notes:

the D is dog, in the doghouse (two black notes)
the G is grandma, in grandma's house. (three black notes).

After that I wrote out Mary Had a Little Lamb, and he played it through a few times (with his left hand).

I suspect that we might have some challenges with getting him used to using his right hand for the melody notes. When it comes time to add the accompaniment chords to the melody, the left hand will have to do that, and so the right hand is going to have to take a more direct role.

I had him lay one finger on each note including pinky and thumb, so that he can play without moving his hand around.

He did wonderfully today!