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Nicole van Camp
Past Notes
June 23rd, 2015
Sydney and Nickie are away today.
June 16th, 2015
Nickie and I went over her song a few times-- she's made progress even since last week, (thought you're too hard on yourself!!)
June 9th, 2015
Nickie and I went over the left hand and right hands separately, then together-- so close! A little smoothing and it will be perfect.
Work on the smoothing, maybe, even before going onto the next section.
June 2nd, 2015
Nicole gave up her spot to Sydney this week.
May 26th, 2015
May 19th, 2015
Nicole didn't have anyone to watch the store today, so she had to miss lessons. :)
May 12th, 2015
May 5th, 2015
Sydney and Nicole are away today.
April 28th, 2015
Nicole and I worked through When You Wish Upon a Star a few times, and I took a video of the song for her to use as a reference if she gets stuck.
April 21st, 2015
Nicole is in Ottawa today.
April 14th, 2015
We went through the Sting song, but added two new ones: Irish Eyes are Smiling and When You Wish Upon a Star.
We tried taking photos of the book, but it was too blurry -- at least with my camera.
April 7th, 2015
Looks like Nicole didn't make it from the pharmacy in time this week.
Hugs!
March 31st, 2015
Nicole was sick today.
March 24th, 2015
March 17th, 2015
March 10th, 2015
Nicole and I went over the melody together a few times, really focusing on that one harder part which is syncopated--
Try to continue adding the left hand to the parts, and venture into the bridge, which we haven't started yet.
March 3rd, 2015
Nicole wasn't able to come in today.
February 24th, 2015
Nicole played through the melody of Every Breath You Take up to the bridge, which we're skipping for now.
We focused on the three measures that have a higher part in the chorus.
I asked her to add the chords in this week, and to save the bridge until we get that much done on the song.
February 17th, 2015
Nicole and I reviewed Every Breath, and worked through just the first four lines... taking the sections a bit at a time until she could play them without mistakes. I recommended she give the note the finger. ;)
When she's got those first four lines down, we'll move on, and try to add the left hand in.
February 10th, 2015
Nicole took Sydney's spot today, and we went over Amazing Grace, then added Sting's Every Breath You take.
During Amazing Grace, I showed her how to use the sustain pedal to sustain a held chord beyond the length of time you are holding the chord down. This helps to merge one chord into another.
We went over EBYT a number of times, working out the melody first, then the chords.
February 3rd, 2015
January 27th, 2015
January 20th, 2015
Nicole came in Sydney's slot, and we went over a bit into her own. She didn't bring her book, so we added "Amazing Grace." I loaned her the Fake Book for practicing with this week.
January 13th, 2015
Nicole didn't come in today.
January 6th, 2015
December 30th, 2014
December 23rd, 2014
December 16th, 2014
December 9th, 2014
December 2nd, 2014
November 25th, 2014
Sydney is home sick today.
November 18th, 2014
Nicole gave up her spot, and will from now until January, because she's been stressed about not practicing.
November 11th, 2014
Nicole gave her lesson slot to Sydney today.
November 4th, 2014
Nicole and I went over White Christmas, and Frosty the Snowman.
I wrote out the left hand for Frosty, which turns out to be kind of complex to play. Nicole, you can try just holding the chords instead of doing the form I showed you.
October 28th, 2014
We went over White Christmas, reviewed Let It Snow, then added Frosty the Snow Man.
October 21st, 2014
Nicole let Sydney take her spot this week.
October 14th, 2014
We went over last week's "let it snow," and I showed her the pedal and how to make it a little simpler to not worry about the chords by holding the pedal down.
I suggested she memorize the right hand to make it even easier.
We then added "White Christmas," and worked out the arpeggios, to make it even prettier! :)
October 7th, 2014
Nicole and I started out the year with Christmas Carols as the agenda. So we started with "Let it Snow," and I wrote out the notes/chords for her.
We went over the parts with both hands, and she picked it up very quickly. Talked about fingering strategies as well.
