Rock & Roll 101

November 29th, 2021

Olivia did a good job tonight! Considering she doesn't practice, she's a real trooper going through the songs with me here.

I hope she comes back some time, but if not, please all of you say hi to me anytime you see my in the village etc!

BYE!

November 22nd, 2021

Olivia did really well tonight. We worked on playing through Mary Had a Little Lamb with both hands. We first broke it down so she was playing just the melody with me, which I played a beat on drums. After she could play without losing time, I had her just play chords. Finally we put it together, but just the first line, and then slowly adding parts until she could do the whole song.

We ended with Twinkle Twinkle, but only had a minute or two to do that.

November 15th, 2021

Note: Olivia is only taking lessons until the end of November now.

We went over the melodies she's already learned, and decided to add a new song, called Circles by Post Malone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sca9FP6zl8

We worked on the C and F chord for this song, and the first part of the melody.

November 8th, 2021

November 1st, 2021

Olivia has to isolate for two weeks, poor girl.

October 25th, 2021

Olivia is sick today.

October 4th, 2021

You did a great job this week! I know the chords were intimidating, but you're really making progress! I'm proud of how you've done.

After reviewing last week's songs, we added Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran.

Here's the link to Bad Habits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orJSJGHjBLI

It will help a lot to get those piano keys in your memory. This game I made might help:
http://readsheetmusic.info/games/read-keys/

September 27th, 2021

Olivia's mom came with her today.

We went through her songs together, and I played with her on my guitar. She's still struggling to remember what the key names are - this is pretty important but as long as she's trying to commit them to memory, she's doing well.

I taught her what chords are, and showed her how to play C, F, and G. I then wrote out the chords for the first two songs.

We played them through a bit. She should work on getting her left hand to play each finger independently in the chord, like in lessons today.

She's doing great!

September 20th, 2021

Today was Olivia's first lesson.

We started with learning the names of the notes (and used the silly names thing to help).

We then wrote out Mary Had a Little Lamb, Baa Baa Black Sheep, and Three Blind Mice and went over them together a few times.

Olivia was very sweet and enthusiastic! A pleasure to teach! (Don't forget to practice!)