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Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Music to get back into playing after covid

 


It will be great to get back to class to teach and make music with  my students.  Those first notes should be interesting...I'm guessing many of my students have not played their instruments in months.  My son who started learning bass in my class last school year was asking me how to play F# the other day.  That tells me a lot of review will be needed!

Since my district is not allowing any concerts to happen for at least 1st term, I'm going to focus on reviewing notes/rhythms, intonation, and technique.  I feel like a great way to review and keep students engaged is to use popular music they know well.  

I think I can use the tune Cheap Thrills to teach many skills.  It's not in a friendly key for beginners, so I recommend purchasing the tune in itunes, and using the app called AnyTune (I LOVE THIS APP) to change the key.  All you do is push the the 'flat' icon 2 times to bring it down 2 half steps.  You can then download the AnyTune modified version to use as a back-up track for your students.  Also in AnyTune, you can slow down the speed...making it a great practice tool.


I made this music sheet for students to learn the tune:
 

Here's what I'm thinking students can work on in this piece:

1.  Beginners can learn the back-up part 1 to learn how to play G on the D string and keep all fingers down...and to lift just one finger to switch notes to F#.

2.  Students can learn back-up part 2 to explore and review G string notes.

3.  More advanced students can try the melody notes - listening/matching/playing the rhythm by ear.

4.  Students can practice pieces of the melody and focus on tuning/intonation because they know what it is supposed to sound like.

5.  Tuning C naturals on the A string (using last line ...la la la la la la la)


Cheap Thrills has been covered on YouTube by the Ember Trio.  I students students would enjoy working on the tune and watching this video:



2 comments:

  1. Is this an individual project that you are going to have them do or something that you are going to do in class?

    ReplyDelete