Titus, 3yo and Juli, adult Progress Diary

We have been working hard to catch up. I have gone through and done the music dictations 1-6. I then did the test. For the dictations, I felt great up until dictation 6, as it threw me off by not starting with Do, which I did not realize right away. I listened through it, and before the answer was given, did realize at the end that I was hearing Mi not Do, so restarted the video and re-did the dictation.

The test was really difficult. I restarted like 5 times. I kept getting lost. I would be listening to a note, thinking about what I just heard and the next note would play just a bit too fast for me, and since I was still thinking about the previous note, I would not even hear the next one. And then, when I would get lost, I had no markers, even if I had paused, no way of knowing how many notes I had just skipped, or if I were to just rewind a bit where I would be, so I would just restart. I was finally able to make it to the end:-)

Here are the dictations:



And here is the test:



My husband has a lot less time than me, so he has gotten through only the first three dictations, but he is doing great as well. It really surprises him that he is able to do so.




We are having a bit of trouble with TJ (now 21 months) following the curriculum exactly as laid out. He is still in the process of learning the cards, and he just loves to sing them. I am trying to adjust the summer curriculum for him and what he is capable of, so we watch and listen, and sing along. Then, I lay out the cards for him and we sing, and then I give him the cards. At this point, he doesn't try to lay them out. He just plays with them, but he does sometimes want to sing the notes on them, or lays them down (mimicking me) but sings something else. I think he is catching on that there is a melody, and he is combining notes (Do, Re, Do), though not always in the prescribed order. He is really having fun with it an gets so excited when we do anything Soft Mozart.

His favorite is the Note Alphabet school. I move the notes only after he sings them (though I will usually give him clues if he tries it).

I will post videos of him later.

I promised I would put up videos of TJ and so I have taken some. We started the ear training, and I have tried a couple methods with him. He is interested in reading the cards sometimes, but not yet in putting them out himself, so I have tried putting them out for him and also just going through the cards as the notes are sung on screen (both methods are shown in the video below):


I also have been playing that youtube video made by Marlita to the Do to DO song and TJ just absolutely adores it! Here is him watching it:


In addition, my husband has been trying quite a bit at soft mozart and lately, he has tried a few songs in Gentle Piano, all on presentation 1 and 2, but he is so happy to be making progress. Here is the latest screenshot in Presentation 2 with both hands of jingle bells:




My husband had a question. He has been tkaing each song as recomended, R, L, P, RH, LH, PH, but he was wondering at which point in this process do you start worrying about finger placement (which finger to play each note with), because he says he doens't want to memorize the wrong way while he is working to memorize it and then find he has to change it all?

Oh, and another question. When playing for example the Note Alphabet school, is there a way to ask the notes to slow down? For TJ, it is a game we enjoy playing together. I only move the note once he has sung it (usually with my prompting), but nonethless, they speed up a little too fast and I know where to put them, but I still want to set them on their slowest setting. I don't want to keep doing it wrong on purpose to get them to slow down for him, because then he is seeing them put in the wrong order, but when they get fast, he can't sing them fast enough.

We have been going through the summer curriculum with TJ, and when we first started, he was having trouble paying attention all the way through, let alone placing nay cards.

Now, he asks for more and attentively watches and tries to sing along. I will usually play it thorugh the first time, and we will listen, then sing what we see on screen, then I will lay out cards for him, then we will sing through the cards. Then, I play the video a second time, and we point to each card (during the listen part, we just point. During all other parts, we point and sing). Then, I give him the cards and let him arrange them as he likes. (only the cards for the current lesson).

This made lesson 4 really great for him (it was 4 dos), so it didn't matter which order he decided to put them in, we would sing the same way each time:-)

My husband still has the same question from before: "My husband had a question. He has been taking each song as recommended, R, L, P, RH, LH, PH, but he was wondering at which point in this process do you start worrying about finger placement (which finger to play each note with), because he says he doesn't want to memorize the wrong way while he is working to memorize it and then find he has to change it all?"

Well, it has been a while since I have uploaded videos, but Titus and I have been through quite a bit in the last few months. My husband suddenly passed away and we have been dealing with that for a while.

We are back to our piano lessons, though. Here is the piece I am currently working on and would love some feedback on what to focus on and how to make it better.



Titus is also working on his songs and various exercises. I will upload some videos later of him