Twinkle lessons 9_26_11

Dear Parents,
I am very happy to be working with you and your children this year.  This assignment is general for all the new beginning students this year.  The beginning students range from early three year olds to 5 year olds who have already had other piano lessons.
Following are points for this week:

1. Please make sure you are listening to the disc as many hours a day as possible.  You can make copies of the disc by uploading it to your itunes and then have it in the main room of your house, the child's bedroom, and also the car. Keep the volume low so that it is going on in the background all day. It is not possible to listen too much! This is the way your child will be able to speak all the pieces with beautiful sound easily and without extra explanations or teaching.

2.  The most important point to work on is "ready". This is as true for the students who can play all of the twinkles as well as the younger students who have not started to play yet.
The ready position creates balance in the physical posture, calmness in the emotional center, and one-pointedness in the mental condition. You can bring attention to the feeling of the ready by asking the child if the bench is too high, does your arm feel right etc.

3.   Other activities can include:

• singing "Do a deer",  "twinkle" with words and with solfege/actions, London Bridge and Mary, beginning solfege to Lightly Row
•  Color and cut out the song cards while listening to the disc and naming the songs. Reinforce the names during the week when you hear them come on the disc
• find the Do's, and other notes as well if this is easy,
• clap the twinkle rhythms
• say finger numbers with increasing speed, eyes closed, etc. as done in the lesson

Here is a previous twinkle blog from a similar point in the year that includes some performances of Cuckoo.  One of them is the Cuckoo Folk Song from Book 1 performed from at a  10 piano concert in Japan.  There is another video which is the  "Cuckoo" by Daquin from Suzuki Book 6 performed by a former student.  See if you and your child can hear the Cuckoo theme when Lauren plays (It is in the left hand in the beginning section)
http://coresuzukipiano.blogspot.com/2009/10/twinkle-lessons-5.html


Please bring a microchip each week so that we can record the lesson for your home use.
Please let me know if you need any help figuring out how to use the chip at home, etc.
best,
Leah Brammer