The Right Key

Welcome to Fall! Hope you are all well and have made the most of the summer months. Things are getting back into shape around here and starting to come together. Fall lessons are back and available either in home or online. I'm working on a drop in piano practice/ lesson option; stay tuned for details! If you know of someone interested in music lessons this fall and winter please feel free to share the page. Or share the page to help out a friend. :)

Pro tip for practicing triads and inversions: if you are just getting started with learning about ttriads and remembering how to play them one thing to try is to play each note of the triad separately first before playing it as a blocked chord, using the correct fingering. Eventually you should be able to play each inversion with smooth transitions but this could help for the first bit during the learning process. And something one of my students showed me recently. (I'll try to put up as demo of this tip but my camera has been a little fuzzy.) Happy practicing!

Half note rhythm played on piano.

Basic rhythms part 2! The half note. It is sometimes called a ta-a or if you were in MYC it might be called a turtle. A half note sounds like it is slower than a quarter note because it has two beats and one of those beats is essentially an extension of the first beat. When playing on the piano simply hold down a key and count 1-2 to get the full 2 beats in. Some younger kids might be tempted to cut the half note short in a piece but I always go back and make sure they unders...tand that the rhythm has 2 counts otherwise it can change a song. Other ways to use this rhythm: -combine it with the quarter note and practice different combinations on any piano keys -for preschoolers and kindergartners find pictures of animals or objects that are slow -for early years students find two syllable words that would be spoken slower ("turtle" works great but find your own examples) -if you speak another language or are learning a new language I think the above point could also work well here too though you will likely have to work a little harder to find words that could work -for kids learning about probability calculations, they can try and find all the theoretical combinations before clapping or playing with a quarter note and half note together Hope these suggestions help with learning these rhythms and the different applications of using music. See more

Basic rhythms starting with a quarter note. If you or your kids took music/band in school then you might know this note as a "ta." It only gets one count or one beat. To increase learning for preschool age kids, you may want to try different sounds such as "ma" or "da" instead of always "ta". You can even try clapping or tapping your foot or slapping your knees. For elementary aged kids you could use different one syllable words and have them figure out if it would get one beat. If you want to try the rhythm on a piano or other instrument, simply choose any key and play it in a steady beat for as long as you like.