Yellow Arrows #10

NEED TO KNOW

Yellow Arrows #10: We're totally making music! Your kids have no hesitation in playing the things they know and experimenting with different ways of playing. I love it!

SONGBOOK AS WORKBOOK: We colored more chords in our songbook to help us play broken chords in Chords in Pieces. Your songbook should look like this now.

REGISTRATION FOR FALL CLASSES: Thank you to those who have finished registration! If you haven't yet, go to this link for all of the information. Third year gets so exciting! They'll be learning different keys (adding sharps and flats to the key signature), the red & blue & yellow chords in the different key signatures, learning how to transpose to and from all those keys, go back and forth between major and minor, inversions of all the chords, being able to find the root of each chord, and compose their own song! Third year has a LOT of material for the kids presented very quickly. Here is a checklist of skills your student should have before advancing to 3rd year. Being solid in these skills will make 3rd year fun. 

1. They can play the primary chords with the correct fingering for both right and left hand (hands separately and working towards hands together).

2. They can play an 8-note major scale going up and going down with the right hand popping at the right places. They can play an 8-note major scale going up with the left hand popping at the right place (we haven't covered going down yet with the left hand but we will soon!).

3. They recognize the melodic patterns and can sign them.

4. They can play and sing the songs alone or with the class.

5. They seem to understand the note relationships of skips, steps, & leaps, and play the sight-reading in class without habitually guessing.

6. They participate in class and want to be there.

Most students have these down pat! A few are still working on solidifying fingerings for chords. If you are concerned about your student, let me know and we can discuss it.

END-OF-YEAR RECITAL: Our recital will be held on Saturday, April 25 at 5pm. I'm going to stick with the originally scheduled start time. Second year students will wear their LPM shirts with denim or black pants/skirts/leggings.

GOOD TO KNOW

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS SING OUR MELODIC PATTERNS: Our melodic pattern endings of the Let's Play Music song are found in lots of songs. How many SOL-MI-DOs and SOL-SOL-DOs can you hear in this favorite childhood song?

I GOTTA SHAKE: Get ready to play the rests in this silly song! Our fingers have to lift up when we see a quarter rest sign. It sometimes helps to say "shh" or "rest" to acknowledge the silence.

FUN TO KNOW

Charles Gonoud was born in 1818 in Paris, France. His mom was a piano teacher and his father an artist, and Charles started receiving music instruction when he was very young. By the time he was 21, he was receiving awards and prizes for his compositions. He was also a teacher, most notably to Georges Bizet, the composer of Carmen (where our very first Magic Lamp puppet show comes from!). Some of Gonoud's most famous songs are O Divine Redeemer, Ave Maria, and Funeral March for a Marionette (our current puppet show we know as March of the Gnomes). This piece has been featured as the Alfred Hitchcock Presents theme and on Little Einsteins, among many other places. Here is a steampunkish industrial take on the piece. It's impressive to see both the costumes and the instruments!