Students
All Students | Info | Songs | Notes | Receipts | iCal Link
Michelle Popovits
Past Notes
April 16th, 2024
Tonight we went through a couple of songs on the bass using the octave approach for bass fills.
March 26th, 2024
Michelle isn't sure how things will continue going forward, so we're going to play it by ear a bit. I'll let the other student know that her spot could be available every week, and she can try to fill in when people cancel etc.
Tonight we worked through bass fills some more, and added "octaves" as possible notes to use on beat 4.
March 12th, 2024
We continued playing through a couple of songs where we tried coming underneath the note or above the note on the and of 4. We also did the same use the 5th.
February 27th, 2024
We added another bass fill approach, and talked about when they can be used. The main thing to keep in mind is that they make the song sound bigger and busier, so be mindful of that. When you want it big, then use them.
Next week we'll talk about scales.
February 13th, 2024
Michelle brought her bass and we continued with the transition approaches between chords. We decided on just doing the 5 transition between chords for now, to simplify things.
January 30th, 2024
Today we talked about some other transition approaches.
For example, if there are only two beats between chord changes then you only have two beats to follow the scale to the new chord. Sometimes you can walk right up to it in the scale order (or down), other times you might have to leave some notes out.
We added the song Christ Is Enough as an example song to work through.
January 16th, 2024
Michelle brought her bass today, and we worked on some transition ideas between chords. Playing a 7 or a 3 before a 1 and 4 respectively is one approach. There is also the 5,6,1 before a chord, (starting on beat 4) or the 5,6,1,2,1 (starting on beat 3). We did this in a few different contexts, and moving between different chords.
I also showed her how she can use a notes relative 5th to play transition notes in long held chords.
January 2nd, 2024
Today we went over
- Natural 2x
- Follow You (hard, but close!)
- Sugar (nice)
- Let Her Go (great!!)
- Rolling In The Deep
December 12th, 2023
We went through:
I Can't Feel My Face
I O U
I Want It That Way
Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Rolling In the Deep
Let Her Go
Natural
We Don't Talk Anymore
Passenger
November 28th, 2023
Great job on Rollin' in the Deep! So close!
We reviewed Wannabe, Eye of the Tiger, Shivers, and then came back to Natural by Imagine Dragons:
https://youtu.be/G6m_AQBfaL0
A hard one, a 6/10 in difficulty.
November 14th, 2023
Michelle has been focusing on just two songs, Shivers and Rolling in the Deep.
We went through a few others just to give her some sight-reading challenges.
October 24th, 2023
We went through:
1. The Ocean
2. Knockin' On Heaven's Door
3. Done For Me
4. Let Her Go
5. Sugar
6. We Don't Talk Anymore
October 3rd, 2023
We went through
1. Boulevard of Broken Dreams (4/5)
2. The Ocean (5/5)
3. Rolling In the Deep (4/5)
4. Done For Me (4/5)
5. Sugar (3.5/5)
6. Let Her Go (3/5)
September 19th, 2023
Michelle brought her sheet in again, and we worked through three or four of the songs she's been working on. Definite improvement, she was able to move up a point on all the songs she played.
September 5th, 2023
We started off with Circles, which she'd practised earlier today. Nice solid job. Fills were tight, no problems whatsoever.
Next was Dance Monkey. Tiny bit of rushing at the beginning.
Knocking: Let this one rest in the pocket - just a bit rushed, especially in the beginning. It should feel really relaxed.
By the solo, it felt much more relaxed.
Levitating: Really sounding great! hardly any problems. Half time started out a bit shaky at the [B] section.
Sugar: really good. The actual drum beat you've got down great. A few of the fills are throwing you off somewhat. Especially when there are eighth kicks.
June 28th, 2023
We switched the video of Knockin' on Heaven's Door to this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L81lPm5laX0
June 21st, 2023
Lesson moved to 2:30 Monday, so this one is no charge.
June 19th, 2023
I put notes in the spreadsheet again this week.
June 14th, 2023
I put notes in her spreadsheet.
May 31st, 2023
Michelle did really well today! I kept the notes in her spreadsheet as per usual now.
May 24th, 2023
We used Michelle's worksheets again this week. Great job! Real improvement every week!
May 17th, 2023
We worked through her sheets again, and decided to do a new one by Adele as her song to aim for.
sdsa
May 10th, 2023
We continued working through Michelle's worksheet today.
May 3rd, 2023
Good job today! Some challenges in the fills of Rolling In The Deep...
I marked the songs we did in your spreadsheet
April 26th, 2023
We continued working through Michelle's worksheet today, checking off songs as we did them (and I wrote notes in her spreadsheet to indicate how I thought she could improve on it.)
Good job!
April 19th, 2023
Here's a link to where I'm putting notes on the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aU1dU64jU1XenM-q2QPH6V6baoe9j_Rh1S3FX5hqCDQ/edit#gid=0
April 12th, 2023
We worked through Michelle's spreadsheet today. She had a checklist for practising, with ticks for the days she's worked on songs.
She has grouped songs into lists and we worked through a smattering of the songs.
April 5th, 2023
We worked through the easy drums playlist again. I asked Michelle to consider recommending a playlist order of easier to harder so I can alter my playlist for future students.
We agreed that she is doing much better, even reading a new song through the first time without any problems!
March 29th, 2023
A couple new ones:
https://youtu.be/mUEwepXR5oc
https://youtu.be/OFbM4BKDOfU
March 8th, 2023
Michelle hadn't practised as much as usual this week, so we went through and played a number of fun songs from the easy drums playlist.
March 1st, 2023
Michelle hadn't practised this week, so we decided to just play fun songs. I put on the easy drum list and we played through them together.
February 22nd, 2023
Moves Like Jagger
https://youtu.be/ZCWa3TMSNTw
Eye of the Tiger
https://youtu.be/TJmo7g69TOM
Tina Turner, Simply the Best
https://youtu.be/ujL_6OUxb8U
February 15th, 2023
We went through the reading excercise and Michelle did really well on it.
Then Closer, and it was great too- let's review it again next week for the open high hat thing.
Then we added Natural by Imagine Dragons:
https://youtu.be/G6m_AQBfaL0
Fun one!
February 8th, 2023
We got Sugar up to 100% speed, and then added Closer by the Chainsmokers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed9mYhaAgss&ab_channel=DRUMMATE
A fun one! We did it 100% speed first, and then 75%.
February 1st, 2023
We started out with a few of the easier drum songs, and then went over Sugar at first 75 and then 80% speed.
I haven't yet deposited your check. Thanks!
January 25th, 2023
We cancelled the lesson because of snow. No charge. :)
January 18th, 2023
Reading Excercise:
https://youtu.be/Qp4flocUmxM
Knocking on Heaven's Door:
https://youtu.be/L81lPm5laX0
Charlie Puth, Done For Me:
https://youtu.be/Zpv496aoBYE
Maroon 5, Sugar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzbxy40hO-Q
January 11th, 2023
Knocking on Heaven's Door:
https://youtu.be/L81lPm5laX0
Adele, Rolling in the Deep:
https://youtu.be/iIi9glOjygk
Charlie Puth, Depend For Me:
https://youtu.be/Zpv496aoBYE
Passenger, Let Her Go:
https://youtu.be/SdvnKHbHMVA
January 4th, 2023
Michelle did amazingly well tonight, making only the occasional mistake on the three songs she had been working on.
December 28th, 2022
December 27th, 2022
We went through the easy drum playlist, and then some reading exercises. We then added a few new songs (already in the easy playlist).
