Rock & Roll 101

May 30th, 2023

Willa came for the last lesson for the Shails this year. She didn't have something to learn, so we picked a song from a songbook that looked hard, by Cole Porter for Fred Astair, Night and Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8zHylVk7S0

This was in a Reader's Digest book I had. I showed her how to read chords at a glance based on how the notes are spaced on the staff, and taking cues from the chord diagrams above the staff line.

April 18th, 2023

Today Willa learned two new songs (fun, four chord songs, yeah).
They were:
Taylor Swift, August - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn_0zPAfyo8
This introduced us to some new chords:

F#m7, A7, A/B B7

Taylor Swift, Lover - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvUAzpn48xA

This introduced us to some new chords:
F, D/F#

April 11th, 2023

Today we reviewed All Too Well, and spent a bit of extra time working on it because practising was minimal.

We then added Wonderwall by Oasis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LaTzWMbShY

A fun song-- her mom had mentioned something about playing it with a capo, so I showed a way to play it with a capo on the 7th, and using mostly a D shape, but moving other fingers.

We didn't write the whole thing out.

April 4th, 2023

We went over Taylor Swift, Love Story - Willa is doing well on it. She struggles getting to the open chord B minor 7 quickly, but this will just take practise.

I showed her how to play it as a bar chord too, but we may want to save those until she's a bit more comfortable with the open chords.

We then added Taylor Swift, All Too Well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OQBDdNHmXo

This is in C, and I wrote out the following chords to learn:
C, Gsus, Am7 and F major 7

See you next week!

March 28th, 2023

Willa did well on her Taylor Swift song. We didn't go over the other three, but that's fine... I like it if she plays songs she likes.

We then added Love Story, also by Taylor Swift, and I showed her how to finger pick it. The picking isn't straightforward, but some of the chords are kind of unusual, so I also wrote out plain chords for her to strum through.

March 7th, 2023

Willa did well with the chords she had to learn these last two weeks. We played through them a few times, and then added three chords that complete the set in the key of G. She should now know:

G, Am, Bm, C, D, and Em

We added three songs:
Fire Inside (capo on 1)
Free Fallin
500 Miles

See you in two weeks! (I'm on vacation next week)

February 21st, 2023

Today Willa thought she'd like to learn guitar, so I taught her the C major chord, the E minor, and the A minor.

I also showed her two simple strumming patterns:

down, down, down, down

and

down, down, down-up, down

We learned a first pentatonic scale in D, and some basics of finger picking.

The string names are Every Angry Dog Gets Bitten Eventually

See you in two week!

February 13th, 2023

We went over the scales C and G, and Willa is getting there... she needs to try to use more fingers to achieve a smooth legato sound. Both hands.

We then added the song Stand By Me:

https://www.looper.tube/?v=euHaBjGhUmI&s=272.6&e=289.5&spd=0.65

The above link is to a looper which allows her to play along with someone at different speeds.

February 6th, 2023

I suggested to Willa we set some goals for piano to grow, and reminded her of something of the things I'd asked her to work on, such as inversions for chording, etc.

She said she wasn't as interested in improvising as she once was, and would rather just read sheet music. I must say I'm disappointed, because she has so much potential! I really was looking forward to her getting to a point where she was a chord-master!

She decided she wants to switch to bass, so we did an intro class today. I showed her the G and C scale which I want her to learn to play smoothly (using more fingers). I showed her fifths and octave positions, and we played through Country Roads using two different bass lines (a country 1-5 bass and a dotted quarter/eighth line).

January 30th, 2023

Willa said she didn't have much practice time this week, but she is doing well on Fire Inside, at least as far as the intro.

We added a bit of the solo, but ran out of time on that.

She also brought along sheet music which we worked through downstairs on my grand piano.

January 23rd, 2023

Willa couldn't find her music from last week, since cleaning her room (loL!), so we added a new one today by Bob Seger, called Fire Inside:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAewr48OTTM

We're starting with just the chords so she can play it, and we'll add the solo after that.

January 16th, 2023

Willa played through all three songs. I encouraged her to keep pushing herself to work out inversions, as they make a huge harmonic difference to the playing.

I also asked her to put a list of songs that she'd like to learn together.

January 9th, 2023

I wrote out the chords for three songs for Willa today. She's quick to pick things up, so I would really like it if she put some time into learning inversions and other extras we've talked about to increase the end-result of her songs.

The three songs are:

Adele, Love in the Dark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4wxMngrHis
Harry Styles, Little Freak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJpvI3w3tDc&ab_channel=HarryStylesVEVO
Harry Styles, Sign of the Times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We4QQCMwyrg&ab_channel=7clouds

January 2nd, 2023

December 19th, 2022

Willa played through her two Christmas Songs, and then we added The Grinch (You're a Mean One). We struggled a bit on the first two notes because we were hearing different notes on the beginning (I was hearing a major chord and she was hearing a minor).

