Orange Roots #3

NEED TO KNOW

Orange Roots #3: Your Orange Roots are doing great! It's fun to see them transitioning into real musician's language, counting with numbers and "ands" instead of bugs, finding chords in root position, and identifying the roots of chords not in root position!

T-SHIRTS: I buy Let's Play Music T-shirts for all of my first-year students. If you would like a shirt for your 2nd or 3rd year students for $11, I can include them in my order. Third year students will not wear the LPM shirts at the end-of-year recital (they will dress fancy like the real musicians they are), but if they've grown out of their shirt and want another one, here's your chance. If you'd like to order, fill out this form and venmo me $11. (If you don't venmo, you can bring a check to class or include it in the next tuition payment.) 

NEXT YEAR: If you missed the discussion on what to do after Let's Play Music, here is a link to my post outlining some great options. Like I said last week, I will consider doing a Bridge class during the times when my own kids are in school if there are enough folks who can come during the day. Let me know. 

HOMEWORK HELP: This week's homework includes two sections about the roots of the chords.
*The first section is building root position triads. It gives the root, then your student will add a third and a fifth (build a snowman chord on the note given), then spell it below. As a reminder, the skipping snake chant is "C-E-G-B-D-F-A-C." If you'd like to make your own alphabet circles to make a skipping snake at home, you can print them out at this link. Disregard the part that says to print on green cardstock. Print it on whatever color or type of paper and make yourself a music alphabet tool!
*In the second section, it asks them to find the root in different chords. Some of the chords are in root position (snowman shaped), so the root is down below. This week in class, we learned a new way to find the roots of chords that are NOT in root position. "The note above the gap's the root, it just has rearranged!"

SONGBOOK AS WORKBOOK: We looked at our new song, John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith, and identified the roots of the chords, writing them in the space between the staves. Then we discovered that the left hand is playing the roots! We finished the activity by writing in the first note, the root of the chord which is an F.

GOOD TO KNOW

JOHN JACOB JINGLEHEIMER SMITH: This fun song will get us learning a new style of bass root accompanying. Once we understand this, we can improvise with a two-handed marching style. Check this video out for practice help. Also, this song is another opportunity to feel a half cadence (end on a yellow chord instead of red).

I CAN BUILD A TRIAD: Like the song says, "Pick any note to be the root... then add a third, and then a fifth!" Now that we are learning chord structure, our skipping snakes will help us to chant and spell each of our triads. Like any native language, you speak (sing) it first, then learn to write it. Want to practice with your own skipping snakes at home? Here again is the link to print out this file and have fun with your own alphabet circles! It says to print on green cardstock and laminate... you can print on whatever color you want and laminate/magnet/leaveblank/whatever you'd like!

FUN TO KNOW

Like most folk songs, there are a lot of variations of our "John Jacob" song. I remember singing it as 'Schmidt' instead of 'Smith' as a kid, and instead of 'look there he goes again,' we would belt out 'la la la la la la la!'

It can be a lot of fun to take a familiar tune and improvise in fun and crazy ways. Which varation does your family like best? Rock'n'Roll, Sesame Street, or Sing-a-ma-jig?