They were:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tjsS6Hfmo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3lehTwTOwc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PneYcwLz2LM
The exercise playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4flocUmxM&list=PLVR4Pzl5lJZ114koesAVMgpqpH0V8GO2x&index=4
December 21st, 2022
Here's the easy drum playlist again:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVR4Pzl5lJZ1AS5TQlGil7jhKO9_x9fGc
December 14th, 2022
We went over a lot of songs together, and then at the end added a new song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Rnh_yKE3I
Good job tonight!
December 7th, 2022
We played through the beginner reading exercises a few times, and then the Internet was being difficult, so we worked on triplets, with me on the piano. They sound just a bit like dotted eighths, so it can be tricky to differentiate the two.
If dots were eighth notes, here are dotted eighths, separated by the pipe symbol:
|...|...|..|
Notice how the dots add up to 8?
But triplets try to even out the spacing so that the first two are a bit shorter and the last one is a bit longer.
November 30th, 2022
Here's the one we never got to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4flocUmxM
Here's the simpler "beginner" version of the reading excercises:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ssC7VfkQWE
Good job!
November 23rd, 2022
Here's the reading exercise we worked through:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIMQya8u6Qc&ab_channel=InyoSoro
Here's a drum oriented one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF0DqJVwYQg&ab_channel=SightReadDrums
November 16th, 2022
Here are this week's new songs:
Eye of the Tiger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmo7g69TOM
I Want It That Way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVye7YjEqIo
Rolling in the Deep (Do it another time)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIi9glOjygk
November 9th, 2022
Spice Girls, Wannabe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BJU0gCZgP0
IOU:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEaL7EoPeYk
November 2nd, 2022
Great job on the songs Stayin Alive and I Can't Feel My Face.
New songs:
Free Fallin'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL70leJIEeE&ab_channel=DRUMMATE
Get Lucky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NiwohhJsw&ab_channel=DRUMMATE
October 26th, 2022
Michelle is unwell this week.
October 19th, 2022
Here's looper.tube:
https://www.looper.tube/?v=x8Fza2ZuRLE&s=78.8&e=95.8&spd=0.85
October 12th, 2022
Stayin' Alive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8Fza2ZuRLE
I Can't Feel My Face When I'm With You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aieFH9ODJGU
October 5th, 2022
Great job today on Monkey Dance!! That was amazing!
This week, Levitating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvWTOEVOeno
Work a bit more on Monkey Dance at 100%.
September 28th, 2022
Great job on Billy Jean! Way to nail those fills! That was awesome!
Here's the next song,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAmgEaQ3fCk
Have fun!
September 21st, 2022
We reviewed Billie Jean, and played it at slower speeds, down to 65% at the end.
I emailed Michelle the javascript bookmark code for slowing a song down to a custom amount.
September 14th, 2022
This is the Circles song from last week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P69ooyukIKs&ab_channel=DRUMMATE
Here's the easy drum playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVR4Pzl5lJZ1AS5TQlGil7jhKO9_x9fGc
This is the Billie Jean song we did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3lehTwTOwc
This is the Thriller song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPAd-4dzFu0&
September 7th, 2022
This is the one video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFbM4BKDOfU
This is the other:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MQnuDmNT2k
See you Sunday!
December 17th, 2019
Michelle and I had a nice chat in lessons today! :)
December 10th, 2019
We worked more on Sunglasses at Night, and looped the first part of the song at 85% and then 80% of the full song speed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxcZAHTyVCI
December 3rd, 2019
Michelle brought Sunglasses At Night, and we worked our way through the chorus part, which has the snare and hi hat in it together.
November 26th, 2019
We had a very nice chat in our lesson time today. :D
November 19th, 2019
Today we worked on some drums songs that are fairly new, as well as one that she selected for the baptism service this Sunday.
November 12th, 2019
Michelle brought some Cory Hart Tab with her for Sunglasses at Night. We went through her chart and I notated the drums through the first half or so of the song.
One option is to search YouTube for "drum cover" for the song in question. I like CrappyAssDrummer for learning drum parts because his kit is well videoed, and he plays simply.
November 5th, 2019
Jason sick today.
October 29th, 2019
Michelle was sick tonight.
October 22nd, 2019
Michelle did the drums today,and so we played through three worship songs. She was really solid, except for a few fills that started in the wrong beat (or just went too long).
October 15th, 2019
We went through Every Rose Has It's Thorn on the acoustic guitars:
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/poison/every-rose-has-its-thorn-chords-130272
This is a good one, because the chord changes are infrequent, and simple.
October 8th, 2019
Michelle brought her whistle in today, and I wrote out the intro melodies to two of the worship songs we do: Be the Center and In Christ Alone.
We went through them a few times with me on guitar.
October 1st, 2019
Michelle brought her acoustic in again. We went through Come Away With Me, and then printed out Free Fallin' and looked at the Bsus chord
September 24th, 2019
The acoustic was in this week, and we worked through Nora Jones Come Away With Me together.
September 17th, 2019
September 10th, 2019
Michelle brought a violin in this week! We went through a tutorial together on holding the bow, and she made some notes on the high e string.
September 3rd, 2019
June 25th, 2019
June 18th, 2019
June 11th, 2019
June 10th, 2019
June 4th, 2019
May 28th, 2019
May 21st, 2019
May 14th, 2019
May 7th, 2019
April 30th, 2019
April 23rd, 2019
April 16th, 2019
April 9th, 2019
Michelle is on vacation this week.
April 2nd, 2019
March 26th, 2019
March 19th, 2019
March 12th, 2019
March 5th, 2019
February 26th, 2019
February 19th, 2019
February 12th, 2019
February 5th, 2019
January 29th, 2019
January 22nd, 2019
January 15th, 2019
January 8th, 2019
December 18th, 2018
December 11th, 2018
December 4th, 2018
November 27th, 2018
November 20th, 2018
We played through Joanne's potential song list, at least as many as we could get through.
November 13th, 2018
November 6th, 2018
October 30th, 2018
October 23rd, 2018
We didn't have the songs picked yet for Sunday, so Michelle played through the drums from a previous service. We went through all the songs, and she was able to play them quite well- a couple of them good enough for a service on Sunday morning.
October 16th, 2018
Michelle and I worked through the songs from last Sunday in preparation for playing as a sit-in drummer on Wednesday nights when Steve is playing but cannot make it to rehearsal.
October 9th, 2018
We reviewed Michelle's notes on Good Good Father
October 2nd, 2018
We jammed together on a few different drum beats. The accuracy of Michelle's timing was really evident in the beats she'd been working on over the summer etc.
September 25th, 2018
We went over her drums parts for All Yours, and talked a bit about her bass playing this last weekend.
Great job!
September 17th, 2018
Michelle came on Monday this week.
She brought her bass, and we talked about different approaches for enhancing and elaborating what she does on the bass.
They were leading notes, and vibrato.
September 11th, 2018
Michelle had a bunch of notes and questions which we worked through together. Her plan is to use this approach from now on; playing at home but asking detailed questions in the lesson time.
September 4th, 2018
Today we went over Bless the Lord (10,000 Reasons) drum parts, notating and working out the drum parts.
June 25th, 2018
June 19th, 2018
June 12th, 2018
June 5th, 2018
May 29th, 2018
May 22nd, 2018
Michelle is in Las Vegas this week.
May 15th, 2018
May 8th, 2018
May 1st, 2018
April 24th, 2018
April 17th, 2018
April 10th, 2018
April 3rd, 2018
March 27th, 2018
March 20th, 2018
March 13th, 2018
March 6th, 2018
February 27th, 2018
February 20th, 2018
February 13th, 2018
February 6th, 2018
January 30th, 2018
January 23rd, 2018
January 16th, 2018
January 9th, 2018
January 2nd, 2018
December 19th, 2017
December 12th, 2017
December 5th, 2017
November 28th, 2017
Michelle's going to come 10 minutes earlier next week since Karate is moving to the building near the restaurant.