I think we can add a new carol for next week.
June 17th, 2014
Nicole won't be coming next week, unfortunately because of Sydney's graduation.
We reviewed the song, and focused on the A7 part, and the B section as well.
June 10th, 2014
Nicole and I revieewed the Leonard Cohen song, and she's getting very close! There were a couple of spots at the end she was having struggles with, so we went over them a number of times, until she started feeling "pissy." ;-)
Hugs!
June 3rd, 2014
Nicole and I went through the song, breaking it down into little pieces. It seems to help her most when she can focus on just one aspect of the part at a time, until both hands can be autonomous. We did single bars at a time, and then by the end, even single notes, adding one note to it bit by bit.
May 27th, 2014
Nicole got held up by a sales rep today.
We went over the "Hallelujah" a couple of times, and I believe she's making good progress.
Try to separate the right hand from the left in your brain. Think about the melody while you play the left hand, and stuff like that to build independance from thinking about what you're doing. Your left hand can become muscle memory.
May 20th, 2014
Nicole and I focused on the two measure sections in the chorus today, working on one bar at a time, then going on when it was smooth. :)
(good job Nickie!)
May 13th, 2014
Nicole and I worked through Hallelujah together, focusing again on playing the left hand and right hand together.
It helped her to put the marked indications to represent the left hand beats underneath the melody.
I wrote out the left hand part for her in Lilypond, and sent it as a PDF attachment.
May 6th, 2014
Nicole was running a bit late today, so we had a shorter lesson than usual. We focused on playing the first three measures with both hands.
The trick to remember here is that the left hand is playing eighth notes, while the right hand plays some quarters and some eighths. So that means that while the right hand holds a quarter note, the left hand may play two eighth notes in that spot.
April 29th, 2014
Today was Nicole's first lesson at 2:00. We went over the chord inversions for C, F, G, D, A, Am, Em, and Dm, (did I miss one?) and then she played through the melody while I played the "left hand" part above her.
I played arpeggios, and she liked the sound of that so I showed her how they work.
Starting at the bottom note of the chord, she plays one note of each chord on the eighth notes. There are 6 eighth notes in each measure.
The C chord: c ↗ e ↗ g ↗ c ↘ g ↘ e
7 chords are slightly different.
The D7 chord: d ↗ f# ↗ a ↗ c ↘ a ↘ f#
April 22nd, 2014
Nickie had a doctor's appointment tonight which went over time.
April 15th, 2014
Nic has had a hard week, so practicing wasn't easy to fit in.
We reviewed the chromatic scales, and went over a number of inversions for C, F, G, Em, Am, Dm.
Then we went through some chords of Hallelujah and I showed her how to play while conserving hand movement... visualizing where the next chord is without moving the whole hand, but just a couple of fingers.
April 8th, 2014
April 1st, 2014
Nicole has been working hard on chromatic. I asked her to continue focusing on that, as well as the D scale.
I also added inversion exercises for all the non-black-note chords, with both hands, up and down.
I showed her how these inversions affect playing songs and assigned her the Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen melody to learn as well.
March 25th, 2014
Nicole is focusing on playing the scales, and doing other rudiments to improve her dexterity. It's more straight-forward for her for practising at home.
She's got the C, F, and G scales coming along quite nicely, so we added the D scale, which has an F# and a C# in it.
We then added chromatic scales to her list of rudiments, and worked on playing them forwards and backwards, with one and two hands.
We spoke of adding inversions to her list next week.
March 18th, 2014
Nickie and I took a pass this week, as I was feeling blaugh.
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
Nicole and I went over Candle in the Wind, and then talked about scales.
We reviewed the fingerings for single and double octave scales, and I asked her to focus on C, F, and G scale.
February 25th, 2014
Nicole isn't coming this evening.
February 18th, 2014
Nicole is not coming in today because Sydney is sick.
February 11th, 2014
Nickie and I went over the song together, and then talked about a new song. I showed her how to find and print sheet music using Google Images.
