Rock & Roll 101

April 22nd, 2025

Macy worked on memorizing the second line of the Cups Song, and then played it through to the end for me.

After that she wanted to add a new song, so we added Old Country Soul by The Reklaws

April 15th, 2025

Macy is sick today and won't be coming to lessons.

April 8th, 2025

We worked just on the second line of the Cups song, and tried to help her get the timing right, and to change the notes in the left hand on the right beat.

April 1st, 2025

Macy was feeling a little overwhelmed by Our Song, so we decided to add a new one. She chose "The Cups Song," by Anna Kendrick.

I wrote out both hands for the first verse for her, and we worked on that in the lesson.

March 25th, 2025

Macy played through You Belong With Me again to warm up. After that, we continued working through Our Song, and I wrote out the ending of the verse and the first line of the chorus.

We played it through a few times, and I helped her with the correct fingering so she isn't contorting her hand to reach the notes.

March 18th, 2025

Macy played through Our Song, and I added a bit more too. I also reminded her to play the right fingering in both hands - using as many fingers as natural and possible instead of just the same one or two for all the notes.

March 11th, 2025

March 4th, 2025

Macy did a great job on You Belong With Me. If you can get her to keep working on it, it's always good for not forgetting things we've already learned.

We then added a new song, "Our Song" by Taylor Swift and went through the first couple of lines a few times.

February 25th, 2025

Macy learned and played the whole chorus for me this week! Good job!

After that, we decided to spend some time really working through the verse up until "She wears short skirts" part.

February 18th, 2025

We spent the lesson helping Macy to memorize the chorus, but repeating it in stages and working through to nearly the end.

February 11th, 2025

We added the next part of the "You Belong With Me" song, the 1st-time chorus. Macy still is preferring to not have to play the left hand, but you should encourage her to do it as much as possible at home.

February 4th, 2025

Macy and I worked through the parts we added last week. She hadn't been using the left hand, so we just focused on the right hand and I encouraged her to memorize it by counting down how many times she was playing every section, and then repeating it over and over.

This is a good technique for practising at home.

January 28th, 2025

We continued working through You Belong With Me, and I wrote out the start of the pre-chorus for her, and we went through it a few times.

I also fixed up a few issues with some of the letters which were hard to read (Cs that looked like Es for example).

Next week we'll continue with the pre-chorus, and maybe get into the chorus!

January 21st, 2025

Macy played through a lot of her songs with both hands. Happy Birthday was one she had a bit of trouble with, so we spent a bit of extra time on it. At the end of the lesson we added You Belong With Me, by Taylor Swift

January 14th, 2025

Went through all of Macy's songs except Jingle Bells, and then added left hand to Happy Birthday. We spent the remainder of the lesson trying to memorize the right hand. She promised to practise all the songs with both hands this week.

January 7th, 2025

We reviewed a few of Macy's songs today, all with the left hand. I asked her to keep refining them with both hands (I think she's been avoiding using both hands).

December 17th, 2024

Thank you so much for the card and gift certificate! You are so generous!

We went through Rain Rain and Down by the Bay, and added some left hand to Jingle Bells.

Great job! See you after Christmas!!

December 10th, 2024

December 3rd, 2024

Macy said she didn't practise with two hands much, so we did that in the lesson, reviewing Down By the Way and Rain Rain Go Away.

We then added Jingle Bells with the right hand only for now, and went through it three times.

November 26th, 2024

Macy did a great job today - We went over her songs, and she included the left hand. I played bass with her on Down By the Bay...
We worked a bit on timing, holding notes long enough.
At the end of the lesson we added Rain Rain Go Away.

November 19th, 2024

Macy started with playing Row Row Row Your Boat, for me, with both hands. She's coming along well!

After that we did Down By the Bay, also with both hands, but she was intimidated by it, so I only let her do a few bars at a time, and we worked through each section bit by bit. This makes it seem less overwhelming, for when we put it all together.

At the end of the lesson we went back Mary Had a Little Lamb but she'd forgotten this a bit. I encouraged her to keep practising it, with both hands, until she doesn't forget it very easily.

November 12th, 2024

Today they were a bit late because Kate got trapped by the school busses.

In the lesson we went through Down By the Bay, and then added the left hand to it and played that a few times.

After that she played both hands for at least one other songs (I can't recall which now).

November 5th, 2024

We continued working through the songs from the last few weeks, doing a teeny bit of left hand here and there.

We added a new one, Row Row Row Your Boat, and put the left hand down too-- she played it for me while I played the right hand, but didn't want to combine her hands yet.

October 29th, 2024

Macy did well today. We went through all of her songs, and some of them with both hands. She said she'd shoot for doing full hands by December (four lessons from now). I won't hold her to it, but it can be helpful to make little agreements like this to get a student open to the idea of pushing herself.

October 22nd, 2024

We spent the whole lesson working through Happy Birthday together. Her first time was pretty disjointed, and I could tell she really hadn't committed much of it to memory, or done it enough times for it to start making sense. In those situations, it's best to just keep doing parts over and over again and adding to it bit-by-bit.

October 15th, 2024

Today we went over Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb, first with just one hand, and then with both.

I wrote out the left hand for Twinkle Twinkle, and we learned it slowly, one hand at a time. Sometimes she gets the left hand and right hand backwards, playing one part with the other hand and vice versa.

October 8th, 2024

October 1st, 2024

We did some more key name drills... she's getting better! I think she'll find piano easier when she's less unsure about her b and her d, and the locations of the other notes on the keyboard.

We went through her previous songs, ending with and focusing more on Happy Birthday until the end of the lesson.

September 24th, 2024

Macy is still struggling a bit with knowing the notes on the piano keyboard. We spent quite a bit of time drilling them, and I timed her to find all the "Ds", or "Bs," on the keyboard, trying to get the speed faster and faster.

September 17th, 2024

Today we went over both Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle together, and the latter we tried to memorize by playing without looking. After doing that, when she looked back to read it she played it much more smoothly!

We then added Happy Birthday, which highlighted that Macy doesn't quite know all her piano key notes yet. It will be helpful for her if she works on memorizing them, so maybe some drills at home will help.

Good job!

September 10th, 2024

We continued with Mary Had a Little Lamb, adding the last bit, which she said she hadn't worked on much. We then focused on the left hand for both lines.

After that we went over Twinkle Twinkle a few times, just the right hand.

At the end of the lesson I showed her how to play through a "magic" scale where she tucks her thumb after the middle finger note (on E).

September 3rd, 2024

Macy is so cute! I love the Laura Ashley look! :D

We started off learning the names of the white keys on the piano. She was able to infer the notes on either side of D, and from that we started playing our first song, Mary Had a Little Lamb.

We worked through playing the melody with more than one finger, and then added some simple left hand using the pinky and thumb of the left hand. It was a little harder for her, so we'll take it nice and easy with that.

We then tried adding another song, Twinkle Twinkle - but ran out of time before getting very far with that.
Two hands, basic notes held in left hand