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Chelsea Hooper
Past Notes
October 3rd, 2022
Chelsea's brother is coming in today instead of Chelsea.
UPDATE: I guess the brother forgot?
September 26th, 2022
We started off again at 65% speed, and got up to 80% -- I asked Chelsea to push herself to 100% speed by next week.
We also looked at Sawed Off Shotgun for next week. She needs to practice E, A, and F#m for that song.
September 21st, 2022
Chelsea came in on Wednesday instead of Monday this week.
We worked through Blackberry Smoke together, and I wrote out more of the song.
I slowed it down to 65% (I think?) so we could play along.
Good job, see you next week!
September 19th, 2022
Monday lesson rescheduled to Wednesday at no extra charge.
September 12th, 2022
We reviewed all the chords from last year, and the two songs from the end of last year...
Work on the hard chords especially, and see if you can play all of blackberry smoke on your own.
See you next week, good job!
July 13th, 2021
Chelsea wasn't well today, so we cancelled.
July 6th, 2021
Chelsea did a good job on the Glorious Sons song, so we added a new one by Blackberry Smoke called One Horse Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj60qju8OJ8
June 29th, 2021
We went over Mama by Glorious Sons a few times, gradually speeding it up from 75% to 100%! great job!
Keep working on that, and learn the new chords I wrote out: C, F, and D minor, so we can learn the new song by Blackberry Smoke, One Horse Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj60qju8OJ8
June 22nd, 2021
Chelsea was able to recall most of the parts of the guitar. We'll continue to review this for the next little while until she has it well remembered.
We then added some new chords, Am, Bm, E, and A
B minor is tricky, but I'd like her to work on it as well - it's a background chord we'll come to for a while until she's able to play it.
We then played through the beginning of Glorious Sons, Mama:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUTZebZIun8
Work on switching between the chords as quickly as you can.
June 15th, 2021
Chelsea started guitar this week.
We began with the parts and names of the guitar, then learned three chords: Em , G , and D.
I showed her how to notate the chords with chord diagrams.
We worked on the strum patterns down, down, down up, down
I wrote out a short chord progression for her to practice.
She should also time herself (race herself) in playing the chords.
March 30th, 2021
We continued with Let Me Be Your Whiskey... we worked on the parts she was struggling with, and then played along with the recording at .75 speed.
I showed her how to set the speed slower, so she can do that herself at home.
March 23rd, 2021
In Chesea's lesson we went through Electric Love a couple of times. Chelsea has struggled with this song, and it is a little hard to make sense of the melody because it is somewhat random, so we decided to move on to a new song.
She wanted to try a country song by someone named Alexander, so we found this one:
Alexander Ludwig, Let Me Be Your Whiskey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZ3WQeAb4s
March 16th, 2021
We reviewed Fur Elise. Chelsea had forgotten to practice the arpeggios with the left hand, but did a fair job at remembering it in the lesson time.
We have decided to move on - we continued working through Electric Love, trying to straighten out the parts of the melody that wasn't quite right.
I wrote in the chords for her to work through as well.
March 9th, 2021
Chelsea did a great job tonight. We added an arpeggio to Fur Elise and went through it a few times. It really enhanced the way the song sounded, in my opinion, and I think she's enthusiastic about it.
We then added a song she's heard on Tik Tok called Electric Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUCuoxOUD6U
This is a fun song - I just wrote out the first 2 minutes or so, and we'll add more at the next lesson.
March 2nd, 2021
Chelsea played through Beethoven's 9th for me, and did quite well! Much smoother.
We then worked further on Fur Elise, repeating sections a number of times until she felt more comfortable with it.
We'll continue practicing this one, especially getting the center line smooth before moving on.
February 23rd, 2021
Chelsea played through Beethoven's 9th for me a couple of times, and we repeated the parts she'd been struggling with a few times. We worked on this for 15 minutes, before switching songs.
I'd like her to continue working on the 9th, and try to get it smooth, without stopping to check the chords etc. Reading ahead of where you are in the notes can help.
We added "Fur Elise" also by Beethoven:
https://www.hacklily.org/?edit=jasonsilver/sheet-music/lessons-fur-elise.ly
February 16th, 2021
Chelsea played through one of her songs from back in December (I can't remember which now, Santa Claus is Coming?) -- and then we talked about note reading.
We started out with looking at a simple version of Beethoven's Ninth, which I will send in a subsequent email as a PDF attachment.
Here's the Lilypond / PDF file if you don't get that:
https://www.hacklily.org/?edit=jasonsilver/sheet-music/lessons-beethoven-9th-c.ly
January 5th, 2021
We cancelled tonight's lesson with no charge.
December 29th, 2020
We started a new song today, "Hallelujah" from Shrek, but Leonard Cohen.
At the bottom of the page are images of how to play a D major and a E major chord, so watch that you use the black notes for those chords when you get to them.
December 22nd, 2020
Chelsea has made improvements on both her Christmas Songs, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and the Grinch. I recorded her playing them and will upload them to YouTube, and share them with you so you can see. I'll keep the video "unlisted," to respect your privacy... Just share with family etc. as you're comfortable. I can take them down if you would prefer.
Next week we have lock down, unfortunately, so if you have decent Internet, we can try Zoom lessons, or wait until lock down is over.