February 4th, 2014
Nickie and I went over the charts I wrote for Candle in the Wind. She wrote the note names under the staff to help her out.
Her left hand was really hurting so I recommended she play with one finger when that happens.
We went over it a couple of times, once with me on the melody, and then I played it for her while she video recorded it on her iphone.
January 28th, 2014
Nicky was in Toronto today.
January 21st, 2014
Nicki was not feeling well this week. (HUGS!)
January 14th, 2014
Nicki and I added Elton John's Candle in the Wind, and I showed her how to play the arpeggios (using the 1,5 in the left hand). We went through the verses quickly, but she had some trouble with the B chord (her right thumb would slip down to a C on the way down the arpeggio.
January 7th, 2014
Nicky is hope sick today.
December 31st, 2013
December 17th, 2013
In Nick's spot we worked on vocals with Sydney.
December 10th, 2013
Nicole's hand was hurting today, so we did vocals with Sydney in that time.
December 3rd, 2013
Nickie and I went over "Away in a Manager" with separate hands, first right, then left.
I showed her how chords can be played instead of the left hand notes, and encouraged her to try to learn it as written, and then to play with embellishing/improvising the left hand as she feels able.
November 26th, 2013
Nicki and I went over the two Christmas songs, and worked specifically on fingering in the melody of the Little Drummer Boy, and the smoothness of the melody so that it feels like "singing."
The left hand can feel a bit like a drum, or an orchestra.
November 19th, 2013
Sydney and Nicky are doing a make-up on the 21st
November 12th, 2013
Nicole missed tonight.
November 5th, 2013
Nicole and I worked through "The Little Drummer Boy," the same song Sydney is learning.
I told her about 5 chords (when you play just the 1 and the 5 of the chord). The beginning of the song, and the chords throughout sound a bit like a drum with a pumm, pum pum pummmm, part.
If it's hard to do that and play the melody at the same time, I told her it was fine to just play solid chords with the left hand for now, and we can add that in later.
October 29th, 2013
Nicole was sick today. :(
October 22nd, 2013
Nickie and I went over the Hallelujah melody and worked on some fingering, and then she expressed a desire to learn some Christmas carols, so we started with Jingle Bells.
In the interest of simplicity, I wrote out just the letter-name notes for the melody with the chords. We worked on a "boom-chuck" style left hand in which the pinky and the middle/thumb alternate in a rocking style formation.
October 15th, 2013
Nickie wasn't able to come in today.
October 8th, 2013
Nicole and I recorded a video of the inversions, which she will be working on this week.
I showed her the circle of fifths, and explained the way it's like a magic decoder ring for music.
We added the key of G, and when through "Desperado," then "Hallelujah" which she's chosen to work on as her next song.
October 1st, 2013
Nicole got held up at work today.
September 24th, 2013
Nicole and I started by reviewing inversions, where we move the chord higher or lower by transplanting one of the notes in the chord to a different place.
She then went over the song Lean on Me for me with both hands.
She then played the C scale for me, and I asked her to work on it for two octaves, first the left then the right, and not to worry about both hands together until she's ready.
She wanted to learn a new song, so we added "My Girl," which is also in C. I told her not to play past the key change to D.
September 17th, 2013
Nicole came well prepared, and we went through the song together. We added some new things:
1. Inversions. I showed her how to calculate an inversion by moving the lowest note of the chord to a higher position. This is one of the rudiments that she will use in practice.
2. Scales - Magic Scales: I showed her the "magic fingering" of the scales, both hands two octaves and one. She should add this to her rudiments as well.
3. Both hands together -- I asked her to work on putting both hands together, and inverting the 6th and 7th chords.
September 10th, 2013
Nickie started out learning the names of the notes using the dog house and grandma's house word pictures.
We then talked about flats and sharps, and how to find them.
After that I showed her triads, the note chords. Every key has 3 major chords and 3 minor chords. There's also one stand-alone misfit chord called a "diminished."
We started working on the song "Lean On Me," and I asked her to try to put it together with both hands for next week.
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