I told her it was fine, just play it how she wants to... it's good to practice listening and hearing notes.

December 12th, 2022

Willa came 15 minutes late, but talked about the part she's learning, and about her playing at church once in a while (she's going to think about it).

We didn't have time to work on anything new.

December 5th, 2022

We went over the Nightswimming song but Willa is well on her way with this one, so we returned to learning some chording techniques. We went the Christmas songs route with the following:

Last Christmas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvAbKoKYTfE&ab_channel=FirstToEleven
Baby Please Come Home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBycW6iu8GM&ab_channel=MichaelBubl%C3%A9

Willa said she'd put a list of songs together that she'd like to learn.

November 28th, 2022

Willa added a new song she brought with her today called Nightswimming by REM.

It's sheet music, so we worked through it together, and I gave her some tips for visualizing the chords, melody and bass line to make the sight reading faster and easier.

November 21st, 2022

Willa had practised the first verse and really did well on it, but had avoided the chorus. We talked about practising the parts that one is good at, and avoiding the other parts, and how that's not ideal.

I helped her to learn the chorus and the solo, and she's going to try to focus on learning the difficult stuff.

November 14th, 2022

Willa did a bit of enhancement of the Tiny Dancer song, but is getting tired of it, so we decided to add a new song. We added Dancing On My Own, as covered by Calum Scott:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnQMd5ugUR8&ab_channel=7clouds

A fun piece, I think she should be able to figure a lot of it out on her own

November 7th, 2022

Willa won't be here tonight.

November 1st, 2022

Willa came in Harrison's spot tonight.

We worked through Tiny Dancer, and I showed her some "tools" she can add to her tool box to make her playing more complicated and interesting, instead of just playing quarter note chords throughout the song.

We talked about sixths with passing tones, glissing/ghosting over 2nds, inversions to keep chords close to each other, and arpeggios in the left hand.

Try that this week, and next week we'll add some more tools to your toolbox.

October 24th, 2022

Willa played through her songs for me today, and did really well especially on Beautiful Day. Drops of Jupiter wasn't quite as refined, but we decided to move on from it to Elton John, Tiny Dancer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65CNtap6bow

I didn't finish writing it out for her, but got it started and shared the file with her via Google Drive.

October 18th, 2022

Great!

This week add inversions on Drop of Jupiter,
Work on Beautiful Day, getting eighths in the left hand.

See you next week!

October 11th, 2022

Willa did great on Your Song and Piano Man! Really coming along! I asked if she wanted to try to play the 7ths and major 7ths, and she's going to work on that this week.

We then looked through other songs to learn, and settled on some of the following over thenext few weeks:

Hey There Delilah,
Imagine,
Drops of Jupiter,
Stay With Me,
Last Christmas

Today we worked on Drops of Jupiter briefly and Stay With me

October 4th, 2022

Willa has an overnight camping trip this Tuesday with school and so will have to miss her lesson this week.

September 27th, 2022

Willa did well with Your Song and Piano Man. We talked about next steps for both songs, which included pedal, inversions of chords, maybe dynamics, and adding some of the fancy parts that are played.

I showed her how to do the country piano lick that Joel uses on the D and G chords.

I showed her how to play the Elton John arpeggio style as well, and she played it through that way a few times.

Great job today!

September 20th, 2022

Willa played through Let It Be for me, and we talked about the third verse, which is an instrumental solo. she can play the notes as written in the verses for that section (the stems go up there, while the accompaniment notes have stems pointing down).

We then looked at two other songs: Your Song by Elton John and Piano Man by Billy Joel. I gave her some charts I did years ago, which are just the chords.

I asked her to be mindful of the best sounding inversions, but not to feel overwhelmed by it.

September 13th, 2022

Willa brought some books today, and we went through a few coldplay songs and others.

We decided to focus on let It Be, with a combination of reading based on the chord diagrams and the information we can glean from the left hand and other notes in the chord.

I asked her to at least do the first full page, and if she can make time, to learn the whole song in an accompaniment style.

September 6th, 2022

Today we talked about what Willa already knows, and I filled in some gaps in her theory regarding chords and scales.

I put some notes on a piece of paper, which she's going to transfer to a booklet and bring for next time.

She also is interested in learning some Coldplay and other songs, and she'll bring some music books to look through. We're also going to learn to read chord charts, and I'll share a resource of chord charts I've made to help with that process in the future.

Don't forget to make a payment for the whole month up front.