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Olivia Drapeau
Past Notes
March 13th, 2020
Olivia said she'd been working through mostly the first line at home, so we went through the first three lines together, and I agreed it might be best to focus on just one line. She's so tentative at everything she does, that it's hard to even hear the melody in it when she's playing.
We used two hands, and she got a little more confident at playing the hands together.
March 6th, 2020
Olivia forgot her book today - hope you're having a nice time in the sun!!!
I wrote out Let It Go again for her, but just the right hand this time (I think I wrote out both hands before?) and we went over each line 8 times, to help her with committing it to memory.
She said her hands were pretty sore after playing it through so many times, so I showed her how to massage the muscles around her fingers to help relax the hand.
After that she played through the rest of it.
https://youtu.be/L0MK7qz13bU?list=TLPQMDYwMzIwMjCq5pqeLZI5_Q&t=64
February 28th, 2020
Olivia forgot her book today, so she tried to play by memory, but I ended up writing it out for her again... after going through for 10 minutes or so I figured it was time to add a new song.
It's hard with so many cancelled Fridays, and it looks like next Friday is cancelled too ... it seems like too long between lessons, and all my students are struggling. :)
We added Let It Go, and I would like her to write this song in her book, so she doesn't lose it.
Mom and dad can help.
I'd like her to get the right hand melody down smoothly with this one, and then we can add left hand as she gets more comfortable. If she's willing to try both hands now, that would be excellent.
February 14th, 2020
Olivia had been practicing the melody with her left hand instead of playing the left hand part, so we went over it again, and I videoed it - I'll send you the video when it's done uploading.
We were able to get through the whole song with both hands, albeit in pieces. She's very close to getting her hands independent.
The Internet seems slow at St. Pat's today, so I might have to send the video later, when I get faster connection.
January 24th, 2020
Olivia played through Paw Patrol for me today, and is making some improvement. I tried to work on her not holding all her fingers up in the air while she plays.
We also added the left hand notes (they're not chords, just single notes today). I traced her left hand, and assigned notes to each finger. Her thumb of her left hand on A, her pinky on D, and etc.
We went through the left hand sequence about 25 times, and each repeat she got a bit better at not holding her fingers up in the air.
On the last 7 or so, I held her wrist still to encourage her to keep her fingers close to the keys they're assigned to.
January 17th, 2020
Olivia played through Paw Patrol for me, but didn't remember the F# notes and didn't observe the arrows up and down.
We spent most of the lesson just practicing the line so that she was playing it smoothly, and then I added another line.
She was turning her thumb upside down to play it initially, so we corrected that as well.
I videoed her playing it near the end of the lesson as a frame of reference for you while practicing. Don't worry, the video is set to unlisted, so only people who have the link can find it and watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMUYW_K0f1Y
If you want me to delete it anyway, let me know.
THANKS!
January 10th, 2020
Olivia played through We Wish You a Merry Christmas - she played the notes right, but it was reallllyyy slow. :) I'm not sure if it was just not enough practicing, or just a matter of a deliberate and careful personality. If you can encourage her to play songs at the right speed, that will help her in the long run.
We added a new song, Paw Patrol - from the TV show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-U6bU7ukE&ab_channel=forty7
We only did the first line.
December 20th, 2019
Olivia is so sweet! I like teaching her. She's a cutie, and nice and fun.
She forgot her book today, and so we worked on a new song, which I wrote down on a piece of paper. It's called "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."
It's got lots of jumping up and down, so Olivia will have to watch the arrows to know which way the notes go.
We won't have lessons next week, because, well, it's Christmas!!!! yay!
Merry Christmas! Don't forget to go to church on Christmas Eve! :D
December 13th, 2019
Today Olivia played Mary Had a Little Lamb for me. Then we played Jingle Bells. She said Silent Night was too hard for her and her dad, and that she wasn't ready for it yet.
Nevertheless, we went through it once, and I think she did pretty well.
She hadn't completely grasped when to go to the hig hnote or the low note of the note name. Notes are placed a little higher than the one previous, to indicate that one should go up. The inverse is also true. I use an arrow if it's not obvious.
We added Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and went through the melody once or twice.
We added a new feature: repeats.
She's pretty sweet! See you next time!
December 6th, 2019
Olivia is such a cutie!
We went through Jingle Bells, first on her own, then with me playing Ukulele (twice) to help her a bit with timing (which she seems to struggle with somewhat).
We then talked about using the correct fingering again - she likes to use two fingers wrapped around each other to play the same note, but she should lay her fingers down with one finger on each key, including her thumb, as outlined in the little diagram.
We ran out of time, but she wanted to learn another song, so I wrote Silent Night out quickly - we didn't really take the time to go over it, but she's welcome to try it herself if she wants to.
November 22nd, 2019
Olivia did a great job today! She played through Mary Had a Little Lamb quite well, and so we added a new song, "Jingle Bells," just in time for Christmas.
She should try to use each finger rather than a single finger, by placing all of her fingers on each of the notes that will be played.
Thumb on C, up to the pinky on G.
Then we added "The Adams Family" beginning - the part with the finger snapping.
She's doing great!
November 15th, 2019
It looks like Olivia is away today.
November 8th, 2019
This was Olivia'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 words of animals 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).
She seemed to struggle a bit with the concept more than some kids - we'll take our time to be sure she understands how note names work before moving on.
After that I wrote out Mary Had a Little Lamb, and she played it through a few times.
She did wonderfully today! She's a really sweetie!
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