November 21st, 2017
November 14th, 2017
November 7th, 2017
October 24th, 2017
October 17th, 2017
Michelle brought some mallets and brushes which we talked about a bit.
We worked through some worship songs, same as before. We spoke again about developing a beat by adding features to it - quarter hat to eighth hat from verse to chorus, or switching the hat to a ride for a bridge, that kind of thing.
October 10th, 2017
We went through three or four worship songs, talking about the evolution of the beat - from simple to more complex.
October 3rd, 2017
September 26th, 2017
This week we reviewed Rising Sun... worked on some of the beats in the intro (sixteenths), with an open hat on the and of 4.
bridge (wrote out the up beats on the ah of 1 and flam on and of 2, and snare on 4. Kick and ride on all beats.
We also looked at verse - 8th note groove - open hat on last bar on the 4.
Next week, let's look at the same love.
September 19th, 2017
We worked on Mountain, and Michelle had really practiced it - she was right on through the whole thing. We worked on the bridge a few times just to practice it. Great job!
We then added a new worship song for her to work on: Rising Sun ☀ï¸.
We talked through it, and then I suggested she use the youtube video as her frame of reference for general arrangement.
September 12th, 2017
We went over Mountain a few times and focused on the quiet spot, where she can use some light cymbals (on beat 4) and a swell starting on beat 2 and ending on beat 1.
September 5th, 2017
6/8 Covered
4/4 Blessed Be Your Name
2/4 Born of God
4/4 Come to Save Us
June 27th, 2017
June 20th, 2017
June 13th, 2017
June 6th, 2017
May 30th, 2017
May 23rd, 2017
We played through some newer worship songs, focusing on counting 8 measure phrases. We did some songs that had 12 measure (or 9 measure) phrases as well, and she really go the hang of it by the end.
The last song was more complex, and we took a bit of a break from it.
May 16th, 2017
May 9th, 2017
May 2nd, 2017
April 25th, 2017
April 18th, 2017
April 11th, 2017
We jammed again in our lesson, playing through a number of songs in different metres etc.
April 4th, 2017
We played through some worship songs tonight, with Michelle trying to play along using some of the techniques we have been working on.
It went really well! Besides occasionally losing the beat, or speeding up a teeny bit, it was a natural transition and a great next step.
March 28th, 2017
March 21st, 2017
We chatted a lot in the lesson, but talked about different emphasis on the various beats to give it dynamics. For example, the last kick in the pattern you've been learning could be played softer.
March 14th, 2017
March 7th, 2017
We did some jamming with the drum beat we've been working on, incuding switching the hi hat open around and flamming on beat 4, and crashing on beat 1 every 4? or 8 measures.
February 28th, 2017
Michelle is sick today.
February 21st, 2017
February 14th, 2017
This week we did the Nicene Creed again, and Michelle had spent hours practicing it... it really showed.
She was able to do two of the fills we talked about last week, the flam snare on 4 and the tom toms fill on the double bar line phrases.
February 7th, 2017
January 31st, 2017
Michelle is sick this week.
January 24th, 2017
January 17th, 2017
January 10th, 2017
Michelle came in the morning to avoid the snow storm in the evening.
We continued working on the fancy kick beat, and started adding the second fill on her page by starting with the 4 sixteenths on beat 4, and working left.
January 3rd, 2017
We continued to work on the 16th's beat with the fancy kick. We added a crash on the first bar of every 2 (and every 4 later), and added a flam and then tom on beats 4 and "4 and"
December 27th, 2016
I was sick this week, so cancelled with Michelle. We'll find a place to do a make-up in the future, maybe a one-hour lesson some time.
December 20th, 2016
Michelle has been working on the kick on the ah - ee of beat 3, and is really getting tight with it.
We worked on it together, with me playing bass, and then I suggested we add a bit of complexity. First we alternated between that kick beat and a simpler 1/3 kick beat. Then we added 16ths on the high hat.
I suggested she try crashing on those beats, and adding quarters on the hat as well to vary what she's doing and cement the kick beat into her subconscious.
December 13th, 2016
We went through the Nicene creed song some more, and broke it down into a simpler form for resetting oneself on... just simple eighths to start, then adding in some more complex kick, before returning to the hard hi hat part.
December 6th, 2016
November 29th, 2016
Michelle has been working on the high-hat in the Nicene Creed Song, and so we worked through that a few times, with me indicating the downbeat '1' to keep her on beat.
We did it a few times, with me giving less and less assistance on the beat.
November 22nd, 2016
We spent the majority of the lesson tonight going through some songs that we do at the Crossing service. The Apostle's creed, collect for purity, and Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
November 15th, 2016
We continued with the drum exercises we wrote out last week, which were two fills, one with a triplet and a flam.
She didn't want to learn anything new, so we just refined things, including stretching out the triplet just a bit more, giving some more distance between the two shots in the flam.
November 8th, 2016
We reviewed the three-four beat she'd been working on with the open hat - she has the first one down perfectly, and will work on the second one this week.
We also added two fills - an easier one and a harder one.
November 1st, 2016
Michelle had the three four beats down really tight, and her timing has come so far. We added open high hat sounds to the three four beats as a way of pushing further into this.
October 25th, 2016
We worked through the 3/4 time signatures for the whole lesson again.
October 18th, 2016
We worked through about 9 different patterns to practice with 3/4 time... I wrote them out for her to work on.
(She left them here, so i'm to remember to bring it along on Saturday night)
October 11th, 2016
We worked through a couple of songs on the drums from last week's service, and also talked about triplets a bit.
She's going to work on triplets with her electronic drums at home.
October 4th, 2016
Tonight we did something a little different - we just jammed together, and Michelle ad libbed
September 27th, 2016
We reviewed Nicene Creed a number of times, with a manual click (jason!)...
She asked me to send her a file of the creed with a click track on it... did that Wednesday morning.
September 20th, 2016
We went through the drum/hat/snare parts for The Nicene Creed Song, and I wrote them out for you - Michelle played it the way she had been learning, and had heard the highhat only when the highhat was open, so was trying to do that - pretty challenging to do it that way, but she was on the right track.
After that we went through Collect for Purity. We did quarter note first, then eighth.
September 13th, 2016
Michelle played through the Apostle's Creed Song a couple of times, and I made some suggestions -- open high hat once, and some additional cymbal trills.
We then started the Nicene Creed Song.
September 6th, 2016
June 28th, 2016
Michelle brought her snare and stand, along with her new head tuner. We tuned her snare and tried a couple of different pitches. Ultimately we decided that a mute on the head will help the ringing the most.
June 21st, 2016
We went over the songs we could for Saturday night, and then I called out chords for the new one.
June 14th, 2016
We went over last week's songs, but this time trying an old technique we'd learned a long time ago for moving between notes- "stepping into" a note from the note before. These can either be half step or whole step transitions, keeping within the scale we're using.
June 7th, 2016
May 31st, 2016
We added a new "feature" or "vocabulary item" to Michelle's toolbox today- playing a fifth on three different positions in a bar- either the and of 3, the and of 2, or beat 4.
We played the first one on a number of songs to give her a feel of how it works. It makes a big difference!
May 24th, 2016
May 17th, 2016
I sent a few charts from the past to Michelle, and we played some newer ones, then tried playing some in the Google Drive.
