Home Practice

STRINGS

Warm up:

Beg. Strings: D Major Scale

Int./Adv. Strings: G Major & A Major Scales 

Concert Songs:

All Strings:

• String Cheese Cha-Cha

• Two Tasty Tacos

Int./Adv. Strings: 

• Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride

Adv. 2 Strings:

• Themes from Harry Potter

Extra: 

• • Karate! Play book songs in order 

  • E EGE D C   B  (E)

  • C#D F# A
    C#D F# A G

  • Fun to watch: Golden

Home Practice Tips!

“What do I practice?”

1) Concert Songs (Sheet Music) and/or

2) Book songs to earn karate belts - go through the songs in order!! 

Strategies for if you’re having trouble…

• For book songs, look on other parts of the page or the page before for definitions of new symbols and notes!

• “Zoom in” on just a small section that is tricky - it can be as small as two notes!

  • Practice that small section slowly, over and over again. You may need to make the section smaller if you’re still having trouble.

  • Gradually play the section faster until it’s more comfortable.

  • Start to “zoom out” and make the section a little larger and/or follow the above steps on the next small section.

  • Try playing through the sections together.

• Use different strategies to read the notes before playing:

  • Sing the rhythm (or timing) of the notes using “ta” and “ti-ti” syllables

  • Sing the letter names of the notes

  • Sing the fingers for the notes

  • Sing and do your fingers for the notes

If you can play through the songs…

• Check your technique (HOW you play your instrument)! Challenge yourself to play through a song with one or more of the below aspects of your technique. You can even video record yourself and watch it to check.

  • Are you using EXCELLENT posture?

  • Are you holding your instrument correctly?

  • Are you using the correct hand/mouth/finger positions?

• Check are you playing fluently without pauses? Practice until you no longer pause between notes.

• Challenge yourself to play the song TWICE in a row with ZERO mistakes!

• Play along with the recordings on BrightSpace!

• Memorize your concert songs (this is NOT required for the concert - just a fun challenge!).