Friends,
I wanted to send out a brief note of reminder that we are officially on break until July 5th. This means NO lessons or classes this coming week, or the next.
Also, I wanted to continue offering some suggestions on summer practice. Early this week I sent this out on summer shedding (shedding is a term that jazz musicians derived from the idea of going to the woodshed to practice—something people often did back in the day). In that post I explained that I suggest breaking down your practice routine into four different components:
- Scales
- Chords
- Time/Rhythm
- Repertoire/Material
The last post focused on scales and chord practice. This post will focus on time and rhythm, which is SUPER important. If you do not have a metronome, you might download a free metronome app for your child on your smart phone or tablet, or go buy an inexpensive digital one. But a metronome will be a huge help with rhythm practice.
I found this online and it is excellent! I would recommend printing out the first exercise page only (1). When students are comfort able playing these rhythms accurately with one note, I would next suggest just a few notes using the improvisation technique on the instructions of the handout (page 2). Another great way to work rhythm and scales is to play up and down a scale, changing pitch with every new rhythm and then down as necessary. This only works of course if you know the scale fairly well, but it will force you to know it very well!
Of course, once you have mastered 1, move on to 2 and so on.
Remember to work in fifteen-minute increments and take five minutes for fun in every fifteen.
Here is a fun online rhythm game that will also help reinforce your rhythm learning. Start simple with quarter notes and add more complex rhythms as you go!
If you would like to work on this in lessons, just let us know!
Happy practicing! See you in a few weeks!