May 10th, 2016
We went over the songs for Saturday night together
May 3rd, 2016
Michelle brought in the charts form last weekend and we went through the songs together.
April 26th, 2016
We reviewed last Saturday's music, and worked on the pushes in the last song, Everlasting God - it was fun working out those beats, on the 'ands'
We then went over the new song from Saturday, and played with the recording.
April 19th, 2016
We went through a song from last week's service, adding a dotted-quarter note beat (a push) on the and of 2. We tried it with the whole song to start, then did it again but only playing the push on the chorus.
April 12th, 2016
April 5th, 2016
We went over the songs coming up this weekend (though she's not playing Saturday). There was one that had a hard rhythm on it, and I wrote it out for her, and helped her through that before we went on to the other songs.
She sight read them very well!
March 29th, 2016
March 22nd, 2016
We went through some more of the worship songs, working out eighth note, quarter note, and whole note parts for them.
We found that playing whole notes in a soft spot, playing quarters in a building spot, and eighth notes in an upbeat spot give a nice development to the song.
March 15th, 2016
March 8th, 2016
Michelle and I went through a few songs with the eighth note "pulse" in the bass.
We then worked on playing a couple of drum beat styles along with the kick drum.
We came upon a bit of a challenge when the chords change on a down beat, but the bass is playing a pushed upbeat. In these instances, generally, the bass will play the next note, ahead of when the chord should play.
We thought this might be a bit advanced for Michelle at this point, and so I put another beat into her program.
March 1st, 2016
We went through the new songs from last Saturday night together.
She might need to play this weekend, and the songs aren't picked yet.
February 23rd, 2016
We added a new 6/8 drum beat, and talked through when one should use a higher octave for playing in soft spots, and looked at a few positions on the neck.
February 16th, 2016
February 9th, 2016
We talked about playing different positions on the neck, and especially just the same form from different strings, up higher.
We did this with a song from last week's worship service.
I wrote out a new drum pattern for her to work with.
February 2nd, 2016
Michelle brought her drum machine software in, and we hooked it up to the sound system to play along. We went through last week's worship songs and she was able to play along with the more complex bass line without any problems. Really sounds a lot better, and nice a solid.
I put another drum beat in her pattern maker for her to try.
January 26th, 2016
Michelle and I talked about the next step in bass playing, adding rhythm aspects to the playing. We listened to a couple of drum beats and identified the kick drum, which she would play along with. She could continue on her own with this by playing the drum beats on her iPad.
January 19th, 2016
Michelle is playing bass this coming weekend at church, so we went over the three or four of the songs and worked through some tricky parts.
January 12th, 2016
January 5th, 2016
Michelle forgot her bass, we used my red bass instead. We went through the songs from last Saturday together-- she's really developing. Great job Michelle!
December 29th, 2015
We reviewed some worship charts again, from a few weeks ago.
December 22nd, 2015
Michelle was sick this week.
December 15th, 2015
Michelle tried to get an app to work in the beginning of the lesson, and then we went through last weekend's songs with the bass.
December 8th, 2015
Michelle and I worked through some songs from a past worship collection of charts. She's ready!
December 1st, 2015
Michelle and I reviewed last Saturday night's charts, playing through most of the songs, including some of the 'regulars.'
She brought her bass in with the amp as well, and I took a look at the settings etc.
She's really coming along!
November 24th, 2015
November 17th, 2015
Michelle and I worked through the charts for this coming weekend's service-- charts she hadn't been exposed to before.
She was able to play with nearly no mistakes, which is fantastic!
Next steps is to introduce some rhythms to the bars, to match the kick drum.
November 10th, 2015
November 3rd, 2015
Michelle brought her bass again, and we went through some of the songs on the PDF. Big improvement over last week, working with the metronome has helped.
I'll send a few more PDFs from past weeks to look at.
October 27th, 2015
The power was out, but Michelle had a battery powered amp, and I had candles, so we went ahead with the lesson.
We reviewed the charts that I sent her from church a couple of weeks ago... she's doing well-- just a bit of issue with timing, and losing her spot.
She sent me this:
Hi Jason,
I'm gearing my practice these days in a way that will help me to prepare for the volunteer work that we have already discussed. I'm not ready at the moment to do that...but am hopeful that I will be soon. Below are some thoughts I have about what I need to work on and what i'm already doing to help me get there.
Timing
Last night I had issues with the timing. I think I can improve that by playing through those music charts with a metronome for a while (I have a nice one that can run in the background, I tried it a little last night and it felt pretty good). I believe that playing that way for a while will help. I did this years ago with other guitars and I felt it helped then, but hadn't ever done it with bass and not recently. Once I get a better handle on that then I'll go and do the same charts with various drum beats and see how that goes. Recently, I believe I have been relying on reading the words to know where the changes are and I was able to do that to some degree with the recorded music but am not terribly agile when things change (like when we play together and the music is all different - ie. guitar). Other challenges I have is "trying to hard" and "overthinking"... but that should settle down as other aspects generally improve.
Fretboard Notes
My study with learning the fretboard notes is helping a lot..even last night I knew a lot of the time where the notes were. It's great to see that study already starting to yield some benefits. My approach has been multiple:
1) a small printed diagram of a bass fretboard where I visually identify the cycle of 4ths on each string, also, identify the same note on each string - when I have my bass with me I do the same with the bass, but mostly i do this offline with paper so I can save what little time i have with the bass to do other pratices
2) an app on my iphone that quizzes me on the notes.
Fretboard Hand Positioning
To help me find/play the string/fret locations on the fretboard without looking I use different games in Rocksmith 2014 app "Guitarcade" (this is also my warm up most days).
1) String Skip Saloon - shooting bad guys by pressing the correct string (no fret)
2) Ducks Redux - a duck shooting game based on pressing the correct string & fret - I used to look at my hands frequently for this one but starting a couple of days ago I only look at my hands when changing strings - my scores dropped but they are coming back up now and I am starting to develop an intuitive feel for where the frets are though I still make many mistakes.
There are other games for other techniques that I use but these are the most basic ones that I am focusing on right now.
Losing my Place
It's frustrating that I loose my place in the song and end up playing at the wrong position. I believe this will resolve itself when I no longer need to look down at my hands so much and have a better knowledge of the music that i'm working with. So, spending more time practicing the music charts as my skill of not needing to look at the fretboard increases should hopefully resolve that.
October 20th, 2015
Michelle brought her bass in this week, and we started with reviewing the stuff we worked on last year.
We then pulled up a chart for a past service, and worked through a couple of songs together.
October 13th, 2015
Michelle played through How to Save a Life and then we reviewed Hallelujah. She is picking stuff up very quickly again.
We talked about playing bass a bit in church, which she's willing to try.
We added a new song for next week, she took a photo from my fake book of Fly Me to The Moon. I explained flat 5 chords.
October 6th, 2015
Michelle went over Deep Space 9 once, and then we worked through some songs from the past that she brought with her.
The first was "How to Save a Life," and the second was "Stars Go Blue."
It didn't take her long to get the hang of these, but we ran out of time. I suggest next week we go through them once, and then review Hallelujah.
I'll send the sheet-music version of Star Trek TNG and Hallelujah to you.
September 29th, 2015
We went through the STTNG song again, and decided to move on. We reviewed some songs from the past, including Deep Space Nine and Axel F.
I saw that she had Star Wars in her book, maybe for another time.
We also talked about using the Hallelujah song and having her bring her PDFs in on her tablet for next time.
I have a number of PDF files of charts which I can provide if it helps.
September 22nd, 2015
Michelle and I went through the TNG some more, working our way through the first four lines with both hands.
