Purple Magic #7

NEED TO KNOW

Purple Magic #7: It's so exciting to see how much your Purple Magic students have grown and developed over the past three years. Two years ago, they were just learning that the red chord was do-mi-sol. Last year at this time, some of them were still holding up their 2 and 4 fingers to help the 1-3-5 play the red chord. And now they're playing all sorts of music in all sorts of keys! They are comfortable in C major, they understand c minor, and this week we introduced playing in F major. AH-MAZING!

EXPOSURE VS MASTERY: Some of your kiddos (and maybe some of the parents!) are feeling a bit overwhelmed by how fast things are coming at them this semester. IT IS OKAY! Remember that LPM 3rd year is more about exposure and understanding rather than mastery on everything we introduce. Please know that when your students get in the "active area," they know the answers to the questions about lines and spaces and chord theory. When they're at the keyboards, their brains might take a minute to sync up with their fingers. But they are absolutely understanding the concepts. One thing that will help their playing time is to start with what they know. Instead of jumping straight to "play a c minor cadence," start with "play a C Major red chord, now blue, now yellow," then "how do you change that to c minor?" Playing with one hand at a time is completely acceptable. They are doing hard things!

SHOWTIME: Showtime for Alouette is next week (lesson #8). What I'm looking for is that they understand ABA form, and that they understand the differences in the intervals in the left hand (I sometimes sing "Fifth at the start, then a second, and a third, thumb" to the tune of the right hand melody to help them out). Some kids will want to play the whole song with both hands. Others won't, and that's okay too. I'll ask them to play the first line with just the left hand, then ask them to show me (just point to) the A section and the B section, along with the repeat sign. They are totally getting the "pass off" skills, and also show they can accompany, play a harmony part, understand the ABA form, follow the repeat sign, etc.

SONGBOOK MARKING: More songbook markings this week on Alouette! There are empty measures and portions of measures in the B section. We filled them in whole rests in each measure of line three, and half rests in the first measure of line four. Here is what it should look like now. 

HOMEWORK HELP: The "flashcards" section of the homework says to use the "Smart Staff." The Smart Staff is the last page in your songbooks and is the perfect size to use cheerios or smarties or raisins or any other little snack as notes. Put a cheerio on their staff boards (or a smartie or whatever), and when the students names the note correctly, they get to eat it! There is a Skills Video about the note naming in the treble clef. Check it out at this link!

MORE HOMEWORK HELP: Last week's homework was to outline the c minor cadence chords. This week's is to outline the F major chords. The trickiest part is that the black key is in a different spot in the blue chord in each cadence. In c minor, it's on the top (Ab). In F major, it's in the middle (Bb). Page 67 in the reference section of the homework booklet has a great diagram. If pictures are more helpful, here is a chart with pictures of the notes and fingerings of the F major cadence. For future reference, this link is on the "Learning Helps" section of the 3rd Year website page. 

GOOD TO KNOW

F MAJOR CADENCE: How exciting to play our primary chords in a new key! The fingerings will feel familiar, but our newly acquired knowledge about "magic keys" and our ear training will help us play the chords correctly. The blue chord needs a Bb, and we practiced playing the blue-blue-blue chord (with the flat) and the Dracula blah-blah-blah chord (without the flat). Their ears will tell them if they're wrong! For a visual, here is a clip from the LPM skills videos that reinforces the F Major cadence chords.

ROYAL PROBLEM: Like all our puppet shows, 'A Royal Problem' (Mozart's Symphony No 40 in g minor, 3rd movement) aids in the intelligent listening of classical music. In it, we recognized major and minor tonalities, staccato and legato themes, and continued our study of classical ABA form. One more week of this puppet show and we'll start a new one on lesson #9!

STEM DIRECTION: Sometimes note stems go up, sometimes they go down. We talked about the "stem rule" of 1-2-3 WHEE! On the third line, the note flips over like it's going on a roller coaster. Notes on line three and above have the stem pointing down. Notes below the third line have stems pointing up. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, and has many exceptions, including chords. But it's valuable to have a guideline, and to know that the stem direction changes.

FUN TO KNOW

We have moved Do to F! We use "Moveable Do" so that we can use the same words to talk about the scale degrees in each key using the same words. There is another method, called "Fixed Do," where they use do, re, mi, etc as substitute note names for C, D, E, etc. In those cases, they typically use numbers to talk about scale degrees. There is a Great Debate that has gone on between music students for centuries concerning Moveable Do and Fixed Do. Most American-taught musicians (including me!) prefer Moveable Do. And this week your students experienced one of the amazing things that Moveable Do can do, which is to talk about different keys with the same language! The Moveable Do allows the solfege to be vocabulary to talk about a tonal center and use the same words for every key. You don't need to understand the whole concept, but your kids are absolutely experiencing it! If you are interested in knowing more, check out the valid points made by each of the gentlemen in this meme. I laugh every time I see this one! It's truer than you might think!