December 8th, 2020
Chelsea played through Santa Claus is Coming, and then we spent the rest of the time working on the Grinch. We went over the parts she had been intimidated about - there were some new chords that we didn't have time to work out last week, so we did that today.
We then played along with the YouTube video at 50% speed (.5). I told her to try to get it up to .75 speed, and showed her how to do that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hj3U18FHgQ&t=9s&ab_channel=StPeteArtisan
December 1st, 2020
Chelsea played through her last three songs for me, and she is coming along nicely. She can keep reviewing these and improving on them, but we decided to add a new song.
We added Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and I wrote out the parts for her. We had five minutes left, so quickly went over You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch.
We didn't get to the chords on this, just the melody. We'll work on the chords over the future week(s).
November 24th, 2020
Chelsea did a really good job on Dance Monkey tonight... I think one more week and we should be able to move on to a new song. I asked her to think about what song she'd like to learn next.
We added the chorus in to this song tonight, as well as worked out how to play the hands together, and add a bass part in with a single left hand note. She should practice that this week.
November 17th, 2020
CHelsea played the carols for me - they're getting better every week! She can keep practising them if she wants to.
We also worked on Dance Monkey - it's coming along pretty good. We put both hands together, which was a bit challenging, but she's getting the idea. We had to really focus on waiting for the full bar of the second chord - counting to 4 before starting the next part of the melody.
November 10th, 2020
Unfortunately Chelsea hadn't memorized Silent Night, but I could tell she'd been working on Jingle Bell Rock. I'll let it go for now, unless she wants to put more effort into it. Sometimes songs just don't draw a kid in as much.
We added a new song this week, by Tones and I called Dance Monkey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gADgM89skZQ&ab_channel=CloudxMusic
We only got the chords and the first verse before running out of time.
November 3rd, 2020
Chelsea did a good job tonight. I've asked her to try to commit Silent Night to memory to help her play it at the right speed.
We went over Jingle Bell Rock a few times and added the chords for the new section... she's doing well on it, and it's better than Silent Night so far.
Keep working on it, Chelsea, you're doing great!
October 27th, 2020
Chelsea did well on Silent Night, although it was too slow, so I'd like her to keep working on it another week. We'll keep going over it until she's got it up to speed.
We also added Jingle Bell Rock, though we ran out of time before we got it all done! She can work on what we have so far, and we'll continue with it next week.
October 20th, 2020
Chelsea is doing so well, I'm quite happy with her progress!
We went through the last song she'd been working on - Faded, and then moved on to a new song from her list, "Silent Night"
We did the melody first, then the left hand, then together. Finally, we added an arpeggio to the left hand and she played that through twice.
Great job! keep it up! :D
October 13th, 2020
Chelsea did a nice job tonight - she had been practicing the new part wrong - using a whole chord in the left hand instead of a single note. We reviewed that and she played it through a few times.
I also had her play the intro and replay it 10 times, trying to smooth out the mistakes and hesitations through repetition. This is the key to practicing at home. If she can memorize it, she'll find it easier to play it musically.
She said she wants to start learning Christmas songs soon. I asked her to make a list, as I'm not sure whether you're wanting to avoid Christian carols, etc. Silent Night is an easy one to learn, as is Jingle Bells, O Christmas Tree, etc.
October 6th, 2020
Chelsea is doing really well. She played through Jingle Bells for me first, and is getting more confident on it. She could continue to work on making it singable speed.
We then went over Faded by Alan Walker, and worked out that there are two notes in the left hand for every one not on the right hand.
We practiced it slowly (this is really important), so that the brain gets used to the motions, and it can be memorized.
I then showed her how to play chords with the right hand, and a bass note with the left hand.
September 29th, 2020
Chelsea did a great job especially on the first couple of songs. She's getting closer to playing them at singing speed.
Jingle Bells is harder to switch in some of the chords, so I worked through her on the chorus part of the song, (Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way), helping her get used to practicing just the parts that need work.
I asked her to work that way at home too - to work mostly on the things that needed improvement.
We then added a new song, Faded by Alan Walker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdpXxGPqW-Y
We just had time for the intro - don't neglect the other songs.
September 22nd, 2020
Chelsea is a natural with playing the piano. I'm very pleased with her progress. I hope she continues to focus and learn her songs, because she's got real potential.
She'd forgotten how to play the G minor, so we reviewed that, and also talked about flats and sharps (flats go to the left to the black note (lower), sharps go to the right (higher)).
We continued working with Jingle Bells, and I added the rest of the chords in. She got to playing it with two hands, albeit quite slowly. She can practice playing it at the speed someone would sing it, without stopping between notes and chords.
September 15th, 2020
Chelsea did quite well tonight. She a very mature girl in how she communicates - I think she may have been nervous, but I was impressed with her show of confidence and consistent effort.
We reviuewed this week's songs, and then did some lessons on minor and major chords, and how to switch between them, as well as flats, and touching on sharps too.
We played Happy Birthday in F, which required the G minor chord and the Bb.
We also added Jingle Bells, her request for Christmas
September 8th, 2020
This was Chelsea's first week - we went through the note names on the keyboard, though she already had a pretty good idea. We also wrote out two songs: Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Baa Baa Black Sheep.
We wrote out the chords for the left hand, and she was able to play through with both hands as well - pretty good for a first lesson!!
I'm very impressed - can't wait until next week!
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