September 15th, 2015
We went through the Star Trek TNG song a few times, first single hands and then both hands. She may still have the recording of my playing it.
September 8th, 2015
Michelle decided to go back to piano for a while, so we went to the grand downstairs.
We started by reviewing some things-- note names, chords, minor and major, scales, etc.
Then we went over the right hand, then left hand, then both hands for Happy Birthday and Star Trek The Next Generation.
I recommended that she work on getting the melody nice and smooth, (maybe for both songs) for next week. As she feels comfortable she can add the chords in as well.
June 23rd, 2015
We went over Billie Jean and added the new part with the D and F#, and I wrote out how long each section was.
See you next year!
June 16th, 2015
We reviewed SHA for the first half, then added Billie Jean by Michael Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75sx7U6dAB4
I wrote on the TAB for her.
June 9th, 2015
We went through SHA together, first slowly, then with the recording. Michelle nailed it!
Maybe be time to think about another song, or try going back to drums on this one and see how learning the bass has affected being able to play the kit on this one.
June 2nd, 2015
Michelle was sick tonight. :(
May 26th, 2015
We had lessons on the back porch, away from the heat, but in the mosquitos.
We went over the numbered sections (forms a and b), and then worked on Sweet Home Alabama.
May 19th, 2015
Michelle brought the bass in again. We went through the four-measure phrases A and B a number of times, then I wrote out Sweet Home Alabama on the bass. We focused on the chorus a while, that has the upbeat hit.
May 12th, 2015
Michelle found a fantastic drum video that shows a sequencer below the drummer playing, and she's going to use this to continue to perfect her Sweet Home Alabama.
So she brought the bass in this week, and we worked through some of the material in her book.
She picked it up very quickly, so certainly has moved things into long-term memory!
May 5th, 2015
April 28th, 2015
Michelle and I worked on the upbeat fill in the chorus, after the 16th note snare fill we worked on last week.
I made a video again as well.
April 21st, 2015
Tonight we focused mainly on the 16th note fills on the snare, and worked on that exclusively. We played with the audio and I had her do the fill every measure or two to get a feel of where it fits.
She should watch that she doesn't speed up on the 16ths, and that the last eighth beat isn't too slow.
April 14th, 2015
We continued with Sweet Home Alabama, and added the highhat, and the high-hat open on the and of beat 8.
We also worked on the 16th note fill on the snare which occurs a couple of times in the song.
I made a video for her.
April 7th, 2015
Michelle and I started working on Sweet Home Alabama:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Du-CWASm20
This song has a variety of challenges, including a double kick, and switching from snare to side-shot for the verses. The hat hopens on the "AND" of four every second measure, and there are some terrific upbeat crashes.
March 31st, 2015
We went over the Seven Nation Army song, working out the chorus especially. After doing the chorus a few times, we worked on the triplets section.
March 24th, 2015
Thanks for the eggs!!
Michelle and I went over the Seven Nation Army song, and focused on the main groove part. We added the snare in, and worked on the triplet section.
She will also add the crash (which she'd been practicing, but we left out in our triplet section) as she practices this week.
I recommended she really work on 'feeling it', rather than worrying about counting how many beats there are between sections. Based on the lyrics and the sense in the song, she is ready to feel when to come in with the next part, etc.
March 17th, 2015
Michelle and I reviewed the triplets she'd been working on, and then worked on the flams on the quarter note triplets.
I suggested we add a song so in the last 15 minutes, I showed her the video of a young man playing Seven Nation Army:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3qy8H6-5WY
This is a good song for starting out because it has a number of elements, like toms, snare, rests, and triplets.
We skipped the triplets for now, and didn't go over the last part of each verse.
March 10th, 2015
Michelle was sick tonight.
March 3rd, 2015
Michelle and I returned to the drums.
She started with a warm up on the drum fill with the offbeats on the toms. She is doing really really good on this.
We then went to triplets, and reviewed last week's lesson.
She has done really well with the quarter-note triplets, but had lost time a bit on the eighth note triplets. We worked for that a bit before returning to quater-note Ts to add a flam to them.
February 24th, 2015
Michelle and I continued with drums. We added the offbeat drum fills into the context of a measure, and then I introduced her to triplets for fills, starting with an eighth note triplet on beat four, then a quarter note triplet on beats three and four.
February 17th, 2015
Michelle and I returned to drums tonight. We quickly reviewed the things she was working on, and then went over the off beat ride and fill exercises. These are terrific for developing a sense of the beat while doing other things on the off beats.
I took a video to help her recall how it works.
February 10th, 2015
Michelle wanted to revisit the drums tonight, so we started with reviewing the quarter note beat, the eighth note beats, and the sixteenth note beats.
We then opened the highhat on the kick beats to give the highhat a changing sound.
We worked on rolls, changing the way she holds the sticks.
We worked on the quarter note beat on the ride, and alternated between the bell and the cymbal. We then tried playing the flat of the cymbal just on the 'upbeats'
February 3rd, 2015
We continued with Hey Jude, and Michelle even recognized a part of the song as she was playing it!
It helps now that we understand the notation system! We worked through the bridge after going through the verses at increasing speeds.
January 27th, 2015
Michelle was feeling a little distracted this week. She brought in a book, and we worked through Hey Jude, and figured out what some of the notation meant.
January 20th, 2015
Michelle and I went over the parts for the song again, then recorded a video of it
January 13th, 2015
Michelle and I continued with the Simon and Garfunkel parts for Time it Was, and added the part for the beginning of I Am a Rock
January 6th, 2015
December 30th, 2014
Michelle brought her little electric nylon string guitar today, and we worked on a basic finger picking pattern with some hammer-ons.
December 23rd, 2014
December 16th, 2014
Michelle brought her tablet in tonight, and had an application from UltimateGuitar.com that would allow her to download charts and interact with the chords.
We went through "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" together, trying a few different charts to get the best arrangement.
Oh- and we went over the chords for Corey Hart's Third of June:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K90M-33k8BI
December 9th, 2014
Michelle and I went through Cat's in the Cradle, and worked out the number of measures for intros and etc.
We then added a new song, "House of the Rising Sun" from her book. The next page was another song "Home on the Range" that we also went through quickly.
December 2nd, 2014
Michelle had really nailed "Hotel California," so after playing it through a few times, we added "Cat's In the Cradle."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OqwKfgLaeA
November 25th, 2014
Michelle and I worked through Brown Eyed Girl once or twice, up-to-speed, then added "Hotel California"
November 18th, 2014
Michelle and I went over the songs she's been learning, then added Brown Eyed Girl.
She's really getting it! Great job, Michelle.
November 11th, 2014
We did some songs today, including Free Falling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A
A Horse With No Name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSAJ0l4OBHM
Learning to Fly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5BJXwNeKsQ
November 4th, 2014
Michelle and I went through her entire sheet this week, playing all the chords and all the patterns. She's really nailed them all.
We were able to add the new sus chords and chord-patterns (Asus, Esus, Dsus) and played through them a number of times.
I'm thinking it might be a good idea to learn a song that uses these chords now, so if you want to think about a song you'd like to learn (or I can recommend one that's well suited).
October 28th, 2014
Michelle was feeling a little tired and overwhelmed tonight-- we decided to just work on stuff she had already done. We went through some various chord patterns, me on bass, and on piano for a while. Same as we'd done before.
October 21st, 2014
Michelle used her paper tonight, and it was a real help to her to see which chords she knows, and which ones she's working on.
We added some seven chords (A7, B7, and E7,) and sus chords (Esus and Asus).
We played around with some chord progressions which used these chords as well.
