Well, this was a tough week in Keyboard practice. Willum is a great song and the kids all enjoy it, but putting chords with the song may have taken some of that out of it, depending on how determined you were in getting your child to play them. Even the oldest child’s hands may have had difficulty stretching to accomodate the 3-note iv and V7 chords. Don’t worry. As with everything in our class, perfection is not the goal, nor is complete and total achievement the first time around. The most important thing this week is to find the melody for Willum with the left hand. If they can do that during class, that’s good. To get a head start on the chords, though, the next thing to do would be to have them play the chords in the right hand while singing the melody. You can find the most appropriate chord changes in the Parent Guide (p. 22, maybe?). Most children should be fine playing the two-note i chord and V7 chord, but what two notes should be played for the iv chord? Have them play re and fa, which would be A and C in e minor position. They will have to stretch their 3rd finger to A and their 5th finger to C. This is good, though, because it teaches them that the chord is actually comprised of the 3 notes and NOT the fingers. My son thought as long as he was playing fingers 1,3,5 he was playing the i chord. I had to show him how I could play the same 3 keys with any different combination of fingers and get the same chord. It’s when I play different keys that I get different chords, no matter what fingers I use. That is also why we avoid giving certain solfege names to our fingers. Even though it seems like it would help at the beginning, now you can see that when we have to start moving fingers around, it would confuse the child if they thought the right hand middle finger was always going to be mi or do.
It should be interesting to notice that they can play Mouse, Mousie in 5 different keys though! And Wild Horses in 5 different minor keys – and they shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the key and then establishing the tonality (that is, whether it will be a major song whose resting tone is do, or a minor song whose resting tone is la). They should be able to play Mouse, Mousie with the 3-note I chord all the way through, though. All the Little Ducklings should be in the parent guide, too. The chord progression is I, I, IV, I, IV, I, V7, I, V7, I.
And finally, I am wondering what your children think of their choice for a song for Family Music Celebration? I think this came as a surprise for all of them. Of course, I had been thinking about it for weeks, even months. But, I realized after lesson that I certainly didn’t give them much time to adjust to the idea. But, kids are pretty resilient and mine didn’t seem to bat an eye at the prospect of playing in front of others. I think part of it is due to the fact that they play in front of others every week at lesson. That is one of the greatest benefits of being in a group. However, perhaps we should have talked more extensively about song choice. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if two children played the same song. In fact, it ought to be interesting because no doubt they would each have different arrangements of the song. So, talk to your child, if you haven’t already, about what they would really like to play for Celebration. (But they have to choose something that is on par with what they are capable of, naturally!)
It is getting late, but know that I am thinking of you and your children this weekend and rest assured that lesson always seems to bring things to light. Your children are wonderful, inspired, creative, and very talented. I’m so blessed to get to see the good side of parenting in your children!
