Author Archives: Meghan Wright

Double the Hands, Double the Fun

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A few things happened this week, so where is what you missed…

  1. I started playing the piano with 2 hands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I don’t know if that is enough exclamation points to show how excited I am).
  2. I started playing two notes at the same.
  3. I was able to sightread “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Encanto
  4. Sadly, I unsubscribed from the app Simply Piano

But all of this will be covered shortly.

First off, I wanted to give everyone a visual representation of how my playing went this week.

I swear this is what I looked like

Tickling Classical Music GIF by David Firth - Find & Share on GIPHY

But in all reality, this is what I actually looked like

Game Forum GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Back to what you missed! Yes, you read that right! I played with 2 hands this week! I used the Simply Piano app again this week. The image below is from a video on this app. The pink highlighted note is the “middle C” and the blue highlighted note is also a C but it is one octave lower than the middle C. These videos and similar videos are provided by the Simply Piano app, you are able to pause and restart the videos when you need time to figure out your finger placement.

Your pinky finger is labeled number 5, that finger plays the C an octave lower than middle C

Something I learned this week was that there are times when you might play two notes at the same time with the same hand. The first image below shows what the note looks like to play a low F and low G together. It kind of looks like a flower, that’s how I remember it, anyone else has an idea of what it looks like? Also, when you look under the first note you can see a 1 and a 2, this is probably the most helpful tool of the week. The 1 and 2 tell you what fingers to play the notes with, in this case, you will play with your thumb and index finger. This is so helpful when the notes are coming quickly, and it takes a minute for your eyes to adjust to the notes you are meant to play.

These notes will be played with your left hand.

Although last week I was playing with chords and more pop songs, I decided it was time to go back to the basics. I practiced my scales and my notes. The app has fun little games that you can play throughout the learning process. One of my favorite games was when I played flash cards with notes. The app would give me a random note like the one below and I had to play the note on the piano.

This is one of the flashcard notes, the note on the screen is a D.

As I said above, I was able to sight-read the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and after about 10 minutes I got 3/3 stars! The app is really encouraging to make me practice because I wanted 3/3 stars and on the first round, I only got 2 ½ stars out of three so I decided I better keep trying until I got better.

THREE STARS!!!!!

I know last week I recommended this app, and I still do, as long as you have an extra $150 a year to spare. As a university student, I am not ready to spend that much on an app! However, if this were used in a music class where multiple students were able to work using the same account, the price wouldn’t seem as high!

Also, I am on the hunt for other piano teaching tools, if anyone can fill me in on other resources I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks for reading, you’re a gem ?

I Love Hashtags!

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Before I took this class, twitter was the furthest thing from my mind. Some first thoughts that came to mind when I heard Twitter were politics and reading. As someone who only went on Instagram, I was expecting twitter to be so much reading. Suffice it to say, I was wrong. I have learned that unlike other social media platforms Twitter has a character limit. I have been enjoying posting on Twitter for the last month!

Twitter has been helpful in my classes thus far so I am confident that it will help me in my future classroom. One activity I saw on Twitter was about the game spoons. The article suggested that students can make fraction cards and find equivalent fractions regarding their cards. The students will pick up the cards and pass them on if the card doesn’t match what they are trying to collect. I was able to use this idea in my EMTH class. If you want to check out the Twitter post I’m speaking of it is linked here

So far, my favorite part of Twitter, aside from all the interesting articles I’m finding is the #hashtags. Every time I post get excited because I get to think of fun hashtags to use! My favorites thus far have been #takecareofyourself #learnthroughmistakes #practicemakesbetter. My friends even call me the hashtag queen because I have started to use hashtags in my daily life. When I am ready to get lunch I will text my friends #lunch or when I finish an assignment I’ve been working really hard on I will say #finallydone. I get a kick out of thinking about different hashtags to use!

My friends call me the #hashtagqueen because of all the hashtags I use!

Twitter will also be helpful to create relationships with other teachers and even reach out for advice from other teachers. I wouldn’t be posting on Twitter using the students’ names or posting about their home issues; however, I could post questions similar to “my class is learning fractions, any good ideas for lessons” this way the lessons and ideas can come from other experienced teachers.

Pain is the Name of the Game!

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This week I got a great app called Simply Piano! The app for the iPhone is able to listen to you playing the piano through the phone. If you wish to download this app click here

This is the app I’ve been using throughout the week!

Retrieved from- https://www.liveabout.com/illustrated-guide-to-middle-c-2701388

One problem I did have with the app is that you need to pay to use it. My plan was to sign up for the subscription for the free two-week period and then cancel my subscription however the app is really helpful! I got to choose what I wanted to work on and then the app would help me with my goal. This week I learned some chords. First I learned the C major chord. This chord is played with your 1st finger (thumb) on C, your 3rd finger (middle finger) on the E, and your 5th  finger (pinky finger) on G. When you play all these notes at the same time, it creates the C major chord. I started this chord playing on the middle C. The middle C is the 4th C key on the piano, it is found in the middle of the piano, to the left of the 2 black keys

After I finished a few rounds playing with this chord, the app decided I was ready to move on to the G major chord. To play this chord you start as if you were going to play a C major chord and then move your fingers from C and E to B and D while your pinky stays on G. Finally, I learned a D major chord, where you put your 1st finger (thumb) on the note D, your 2nd (index finger) on F sharp (the smaller black key one step to the right of F) and then your 3rd  finger (middle finger) on A. When this is played all together it makes the D major chord. I felt fairly comfortable working with these chords, however when the app moved me on to the next level, which included switching chords it became a lot more difficult. Linked here is the website Piano Keyboard Guide, it gives more visual representations of the chords on the piano.