October 14th, 2014
We just jammed tonight, and Michelle had a sheet of paper that she wrote summaries of our last few lessons, including some chord patterns, some strum patterns, etc.
I added an additional strum idea, and we played through it as well.
She's really developing a good musical sense!
October 7th, 2014
Michelle and I did some more strumming.
There was some sort of communication problem in the rhythm she was playing, so I recorded an audio on her phone of how the "feel" of the 123,123,12 phrasing works. (We think she was adding a rest beat at the end before repeating (123,123,12r))
We talked about learning new chords each week, as something to add to her tool box for practicing. This week is F and B minor.
The F is an "E" up on fret, with the first finger acting as a capo on the first fret.
The B minor is an A minor moved up two frets, with the first finger acting as a capo on the second fret.
September 30th, 2014
Michelle and I continued to work on what we did last week, especially the palm muting with the syncopated accents on the eighth notes. We tried a variety of tempos using her drum software, and focused on keeping on beat.
At the end of the lesson we worked on what she was calling "anchor chords", though we ran out of time.
September 23rd, 2014
Chord pattern with straight four drum beat:
G (with pinky), C (keep little fingers in the same place), Eminor (same thing with little fingers) to Dsus (same thing with little fingers, then resolve to D).
Dsus, keeping fingres on the alt g position
You called them anchor chords.
Palm muting on
E / / / | A / / / | G / / / | B / / / |
B is a bar chord 2nd fret
On eighth beats 1, 4, and 7, accent your strum.
It will look like this:
[: ! . . ! . . ! . :]
September 16th, 2014
Michelle and I worked on the chord patterns that I had emailed to her, and then I taught her a new strumming pattern using the Power G open chord and the C add 9 chord.
The stum was like:
1, 2, '3 ee-and-a 4 (slap)
September 9th, 2014
Michelle and I continued the jamming we did last year, playing along with drum patterns I've downloaded. We did four chord patterns, first with 2 measures per change, then 1 measure per change.
I recommended she pick a couple of new chords to learn, and work on getting them smooth, and we can use them for future jamming.
For example, major 7ths, 7ths, other minor chords like B minor and C# minor, etc.
At some point we can add bar chords to her list.
June 24th, 2014
Michelle and I finished up the vocal recording for her song. I'll make some time this week to pick the best tracks and upload it to Dropbox.
June 17th, 2014
Michelle and I wrapped up the vocals on her song tonight.
Today I went over the vocal parts and took the best sections. There are one or two places that we might consider redoing, but overall it sounds really good.
June 10th, 2014
Michelle and I recorded piano, and then did some vocal warm ups and recorded vocals.
We went over by 30 minutes, but partly my fault for having trouble with the computer.
June 3rd, 2014
Michelle and I recorded drums this week, as well as a trial of the piano part.
Next week we're going to finish the piano, and hopefully have time to record the vocals.
We went over time by 12 minutes.
May 27th, 2014
We finished up the acoustic guitar part tonight, and added bass.
Next week? Piano arpeggios and maybe vocals?
May 20th, 2014
Michelle brought both of her acoustics in today. We started with reviewing the chords for Hallelujah, and playing through it a few times, then recorded both guitars as separate tracks.
She is going to work on the parts again this week, and we will re-record at least her steel string guitar.
We added 15 minutes to the lesson time.
May 13th, 2014
Michelle brought her acoustic folk guitar today, and so we played through a couple of chord sets with different strum patterns.
She said she wants to build her confidence at this kind of thing. I played along with bass and piano (and whistle) to give her the context of an ensemble.
May 6th, 2014
Michelle and I worked through the Van Morrison song (she nailed it!) and then the Jack Johnson song.
We invited Chris to play with us on the drums, and had fun with out little "band."
Apparently Chris is coming again to play drums with us.
April 29th, 2014
Chris came in today and played me a few songs, including one he wrote.
Michelle and I went over "Country Roads," and then added the Van Morrison song, "Ain't Nothin You Can Do"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y-O7RCs1CQ
April 22nd, 2014
Michelle and I started with review (playing few an 8-bar chord progression a couple of times), and then we did "Country Roads" by John Denver, first with me, and then with the YouTube video.
Great job Michelle!
April 15th, 2014
Michelle and I went over the grooves on YouTube a few times, and focused on hearing the kick drum, and trying to play what it is doing.
We did a number of different grooves at 100BPM, including blues and rock.
She wants to look at 5 and 8ve fills/lead-ins next week.
April 8th, 2014
Michelle wanted to just review the things we've worked on over the last few weeks, so we did that. :)
April 1st, 2014
Michelle had a funeral to go to this evening.
March 25th, 2014
Michelle and I reviewed some of the things we worked on last week. We did a full hour lesson to make up for one of the misses. We're still needing to make up one more lesson.
We recorded the lesson again. We played through the bass on most just the one pattern, and focused on adding different types of traditions between chord changes:
1. leading tones, below and above the note in the scale.
2. Fifths
3. Octaves.
We played around with putting the fifths in different places-- instead of just being the last eighth note of the measure, they can be played on any beat in the bar.
March 18th, 2014
Michelle and I worked more on leading notes between pitches.
We added some additional approaches, such as playing octave notes, and using fifths as leading tones.
I suggested she try to play some of the songs we learned already, such as Hallelujah, working on learning the note names not just the numbers.
March 11th, 2014
Joanne was sick on the March 11th week, so I had to cancel lessons that day. This lesson will be made up at some point in the future.
March 4th, 2014
Michelle and I recorded the lesson again, as this worked well for her.
We played through the chord patterns we have been working on, then I talked to her about leading tones and transitional notes, added between two notes... a kind of ladder to get from one note to the next.
Next week I said I'd like to work on dropping notes.
February 25th, 2014
Tonight we invited Seth into the lesson (on drums), and played through the patterns and recorded them.
February 18th, 2014
We jammed again and added Leonard Cohen's song to our list. Michelle nailed it. :)
February 11th, 2014
Michelle and I jammed through on a few different base lines, and she used her instinct to play a bass part that felt right to her.
It was really effective, and other than losing the beat at times, she's really getting the hang of it.
Counting will help, and really focus on what bases tend to play in the music you listen to.
February 4th, 2014
Michelle and I worked through some chords in A, with me calling out numbers, but then we did the same thing with note names (letters instead of numbers) in A -- so that the letters correspond to the numbers well (a=1, b=2. etc).
We did this in A, C, D, and F. (and maybe G?)
I wrote out some patterns for her to try at home.
January 28th, 2014
Michelle brought her bass in this week! Very nice instrument!
We went through the numbered fret system on the bass (she called it play bass by numbers! lol).
I showed her the 1-5 "chess move" and the octave as well... we then played through a couple of songs using the number system, and she picked it up right away.
I described for her how playing the octave lower or higher helps make the part sound more interesting.
January 21st, 2014
Michelle and I worked on Patterns some more, and I showed her how to find drum beats for various BPMs to play along with.
We also talked about EQ-ing your amp
January 14th, 2014
Michelle and I went over strumming, but we combined two strum patterns together-- we did a couple of times through where we did one bar with pattern A and the next with pattern B.
We then talked about melodies and she played a melody on pattern A on the 3rd fret? (I counted as 7th). She added blues notes to the scale.
We'll talk more about blues notes next week.
January 7th, 2014
We did a lot of strumming tonight, and I wrote out some various strum patterns she can use with "The Thrill is Gone."
December 31st, 2013
December 17th, 2013
I forgot to take notes last week.
Chris and I worked on Em and Am, G, and D today, with a drum beat and with a pattern which I wrote out in his book.
