Maia (5 years old) and Camelia

I finally get the time to put together all the work we’ve been doing for the last approximately 15 days.
We are thrilled with the program and spend most of our time fighting over the piano (daddy is also very much in love with it), so it is no wonder Maia started singing the notes in her sleep and I cannot sleep for the first half of the night, “practicing”, repeating (in my head) the things we’ve learned the day before.
So, here is our first journal page in the great SMA family, the first segment of the curriculum:
A. Music appreciation
1. We began by reading the book “Orchestra – Music Pops”, which helped Maia understand what a symphony and an orchestra are, where are the instruments placed on the stage, what family they belong to and other extremely interesting things.
Here is a video of the book, with many close-ups that can help you understand what I am talking about:



2. With this information in mind, we stepped toward Joseph Haydn, and I must admit, we had a blast with it!
We read Anna Harwell Celenza’s book (The Farewell Symphony), which I find great, great!


Already knowing what a symphony was, how many parts it has, what was the role of the conductor etc, we could focus on Haydn and found easy to understand what the story behind this symphony was.
The book comes with a CD (on which there are recorded the “Farewell Symphony” and the Symphony no. 31). This gave me the idea of making a game of associating colors with each part of the symphony (trying to remember what the feelings of Prince Nicholas were while listening to the four parts of the symphony).
So, we came to the conclusion that rage, angriness go with red, sorrowness - with blue, the feeling of being mocked at – with yellow, and greatness of music – with purple.
We also made acquaintance with Tomasini and the term “minuet”, which I know will come useful in future lessons with the program.
To make the lesson more fun, we watched the fourth part of the symphony being performed on stage.



I cannot describe in words Maia’s reaction at seeing how the musicians leave the stage, one by one! She knew the story, but seeing how they actually leave, made her applaud and laugh so, so much!



3. Already in love with Haydn, “The Surprise Symphony” was so much expected!
We are listening, on regular bases, the first and second part of it.
Maia’s thrilled with the second, so she was so happy to learn it:



B. Ear training
She plays the “Guess the Key Game” every day (always singing the notes while playing), for at least two times (about 3 minutes).
This was her score yesterday morning:



C. Piano:
1. We go through the 5 finger exercise every day (for at least 2 times).
Here is Maia, yesterday, practicing the part that she found to be the most challenging:



2. She’s learnt the “names” for all of her ten fingers.

3. These are the songs she plays so far:









4. She likes role-plays a lot, so when daddy is not at home to play the role of the student, she uses her doll to teach her everything she needs to know about the piano:



5. In order to polish her performance, Maia started playing with the teaching videos, and we are so happy with this great idea! She says Helen’s hands are floating like wings of a swan and this is a huge future goal for her little hands:





D. I spotted the “music dictation” exercises in the summer curriculum and couldn’t help myself; we had to have a try!
Maia loved them and here are the scores, dictated by her and written by mommy:



The next morning I went to the piano and asked Maia to put on the staff the notes she hears:



We are still working on do-re-mi, and I am not sure what the next set of notes should be (mi-fa-sol or fa-sol-la).

E. After playing her daily “Guess the Key Game”, he played today, for the first time, the “Note Alphabet Game” and her score was 227 (5 minutes).
She also learnt to play the “Alphabet Song” and repeated the “William Tell Overture”, she is working on for a few days.

F. Mommy:
I am also a beginner in piano …
Here are 3 of my most beloved songs (I have a thing with the Russian songs!), which I managed to learn when Maia was not at the piano.
It seems that my pinky is more nervous than I am at the piano, and always wants to “stick out”, which drives me sort of crazy))))):







Thank you so much, Hellene, for the wonderful opportunity this program is giving us!

