Class was great this week! I was really impressed with how all my students discovered and played the blue chord in the left hand in class. They transferred the knowledge they gained last semester in the RH to LH so quickly! Be sure to add the blue stickers to your piano keyboard at home. They are on notes C-F-A and the correct fingering is 5-2-1. Check your kiddos often to be sure they are playing with the correct fingering. I demonstrated sticker placement and playing the Blue chord with LH in a Marco Polo video. We will learn the yellow chord in two weeks on  lesson 4!

Thank you so much for reading this section of the email. This has the most timely and need-to-know info. The rest of the email is valuable, but this is the most pertinent section. Thank you thank you thank you!

Music Alphabet

“The first 3 notes just happen to be Do Re Mi!” Maria got it right teaching the von Trap children the solfege before note names. Now that our students can sing, play, and sight read notes through solfege, and keyboard geography is solid, we are getting ready to label all of the white keys on the piano. This begins with the music alphabet! The music alphabet includes the 1st seven notes of the English Alphabet except that it starts on the Letter C and after G comes letter A. The first 7 notes just happen to be C D E F G A B!

Block and Broken

Playing music is like reading a book. We start at the left side of the page and move our eyes to the right. When the note changes, so do our fingers. Help guide this song while sitting on the left of your child and pointing to the notes in each measure. Once your child is comfortable playing the song, practice making sure each measure gets 3 steady beats. Feel free to sing, “RED-2-3; DO (count 1) MI (count 2) SOL (count 3). BLUE-2-3; DO FA LA,” etc…This will help your student understand how to read the music and work towards playing this song with a steady beat.

Snowflakes Are Falling

Brrr it’s cold outside! Warm up inside your home by playing this ostinato on the tone bells. Sing starting on Re, “Snowflakes are falling, falling very gently”. Then play La, Sol, Fa, Mi for “down, down, down, down”. Keep singing the lyrics then repeating this DOWN pattern until you’re feeling toasty inside and finish the song by playing a final DOWN on the Re bell. Try it in a round as a family around the fire with the cd!

Who Am I? I’m the SPIDEY BLUE CHORD!  Spin a chord of fun playing the Left Hand Blue Chord with fingers 5-2-1.

I value open and honest communication so please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, concerns, or comments.

Thank you!