December 10th, 2013
December 3rd, 2013
Michelle and I added "The Thrill is Gone" by BB King to our list of songs, and we played it through a few times together. I wrote out (very messily!) the rhythm part for her.
November 26th, 2013
Michelle and I reviewed the 12 bar blues with me soloing on guitar, and playing piano, and she was able to stay in time, and play along nicely.
We then wrote out another 8 bar section, in 4/4, and I notated a different strum pattern. We talked it through for a while, then she played along with the metronome clicking
She was able to play with me, so we tried the chords at two different speeds.
November 19th, 2013
Michelle and I went over the 12 bar blues more, with the metronome, and she worked out when the slap and the up strum occurred. She gradually sped up the metronome from around 50 or 60 to 100 bpm until she felt like it was second nature.
We then tried it with the 12 bar blued in A, and when she was smooth with that she turned off the metronome, and we did it together, watching the chords written on the envelope.
lastly, we flipped the envelope over, and she played by 'feel' and memory.
November 12th, 2013
Michelle and I worked on a 12 bar blues in A, and specifically counting through the strum/slaps so she doesn't lose her place.
I played with her on the guitar and on the piano, and she was able to stay in time quite well!
November 5th, 2013
Michelle brought in her compact electric guitar tonight, and we talked about ways that I can work with what she is learning on Rock Prodigy to expand her confidence and her ability.
We did some switching between 7 chords on the beat, and added more chords each time... she was able to keep up even with one bar between the changes.
We then did a slap strum (down up slap up) pattern.
October 29th, 2013
Michelle and I started by talking about the laptop, which I had forgotten I needed to connect to a cable. Will try again this week.
She was tired, but we worked our way through Moondance a few times. We then went to guitar, and I talked about the focus I take with guitar students. It's important to be able to identify and play the bass note for each chord, as well as be able to play the scale from each main key, using open chords as the starting point.
October 22nd, 2013
Michelle and I went over Moondance with the chords, and worked on where the G chord changes. We then went over the second half of the song's chords, which are a little simpler in that there is only one per bar instead of two like the first half.
We played through it together a couple of times, and then she decided to work on the melody on her own at home.
We then went through the arpeggio part of the song "Yesterday," and talked about how the eighth notes fit into the measure. There are eight of them in each measure, and sometimes a chord only gets to play 4, (because there are two chords in that measure, so they each get 4, totalling 8).
October 15th, 2013
Michelle played through the melody of Moondance, which she has almost completely ready, up until the second half of the chorus (the last eight measures or so).
We then went over a few songs in review, and I played along and sang.
She feels a little intimidated by putting the chords and melody together for Moondance, but said she just needs to focus on it for a bit.
We talked about the software she is using, and is going to follow up with the guys to see if they can get me the type of language it is programmed with (Visual Basic? Something else?)
We spoke about possibly including guitar in the lessons in the future.
October 8th, 2013
Michelle and I worked on her two songs, starting with Moondance. She had the melody down for nearly the whole song, so we spent some time working on the left hand, and putting both hands together.
She wants to spend time alone on it so we moved on to Yesterday.
She's got that whole song completed, and it's sounding fantastic. I suggested she use arpeggios on the left hand, and we recorded a video of how that would work.
October 1st, 2013
Michelle played Yesterday for me, and she's got a good handle on the first 8 measures or so. After that we went over the chords and the melody to "Moondance."
I showed her how to play the left hand with the initial piano melody in the first four measures, after which she should switch to the melody of the actual tune. Differentiate between the two melodies by getting a little bit louder on the tune-melody.
September 24th, 2013
We started the lesson going over yesterday, which Michelle has nearly completed. We talked about making it smoother, and then perhaps adding some arpeggios with the left hand in certain places in the song.
Chris then played Pirates of the Carribean for me, and wanted to learn the next part which I wrote out for him, and we went over together. We recorded a video of me playing it.
Then Michelle and I talked about the next song, and she would like to do something by Van Morrison (her fave artist).
September 17th, 2013
Michelle and I worked through the fingering for Yesterday. She videoed me playing the melody so she would know how the fingering works. Then she played it through a couple of times.
Before the end of the lesson we did the first four or eight measures of both hands, adding the chords in with a pencil.
September 10th, 2013
Michelle and I reviewed some of the scales and chords from last year, and then she played "Hallelujah" for me.
We talked about what song to learn next, and we decided on Yesterday by the Beatles. We went through the chords together, and she did quite well.
I'm going to write out the melody for her this week, and send it to her to practice with.
June 25th, 2013
Today I worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean song with Chris.
It's been a fun year Michelle!! Have a nice summer.
June 18th, 2013
June 11th, 2013
Michelle has nearly completed the song-- she played it through for me and only really stumbled at one or two places.
We then did vocal scales on a variety of vowels, and she sang fifths from the 1.
She did quite well on this, though near the end started thinking too much about it. ;-)
Great job Michelle!!
June 4th, 2013
May 28th, 2013
May 23rd, 2013
May 14th, 2013
Michelle and I worked through the remainder of the verse, putting the arpeggio chords with the melody.
May 7th, 2013
Michelle and I went through the first bars of Hallelujah, and she said she will continue to work on the rest herself.
We then switched to vocals, did warm ups, and she sang along with Hallelujah.
Michelle, you should keep your voice light when you sing, work at making your vowels sound smooth and similar to one another, and don't forget to take deep breaths from the diaphragm.
April 30th, 2013
I helped Michelle separate the left hand and right hand into manageable chunks. She was feeling a little stuck with how to put the two hands together, but this approach should help her for the rest of the song.
April 23rd, 2013
This week Michelle and I worked on Hallelujah some more, the arpeggios of the left hand and the melody of the right hand.
April 16th, 2013
Michelle and I went over Hallelujah with separate hands, first the left, working out the arpeggios with one hand, then going over the melody with the right hand.
We talked about counting through the eighth notes and quarter notes when reading.
April 11th, 2013
April 2nd, 2013
Michelle had a few questions on Hallelujah that we needed to work through, such as the chords that change half way through a measure (three eighth beats long each), and the Dsus resolving to D that does the same timing as the C and D referred to above.
We went through it a few times, and then talked about learning the right hand for it, as well as recording her singing/playing piano and drums on it for her anniversary, perhaps.
This isn't a very high quality image, but here's a version that has the melody:
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQidnb_yJJmt51en9Ul7KaAa8m7xVdgdXQ9pDf5jfC8zlMTaM2z
March 26th, 2013
This week we went over the song from last week, How to Save a LIfe and she really has completely learned it, in one week! Amazing!!
We added Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, which is in 6 beats instead of the typical 4 4
So count it in as 1 2 3 4 5 6
Keep in mind that between some chords, like the C and D, there are only three beats instead of 6 to switch on, so you would do, for example c e g d f# a to get the 6 beats
We also talked about 7ths and sus chords (sus 4).
Count up 7 notes in the scale, then flatten the note to get the minor 7 (7 is the same as minor 7).
The sus is adding the four note of the scale, and taking the 3 out.
March 19th, 2013
Tonight Michelle and I went over Stars Go Blue, and the new song, which she is going to work on more this week... we talked about how to play the arpeggio part.
Then Chris went to drums for 20 minutes at the end of the lesson (until 8:18).
March 12th, 2013
March 5th, 2013
February 26th, 2013
February 19th, 2013
We did piano, talked about fingering positions, when to use first over middle, if it's uncomfortable, and if you can think ahead with what chord comes next, to get your fingers ready for that.
Then we did vocals, and went through 1, 3, 5, 3, 1 with the visual feedback.
Going up was fine, coming down she sometimes went too low.