Hello everyone! I’m back with our 7 day activity:
1. Every day, after waking up in the morning, Maia plays 2 or 3 of her “new” songs and at least 3 of the “older” ones.
2. She also plays the “Guess the Key” (536 points in 3:04 minutes) and the “Alphabet School” (and 275 point in 5:44 minutes) games:






3. She likes playing the Alphabet Chant with the teaching video:



4. She played again ‘Hot Cross Buns’ and ‘French Song’, which she learnt last week:



5. These are the songs she learnt this week:




6. Hanon # 1 (after one week of practicing):


7. Gingle Bells with teaching video:


8. We watched the theory theatre video and came to the conclusion that mistakes are the mere resortes that make us practice more in order to become better piano players.
9. We read “Hansel and Gretel” story, retold by Rika Lesser and fabulously illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky.



10. For the music appreciation part, we listened to E. Humperdinck’s ”Hansel and Gretel” and learnt that it is very much associated with Christmas, originally meant to go along with a little play that Humperdinck and his sister wrote for her children at Christmas.
Maia now knows that this is a fairy-tale opera, in 3 acts (parts) that are proceeded by an overture that opens with the famous “When at Night I Go to Sleep”, theme that the two children sing as they fall asleep.

We listened to this song here:



and translated the lyrics, which are so, so touching:

When at night I go to sleep
Fourteen angels watch do keep
Two my head are guarding
Two my feet are guiding
Two are on my right hand
Two are on my left hand
Two who warmly cover
Two who o’er me hover
Two to whom ’tis given
To guide my steps to heaven

Sleeping sofly, then it seems
Heaven enters in my dreams;
Angels hover round me,
Whisp'ring they have found me;
Two are sweetly singing,
Two are garlands bringing,
Strewing me with roses
As my soul reposes.
God will not forsake me
When dawn at last will wake me.

11. It is a song Maia is already in love with:


12. We made an audition, trying to identify the instruments we heard and the feelings we thought they brought along.
We noticed how the Overture opens with French horns, followed by the woodwinds, which repeat the theme.
Here we used the Safari tube called “Musical instruments” and chose all the instruments we heard while listening to the music:



More than anything else, we liked how the overture concludes quietly on a long tone.
The message of the story is also very important: children need to stay away from strangers and never enter unfamiliar houses without the permission of their parents!

13. We also watched this movie and tried to learn the song and dance Maia fell in love with (“Brother Come and Dance with Me”).



If you are interested in the lyrics, you can find them here: www.mamalisa.com/blog/come-and-dance-with-me-song/ .

Here is she practicing the steps:



14. We learnt that Humperdinck was born and lived in Germany throughout his life, so we painted a wooden peg in this country’s flag. We already have a small collection of such “flags”, representative for composers we studied before.


15. I noticed that Maia starts being interested in sight-reading the notes, so I designed a grand staff, on an A3 sheet of paper and laminated it.
I initially made polymer clay “notes”, with stickers on them, but after a while, we changed them with pom-poms.



We didn’t follow any colour code, but tried to reproduce the music sheet of the song using these pom-poms.



16. These are the drawings Maia made inspired by this story:

17. For the weekend we plan to read the book “Bravo! Brava! A Night at the Opera”.

So far, we know that opera is a story told in music combining the text (libretto) with a musical score and that opera singers sound really different from pop singers because they are trained to use their voices without microphones!

Conclusion:
Thank you so much, SM, for giving us the opportunity of learning how to play the piano! Within 3 weeks of assiduous work, Maia can play her “older” songs without stickers and starts sight-reading the music sheets:



And mummy learnt how to play, without stickers, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (Bach):


Ok, it may not seem much, but for us, it is a huge achievement, and a great motivation to go on and work even harder!

Thank you so, so much, dear Hellene!
This is, actually, the best time of our lives, when our dream of playing the piano seems to become reality.
We are surrounded by music all day long, the curriculum you provide us is uplifting and so inspiring, that we sometimes have the impression of being in a fairy-tale, we would never like to leave.

Kisses and hugs,
Maia & Camelia

Wow, Hellene, we'd love to!
Thank you so much!