Orange Roots #1

NEED TO KNOW

Orange Roots #1: What a great first lesson! There is always so much info to pack in while I have parents in class once a month. Our last semester of Let's Play Music is packed with amazing musical concepts that are included in high-school and college level theory classes. This is going to be an amazing ride!

PRACTICING: There is a LOT of information in Orange Roots. The official purpose of the Let's Play Music company is "We enrich lives through the power of music." The goal at this point is exposure and understanding, but not necessarily performance mastery. The ability to play hands together is definately a developmental stage, and for some kids, those nerves aren't connected yet and playing with both hands might be frustrating. Other kids already have that brain connection and thrive with playing hands together. In class, I will always offer the option of playing with one hand or both hands. Do the same thing in their practicing at home! I will outline in the parent notes the "most important" parts of the songs, so if your student gets frustrated you can spend the bulk of the time on those. The important part is to develop a lifelong love of music. Depending on your and your student's goals for the class, you could focus on other musical experiences: listening to the audio tracks, reenacting the puppet shows, tinkering on composition ideas, or playing music games. You are completely in control of what your out-of-class "practice" time looks like. 

ORANGE ROOTS MUSIC: Make sure that you have access to the Orange Roots music on the LPM app. If not, update the app and/or re-download it. If it's still not there, please call the LPM office. They'll be able to fix it for you! And they're so nice about it! I also have CDs for those who requested one (during the Parent Orientation last August) but totally forgot to pass them out. I'll get them next week.

SONGBOOK MARKING: For your practice this week on Molly Malone, the goal for the week is to learn the right hand part, and the book says to learn a new line each week. The printed lines don't match up with the musical lines, so I had the students mark what "lines" to learn each day. Also check below in the "Good to Know" section about the technique purposes of this song to know what to focus on in practice time.

MORE SONGBOOK MARKING: We're revisiting our Primary Chords Song, but this time putting the chords in root position! Because they are all snowman shaped (which we now know as root position), we colored them their red, yellow, and blue colors to keep them identified. The second two lines are in home position, the way we've been playing them forever so we didn't color them. We also wrote the name of the root.

WHAT TO DO AFTER LET'S PLAY MUSIC?: This is the last semester of the Let's Play Music curriculum. I have a whole post on what to do next. You can scroll to the next post to see it or use this link.

TUITION: Thank you to those who got tuition in this week! If you haven't yet, I'll send a request/reminder.

GOOD TO KNOW

ONLINE CLASSES: The online video of the first class of each semester is available for free on YouTube. If you missed class this week, or would like to check out what the "makeup videos" are like, check it out here!

PRIMARY ROOT CHORD SONG: Wow! We had to do some hard thinking during class with this song! Playing our old familiar song in a new way is helping us understand root position and how to play chords when they are in root position. We are jumping all over the keyboard to play this song! Once your thumb finds the root, you simply play a snowman shaped chord!

COCKLES AND MUSSELS: Our first repertoire song this semester is an old Irish folk song from the 1800s. This week, we are focusing on learning the melody. The fun part of this song comes soon, when we look at the ROOT position chords in the left hand. The LPM blog has a great post with fun facts and practice videos dedicated to Cockles and Mussels. In the back of your songbook, you can see that the Showtime skills for this song are all in the left-hand accompaniment. If your student is going to learn one hand and not the other, make it be the left. This week do the right (we haven't started the left hand yet), but once we add in the left, practice the left hand first and the right hand secondary.

LET'S FIND THE ROOT: Ever wonder why we learn so much about chords in Let's Play Music? Chords are the building blocks of songs and harmonies! In the Orange Roots semester, we will finally analyze and label the chord theory and structure that our fingers have been playing and singing since we were Red Balloons! The idea of "it's not about the shape, it's about the pieces" will take on a new meaning as we label those pieces and discover the most important one... the ROOT! If you need a little help with this, here is a link to a parent help worksheet that dissects the lyrics to Let's Find the Root with visual examples nad explanations to better help you understand the theory concepts I am teaching in class.

FUN TO KNOW

Our newest puppet show is from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, and is officially called Dance of the Knights. The story we incorporate is all about Monsters. Here is a link to printable monsters mini puppets and a link to a monsters puppet show coloring page.

Check out these trombonists as they play a Star Wars trick on their fellow musicians while practicing the Prokofiev piece during an orchestra rehearsal! Musicians can be funny!