February 12th, 2013
February 5th, 2013
We recorded some new 'task lists' for Michelle this evening, focusing on piano and vocals.
For piano, I recommended you continue to do intersions for many of the chords you are learning. You can do ladders at the same time. The fingering for ladders is the same for every chord.
You can also work on ear and technical skills by playing chord 1, and 4 consecutively for each of the twelve keys. When you feel bored with that, play the appropriate inversion so your whole hand isn't moving between chord one and chord four.
Next we went to vocals, and did the vowels on various notes: "A, E, I, O, U"... watching the tuning app to check how on pitch you are.
January 29th, 2013
We talked about exercises and rudiments and she played Billie Jean for me.
We went over a few of the beats, and viewed the video software she recently purchased.
We then did some vocal work.
January 22nd, 2013
Three songs we played along with tonight:
1. Michael Jackson's - Billie Jean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y
2. Tom Cochrane's - Life is a Highway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3sMjm9Eloo
3. Pat Benatar - Hit My With Your Best Shot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzK6GmfDcpc
January 15th, 2013
Michelle brought her snare in last night, and we took it apart to fix the mute under the top head. It seems to be unable to tighten and loosen so I put it up all the way permanently.
We then tuned it up tightly to snap more like my own snare (which is quite dead, btw! Not very bright at all)
She hasn't been practising much so we just wrapped up the lesson talking about sprouts.
January 8th, 2013
Melissa and I added waltz's to her list of drum beats, and I showed her how she can play the snare on beat 2 and 3, or just beat 2, or just beat 3:
boom chuck chuck
boom rest chuck
boom chuck rest
We also talked about triplets and how she can play a triplet in the space of one beat, like Star Wars
December 18th, 2012
December 11th, 2012
December 4th, 2012
Tonight Melissa and I added the G and D scale to her list of scales, and then did some vocals.
We sang a "1 - 5 - 1" interval. She is going to try to use her vocal program to do this as well.
November 27th, 2012
This week Michelle and I did the F scale and I walked her through the circle of fifths, talking about how the keys are related to the circle... flats to the left and sharps to the right.
The poem works both ways: Father Charles Goes Down and Ends Battle and Battle Ends and Down Goes Charles Father
We did vocals too, and she's doing well!
November 20th, 2012
Tonight Michelle and I started on the piano, and she played Happy Birthday for me. She is doing very well on it, and we've decided to move on to another song.
The question she had during the week was where the D chord was played in the right hand, while the left hand played a C chord (Happy birthday dear >>_____<<)
I then showed her the C "magic" scale and asked her to work on this each day with both hands, separate and together.
We then recorded video of the disco drum beat, where you use the hat pedal and kick pedal together on every beat, play eighth notes on the hat, and hit the snare on beats 2 and 4.
We then recorded the standard hat beat, where the hat is lifted right before the snare hits, and put down at the same time as the snare hits. This is like alternating hat pedal and kick pedal:
Kick Ped on 1, Hat Ped on 2, Kick ped pon 3, Hat ped on 4
The snare is still on 2 and four.
We then went over fills again, and I showed her flams, in which you hit a drum twice (with two sticks) very closely together.
November 13th, 2012
Today Chris and I did some highhat work, and then Michelle too, putting the up hat on the and before the first snare.
1 AND 2 and 3 and 4 and
So on the capitals, she lifted the hat, and then put it down right at beat 3.
Then we did drum fills, and she has the fill starting on beat 4 down good, but we started adding it on beat 3. She can try to add the fill starting on beat 2 herself this week, I videoed it for her.
We traded a stool for some studio time. The time to be determined.
November 6th, 2012
This week we focused on the structure of a song, to help Michelle know when to play the crashes and fills.
Crashes and fills highlight the beginnings and ends of songs, respectively. A fill leads into a crash, and the crash indicates the first beat of the first measure of the new verse, chorus, or bridge.
Typically each segment of a song has 8 measures.
October 30th, 2012
We reviewed the fill and roll , and she has the roll really good, and the fill is on it's way.
Think of it as the tom replacing the snare like boom chuck boom tom
Then add the cymbol.
Then add the double tom (tom tom)
Then we went to vocals, and the ooohs, were amazing! Very warm and musical sounding, let's use that as a frame of reference for the other vowels.
October 23rd, 2012
We worked on two things today, rolls and fills.
Rolls are when the stick bounces really quickly and you rotate between the two sticks one after the other, letting the stick bounce... this makes the well known brrrrrrrrr sound you hear in marching bands.
Do it in sets of 5, like this: rat a tat a tat. rat a tat a tat. It's in the video.
The next thing is to work on the drum fills, so that beat four is a tom, like this:
Boom Chuck Boom Tom, (CRASH) chuck boom tom, (crash) etc.
After you are comfortable with that, don't play it every time... but every fourth measure...
We also worked a bit on the kick, where you did the double every other time... try that some more.
October 16th, 2012
Today worked with both boys, and they are both going to do the eighth note rock beat.
Michelle was awesome on her quarter note and eighth note rock beats- nailed it. We added the double kick, like this:
[: boom tick chuck boom boom tick chuck tick :]
Keep working with the tuner for vocals, to get right in the tune.
October 9th, 2012
So we start with Chris doing drums, and we talked about eighth note beats instead of the quarter note beats.
So , that means that where the hi hat was just on the same beats as the kick and snare, now we're playing the hi hat between the kick and snare beats, like this:
hat-Boom hat hat-chuck hat hat-boom hat hat-chuck hat
I would like Chris to practice Living on a Prayer -- or another similar beat which has a boom-chuck beat.
Then Michelle did the same thing in her lesson, and also we talked about not speeding up the down beat kick. It's just a fraction of a beat ahead of the hi hat on beat one.
On the guitar, I showed her the A chord with the sus, from We Will Rock You in Queen's song. Played up an octave on an open A chord.
Finally, we video taped the Happy Birthday song, with the chording incorpating the melody, to free up the left hand to do double bass notes (an octave apart).
October 2nd, 2012
September 25th, 2012
We started with Piano, and added some complexity to Happy Birthday.
I described the concept to her, but working through the song, and after we were done, she was able to reiterate the pattern we use.
In summary, the left hand plays lower octaves of the chord name, and the right hand plays harmonies of the chord name. The melody is always the highest note of the chord, and the other fingers do their best to cover the missing notes in the chord.
After that, we did some vocals-- singing through Ah, E, and Oh from A below middle C to an octave above middle C. There is a continued improvement in her vocals.
Finally, we sang happy birthday (in the key of E this time), and I talked about keeping the notes open, and singing the vowels as open as possible, trying to keep the back of the throat relaxed.
On the name, "Christopher," she changes how she pronounces, so we should continue vowel work for the Ih vowel. (soft i).
September 18th, 2012
At the start of the lesson, Ben and I worked on the "boom-chuck" drum beat, adding hi-hat on quarter notes, and cymbal crash on beat 1.
Then Michelle played Happy Birthday for me- it sounded great. We talked about adding some complexity to the left hand chords, but she decided to spend the time rather with vocals.
We warmed up her voice, then spent some time on intonation, alternating notes 1-3-2-4-3-5-4-2-3-1. She did very well and I saw immediate improvement.
We didn't talk about next steps, but she should continue to practice tuning her voice, and listening carefully that she's singing the correct notes as she sings.
September 11th, 2012
At the first lesson, Michelle explained that she wanted to work on Happy Birthday, to learn to play it on it's own on piano, to accompany herself with it, to play it on acoustic folk, and with a classical guitar as well.
Web Development by CrookedBush.com • Login / Logout