These are some of the chords I can play on the piano thanks to this app!

My hands started cramping up and the accuracy of the chords I was playing started to diminish. I think that one improvement of this app would be to lengthen the lessons so that I can learn how to play the chords and practice moving up slowly to more difficult exercises. Overall, I would definitely use this app again, and I probably will… at least for the next two weeks! Thanks for reading you’re a gem! ?

Piano Got HARDER!!

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This week was frustrating! As I stated last week, I was playing songs such as Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, but this week I think I became a little too ambitious. This week I played the song “All of Me” by John Legend. At first glance, I thought that this song would be more at my level because it was more difficult, but I felt that it was something I could play. Well, it was definitely more difficult! The song had four flats in it! I had to work my brain far harder than I did last week to remember the notes, the flats, and how to properly move my fingers. I have the video of me playing linked below, and honestly hearing it back is so rewarding because I can hear major progress in my playing!

I used time-lapse on my phone to document my learning. I have never used time-lapse before, but I am glad I did this week. A time-lapse option is included in the iPhone camera, and it takes a picture every few minutes. I think that this is a very helpful tool to use in the classroom to document the progress of something that is constantly changing. An example could include growing a plant in class. The plant wouldn’t look very different to the naked eye from day to day because the students will always be looking at it, but if there was a time-lapse of the plant the students could see the months of growth within a few moments.  I think that because the students can see the process of the plant growing through the time-lapse this tool would be in the redefinition area. Because of the time-lapse, students can see the plant’s growth, flowers bloom, fruit appears, and leaves die. They can see the life cycle of the plant and they might not notice the significant change if not for the time-lapse.

When I made the time-lapse on my phone, I was able to see my progress. The only problem with the time-lapse is that I couldn’t hear my progress. This makes lots of sense because a time-lapse is just multiple images that make a video. When I finished practicing, I was very frustrated with myself, and I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere but when I watched my time-lapse back, I saw that I put a whole lot of work in, and I was proud of myself!  I don’t think I would use this tool again to document my progress in piano, mainly because it is important to be able to hear the piano. However, I think that the time lapse would be a lot of sense in situations that do not require sound.

The other internet tool I used today was an app called “MuseScore”. This app has piano sheet music, but it also plays the music with you. I also found the app helpful because it included the words with music. When I played the note, I would sing the corresponding lyric (not very well may I add). This helped me because I could hear if a note was off depending on where I was in the song. There were some issues with this app. First and foremost, the app has in-app purchases, and as seen in the video below they pop up at inopportune times. If you paid for the subscription, you wouldn’t have the apps.

This is the sheet music from MuseScore

Thanks for reading, you’re a gem ?

We Love Labeling

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Hi everyone!

I played the piano this week! I grabbed some sticky notes, and I headed downstairs where we keep the pianos. When I sat down, I found a picture of all the 88 keys on the piano labeled with their corresponding letters.

https://enthu.com/blog/piano/how-to-label-piano-keys/

After I wrote down all the notes, a friend of mine told me that I should learn how to do the C major scale. At first, I was very confused because I thought the scales were simply just moving up the keys A,B,C,D,E,F,G but then I found the video linked here, showing the fingers you are meant to use for each note. I ended up putting sticky notes on each of my fingers to remind me which one was meant to play with which note. The specific finger placement is something that I didn’t think about, however, it makes sense that when one if I play the notes with the proper fingers now it will be easier to play more difficult songs down the line. Although it took some time for my fingers to become comfortable moving in this way, once I got the hang of it, I was off to the races.  Here are some images of my progress

My labeled piano keys!

The orange is different because that is “middle C”

I even chose to play a few songs, if you want to check out my first try at the piano video it is linked here.

Thanks for reading, you’re a gem ?

 

Get to Know Me!

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Hi everyone! My name is Meghan Wright, I come from Estevan Saskatchewan, which is part of the unsurrendered land of Treaty 4. I am in my 3rd year of the Education program, and I am so excited for pre-internship to start! I think that it is important to mention in every introduction that I love reality tv, especially the Bachelor franchise, the sneak peek for the finale episode of the bachelorette is linked here. In case you don’t believe my pure commitment to this television masterpiece, The photo below is of my google doc where my sister and take notes on the episodes!

I think online classes have made me less scared of blogging. Whether it be a forum post or communicating over discord, covid helped us learn how to communicate in many different ways! However, I am extremely glad that lots of my classes are back in person. I am living in residence and I love the opportunity to spend time with my friends!

I have a few social media platforms, but this class will be my first time using Twitter. I am hesitant to create my blog on edusites because I do not know the platform and it’s tools, but I am excited to learn. If you would have asked me this summer, I would say I considered myself technologically literate, but I must say that these new sites have me feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Starting anew

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For this assignment, I decided to take up the great opportunity to learn piano. I live in residence, and we have pianos that are available for the residents to play. I took piano lessons for a few months when I was about 6 years old, so it is sufficient to say that after 15 years, I do not remember anything. I am most excited to gain the skill to play songs that everyone knows. When I was in high school one of my basketball teammates sat down at a piano and started to play “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton and my team just sang along with her.

It was a really cool experience to see how a simple piano could bring our team together. I love that idea of just sitting down and playing music that makes everyone happy!

We have a few pianos in my residence, but I plan to use the one that is actually tuned! The only other materials I plan to use for my first week are some sticky notes. I don’t know any of the keys on the piano so I plan on putting sticky notes on the keys, so I know what notes I am being asked to play.