Week 6

I chose the song I will teach, it’s Bell’s Horses. I haven’t heard of this song but it’s simple lyrically and melodically which will be perfect for teaching the imagined kindergarten class. Our lecturer Bronwyn mentioned methods and reasons to embed aspects of student’s backgrounds and cultures into lessons and I thought since we are in Australia it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that there would be some students with New Zealand heritage; to apply this idea I will use a kiwi fluffy toy and change the lyrics “Bell’s Horses” to “Hey Kiwi”.

Week 5

Still have not decided which song I’m going to teach ARGGH… I’ll work it out soon though. This week I worked on the ‘Rhythm Syllable Guide’ worksheet as I want to be prepared for any situation that may arise when choosing a song and teaching it. The use of this system would be less of an issue if I wasn’t more familiar with French Time names and Takadimi but it shouldn’t be a problem and K-6 won’t be dealing with complex rhythms. This week on keyboard I worked on turning every chord that I have worked on thus far into a 7th chord. The biggest problem I seemed to be having was the finger stretch of the right hand and which finger to use but as I experimented a bit I found the positions that worked for me.

Week 4

This week I worked on the 3rd Curwen hand-sign exercises from the Solfa Musicianship Drills worksheet; it’s tricky but I improved a lot in a small amount of time. I haven’t quite thought about which song I’m going to do for my assignment though i am thinking of doing a song with only Do Mi So La so it is within my singing ability. I reviewed my first 3 weeks of keyboard practice and did not add anything new to my practice schedule but rather worked on moving between chords I’ve already worked on smoothly. I notice that I struggle with the chords that use black keys as I am trying to match the best finger to the sharp as I lay all fingers down simultaneously.

Week 3

This week I worked on a blues-type progression using A D E and E A B. I wanted to get used to some new chords and some slightly different voicings; I didn’t work on soloing, only bass notes in left hand and harmony in the right hand. The shuffle feel wasn’t too much of an issue it is more just the transitioning between chords that slows me down, especially because of the use of sharps (black keys). I’ve also been working on my Curwen hand-signs and singing, I’ve got all the Kodaly sheets from Canvas printed in a folder and have just been working on my singing pattern Do, Do Re Do, Do Re Mi Re Do etc and then descending from the octave up.

Week 2

I have the chords I need to learn on keyboard printed out for simplicity. I have been working on I vi IV V in the key of C and G. I have also been working on different progressions like Em Am Dm so I don’t neglect minor chords. I’m getting better at transitioning between the ‘white note’ chords. I think it’s more beneficial to learn the chords incrementally as part of a song or chord progression as it will be a stronger part of my memory than if i were to just try to memorise chords off this sheet.

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Week 1

I would only consider myself competent in one instrument … the guitar. I know the importance of being able to play keyboard/piano as it is excellent for accompanying orchestras/choirs, it has music theory laid-out on the keys logically and is useful for demonstration purposes which I learned all too well when I did demonstrations on piano on my teaching practicum which gave the students the impression that I didn’t know anything about music. To get started with my practice I thought it would be more useful to play through songs than learn a bunch of chords so I decided to learn ‘Live it up’ by Mental as Anything and keep the chords close by using inversions instead of moving root position triads around. As you can see in the video I need to work on correct fingering and moving through chords more fluently. The chords I played were am, bm C and D for the intro all in root position and G Em C D for the verse; for Em I played the right hand as a first inversion to keep the harmony close. I played this song in the key of C also to cover more chords.

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