Rock & Roll 101

December 5th, 2023

This was Chris' last week. He decided to take a break for a while, as he's not practising and feels less motivated than he used to.

November 21st, 2023

We continued with Tiny Dancer today. We played through the song to start, and then talked about inversions, and how we can make it sound bigger in the left hand, once he has more of it memorized. I suggested he focus on just a verse or two to start, or just playing the right hand along with the recording. As he learns it more, it will be easier to add stuff to it to fill it out sonicly.

November 7th, 2023

Chris said he didn't practise much at all, so we changed gears and I printed out an Elton John song, "Tiny Dancer" - we reviewed reading chords, and went through it a bit.

October 10th, 2023

I guess you forgot tonight, Chris?

September 12th, 2023

Today Chris brought in Page 6 Allegretto from Moonlight Sonata, and we worked through the first 8 bars together. I suggested he focus on just pieces of it at a time to help him get it memorized and smooth before moving on to the next section.

See you in two weeks!

June 28th, 2023

June 14th, 2023

Chris cancelled today because of work.

May 31st, 2023

Chris hadn't practised for the last week, so he went over some parts which I kind of showed him, especially that fast thing in the right hand (Piano Man).
We decided to add a new song, but he didn't have anything picked, nor any sheet music, so I looked online for a while without much luck.
We settled on a song from the Fake Book, which he photographed to work on.

May 17th, 2023

We went over Piano Man together- there were some things Chris had forgotten so we revisited the how if it, including playing the melody at the beginning as the intro, and the little D and G frilly thing that happens in the verses.

He paid me $150 today, and I'm going to send him a receipt thing of all the payments. I'll do that after lessons.

May 3rd, 2023

Chris is doing amazingly well on Moonlight Sonata. I can't believe he's memorized so much of it.

We took a break from it to look at Billy Joel's Piano Man. I printed off a cheat-sheet type chart that I made for it a few years ago.

April 19th, 2023

Chris is doing really well-- I asked him what his family is saying about his playing and he says you're not that kind of family to give compliments, lol! So surprise him and tell him he sounds great.

We're going to also learn Imagine while he's working on Moonlight Sonata, to give him a bit of a break from always working on the same song:

https://www.poppiano.org/en/sheet/?id=9540

I also suggested he go to a music store and pick up a book of songs with sheet music, which had songs he'd like to learn next.

April 12th, 2023

Chris almost forgot, but came about ten minutes late. We worked through the as far as he'd been playing, and talked about a few strategies to help with practising. Essentially, it just comes down to memorizing, so time spent is key.

April 5th, 2023

I missed seeing Chris today -- did you forget Chris?

March 29th, 2023

Chris played through what he has been working on in Moonlight Sonata, and I helped him with some parts he had been wondering about... especially with regards to fingering and the sustain pedal.

March 8th, 2023

Chris didn't practise again much this week, so we talked about some options to make it easier for him. I gave him a keyboard that I picked up along the road somewhere to help him play more often with headphones.

We added Moonlight Sonata, and went through the first page together a few times.

March 1st, 2023

Chris said he didn't make time to practise this week, so we reviewed Superstition a while, and I showed him some of the parts we hadn't reviewed as of yet. We talked about what we could do to make him more motivated to practise, but he said he's just interested in a lot of things and hadn't made time like he should have.

February 22nd, 2023

We went over Superstition. Chris said he was a bit busy this week and didn't practice, but he did remarkably well reading.

I reminded him of some of the repeat markings etc. and wrote some things down in his book to help him remember at home.

February 15th, 2023

We went through last week's songs, and I showed him again how to play Battle Cry.

We then added another song, this one with sheet music: "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder....

https://musescore.com/static/musescore/scoredata/gen/6/8/8/5550886/81a141095549a847aa89ac7b75a3e357a0227659/score_0.png@850x1100?no-cache=1568147459&bgclr=ffffff

February 8th, 2023

Chris did fantastically on Me, Myself, and I. He also played through his other song (which I forget what it's called right now), and then we added a couple of others:

Imagine Dragons, Warriors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPTXAxNeMrE&ab_channel=FelipePenteado

Then we added Battle Cry, also by Imagine Dragons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqdFJlmoRww&ab_channel=TransMY

February 1st, 2023

Chris is doing well. We wrote out a new song by G-Eazy called Me, Myself, and I:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HikG0CbPRGg&ab_channel=LazyFox

We also talked through the circle of fifths, and the Eb scale.

January 25th, 2023

I wrote out the in-between verses part of Grinch for Chris, and then we talked about theory since Chris didn't have another song to work on.

I suggested we could take two routes: learning music theory and developing an ear and understanding of music, or sight reading, and working through how to read and play from music books.

I think he's going to give it some thought.

January 18th, 2023

Chris said he hasn't practiced this week quite as much as intended to, so we worked through some of the parts of the song that needed work

I showed him how to make the left hand be bass notes and the right hand do the chords and melody.

We also wrote out the first part, the introduction.

January 11th, 2023

Chris didn't get the email I sent last week, so we'll have to work out what to do about that. Let me know if you get it this time Chris.

He forgot about the scales last time, so I asked him to work on that.

We also talked about making the playing more melodic, by varying the loudness of the notes, and flowing them together smoothly like a singer would.

We also talked about arpeggios again, and I showed him how to play them with Mary Had a Little Lamb.

Learn the C scale with both hands, up and down the keyboard in opposite and same directions, and the chromatic scale with both hands, both ways.

If you have time, work on inversions for every chord you know, up and down the piano.

January 4th, 2023

Chris did really well with all the work I gave him last week, and wanted more more more! So I gave him a boat-load of things to learn.

I wrote out Mr. Grinch for him, and showed him inversions. He can use the inversions when he plays the song.

I asked him to learn the C scale with both hands, up and down the keyboard in opposite and same directions.

I also showed him the chromatic scale to learn up and down the piano with both hands.

Inversions for every chord he knows, up and down the piano.

Arpeggios in the left hand to do last week's songs.

There may have been more, but I forget now!

December 28th, 2022

December 27th, 2022

This was Chris' first week in 10 years! Great to see you again, Chris!

We reviewed note names, talked about keys, equal temperament, sine waves, doubling, halving them etc. to make octaves and fifths.

I mentioned the circle of fifths.

I explained minor and major keys (and diminished) and that they sound different (happier/sadder). Every key has the same number of major and minor chords, in the same order, of:

major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished.

I wrote out Mary Had a Little Lamb and Happy Birthday. The first is in the key of C, the second in the key of F

I wrote out the C scale fingering, and asked him to work on that too.