Band and Piano

Well done to all of our beginner musicians! The enthusiasm demonstrated over the past two weeks has been so heartwarming. It was wonderful to see instruments put together correctly and with care, and to see a huge improvement in sound quality after just one week. It may seem like things are moving slowly, but there is so much to cover with instrument care, posture, mouth positions, fingering positions, etc., that moving through pieces at this stage takes time. A few reminders:

• Sit up straight, and your instruments come up to your mouth. Make sure that your chin is up and that your instrument comes up to you. Especially important for our flautists - you don’t want to have your chin on your shoulder. Let’s keep those airways open!
• No puffer cheeks! Be sure to spend some time in front of the mirror to make sure your cheeks look like you have just sucked on a lemon. 
• Is baby sister asleep? Your neighbours don’t want to hear you practise again this week? No problem:

• Brass - just buzz in your mouthpiece and try to change the pitch. 

   

Then, with your instrument and no mouthpiece, read the music and change the valve/slide positions. Be sure to say the names of your notes. 

• Woodwind (flutes and clarinets) - don’t put your reed on clarinets, hold your instruments up like you are going to play and simply do the fingering while reading and saying the names of the notes. 

• Drums - put a towel (or even a pillow) over your practise pad/snare drum. Make sure you say "right" or "left" as you drum. ‘Air drum’ or hold mallets above glock keys as you pretend to play. 

   

• Seniors! What a great run-through of Blues Adventure we had. A few students forgot the key signature, so not playing sharps/flats as required. I look forward to section practises next week to reward those who can play the whole piece!

   

• Piano - between broken limbs, absent children and two who didn’t take their new music home to practise, it has been a challenging week. New students have worked on identifying all of the Cs on the keyboard, the treble notes, bass notes, and which hand plays which. Reading middle C and counting. Our seniors are focused on pieces with hands in the C position to develop sightreading skills in that area before moving on. 

   

• Thanks to all of those who gave up their breaks this past Thursday to make sure we got every lesson in. Instruments/music are to come in on Tuesdays. The music room will be open during breaks for anyone to practise.