My final EDTC post! I didn’t know where to start! How can I summarize everything I’ve learned and practiced? I will start with a quick review of my blog posts

Week 1

• I set my goal of playing “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. We sang the song on my high school basketball team while we were waiting for our trainer to start our workout. It was a really beautiful moment and my goal was to be able to play this song in a similar
  • Link to “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton

Week 2

• I started to learn the keys of the piano. To remember them I started labeling each key on the piano. As I started to get better, I was able to take off more and more sticky notes. The last sticky note I took off was for the Middle C
  • Link to my first piano video

Week 3

• I started playing songs that were more challenging. I went from playing Mary Had a Little Lamb to playing “All of Me” by John Legend. This week I also used the tool Time Lapse. Although I would whole heartedly recommend this tool in the classroom it needs to be used properly. Because I used time lapse my videos did not have any sound. This proves that although the tool is useful, it is not helpful in every classroom area.
  • My take on “All of Me” by John Legend
  • My piano time lapse

Week 4

• This week I used the piano app Simply Piano. I think that there are many apps that can be useful in the classroom. This app was very helpful in my learning process however, the cost was too extreme to pay for a subscription. If the price was lowered or if the app was used in a music class where many students used it, it would be very helpful.
  • The link to Simply Piano app
  • The website Piano Keyboard Guide

Week 5

• I started playing the piano with two hands. The left-hand plays the lower and slower notes on the piano and the right plays the melody.
  • “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Disneys Encanto

Week 6

• This week I looked at piano theory. I practiced reading notes on sheet music. This is a skill that I defiantly did not master. When I read pieces previously in my life, I only focused on treble clef so reading music in base clef was a tough transition.
  • Explanation of Trumpet Sections
  • Website for testing your theory knowledge

Week 7

• I played a bunch of different songs this week. There were all at about the same difficulty level. However, the difficulty level was a bit too difficult for me! I solved this problem by using final cut pro to speed up my playing. This is a useful tool, however, something that not all schools have. I think that any tool that can show a student’s progress in a short time would be great for them to see their progress!
  • Link to My Final Cut Pro video
  • Slowed down piano version of “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift

Week 8

• This week I played “I Can Show You the World” from Disney’s Aladdin. I used the voice memo tool to record my piano playing. I will use this app whenever necessary in the classroom. Because you can voice record while using other apps, I was able to record while reading the piano music off my phone. This is great for any students who need to record themselves but have their notes on a separate document on their phones. I also included the importance other apps on my phone like the reminder’s app or the clock app to help with time management.
  • Disney’s Aladdin song “I Can Show You The World“

Week 9

• I started my overall goal of playing “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton! It took a lot of practice and it took me practicing daily to understand one section of the song. I used the Reminders app and the Clock app to help me with my time management.
  • Sheet Music Direct Website
  • Slowed Down Version of “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton

Week 10

For my final learning project, I played “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton!

Thanks for reading, you’re a gem ?

I’ll catch you next time.

Meghan

Update: I went to Costco today and I sat down at the piano and continued to practice the section of the song I remembered.

I know the sound quality isn’t the best, but I am excited to practice whenever I get the chance.

My goal at the beginning of the year was to be able to play “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. This week I started the task. Throughout this semester I practiced different songs building in difficulty until I got to where I am. When I sat down at the piano, I was excited to start learning. Although I tried my best throughout the semester, I was only able to play the song with one hand. I couldn’t train my brain to think about two different hand movements while also keeping time and hitting the right notes! My respect goes out to all the piano players out there because this is a tough instrument to play.

When I started playing this song I found a website called Sheet Music Direct. This website sold sheet music for around $5 unless you got a subscription to the company. I was not keen on spending $10 a month for sheet music so I went for the free trial to test out the website.

Honestly, it was not my favorite site. The sheet music was good, but it gave no context on how the song should sound. This is a debatable concept because if I was good at reading sheet music I probably would have had a better chance of appreciating the website. One part that I did appreciate from the sheet music was the letters shown on the notes. I know where all the keys on the piano are, but reading the sheet music is still difficult and a slow painful process so I am glad the note letters were provided in the music.

So then I had to do some sleuthing. I found a few different videos that taught me how to play this song, but the one I found is from YouTube linked here. YouTube is possibly one of the most useful tools to use when teaching students. There are so many different videos put on the app, so as long as the teacher has an idea of the videos being shown to the class, YouTube is a tool that should be utilized constantly.

With the help of the YouTube video, I was able to play the melody of “A Thousand Miles”! This was a difficult challenge because when I first sat down to play, the song was almost unrecognizable. I even had some of my friends ask if I should choose a different song! I don’t blame them though; it was not going great! I decided to take a break and go on a road trip to Walmart (that store makes everything better)! When I came back, I gave the song another shot. This time I focused on one section of the song, (1:20- 1:55). This part of the song gave me so much struggle! But after a lot of practice (and a few tears), I finally got the section of the song, and after that, I was off to the races!

This was the practice week but be ready for the performance next week!

Thanks for reading!

You’re a Gem

I took a break from piano practicing and let me tell you it was not a good idea! When I started playing again, I became very overwhelmed because I felt like I lost a lot of my skills because I hadn’t been practicing enough. My solution was a very simple one the reminder app on my phone! I asked Siri to remind me every day to practice piano and that is what she did! Every day at 4 pm my phone alarm would go off and remind me to practice the piano.

Then I used the timer of my clock app to make sure that I only practiced for an hour. My struggle was that I wouldn’t practice piano for a few days and then I would practice for 3 hours! I was exhausting myself. When I practiced daily, I was able to improve my confidence in playing, and playing became less of a task and more of an excitement.

I think apps already provided on my iPhone like the reminders and clock apps are very helpful and something that I often take for granted. I think students can benefit similarly from apps like these. When I am teaching in my pre-internship, I always have a countdown timer playing for my students to know how much time they have left in the class. This is a tool I plan on using throughout my teaching career. The reminders app will be useful for my students who have access to phones when they are at home. I could even use the remind app that makes it possible for a teacher to professionally message students for reminders such as “make sure to bring your signed spelling test to school” or “today is track and field make sure you bring your running shoes”. These simple reminders could help students prepare for their day as well as cause teachers less havoc because the students hopefully will use the reminders to bring the necessary materials to the school.

The other tool I used for my piano lessons this week was voice memos. I tried my best to play the song “I Can Show You the World” from the Disney movie Aladdin. The voice memos were SO helpful! Previously I have watched videos or used apps to read my music, so I always had to use a friend’s phone to record my videos, however, the voice memos app is different. If I’m not playing or recording a video, I can use voice memos to track my progress. The voice memos allowed me to look back on my first recording of the day to my last so I could see how much I had improved with an hour of practice.

This was my first try playing the song. It is clear that I am struggling, in this first recording. The last recording I took, although not perfect was much better.

I would use voice memos in my classroom whether it be for the students to use to record themselves presenting or the teacher recording a lesson they teach for absent students; the voice memos app is a great tool!

Thanks for reading!

You’re a gem ☺️

It has been a week!

I needed help this week. To be real with everyone, I didn’t want to work this week. As I walked back from class my friend told me she would come downstairs and do homework with me. This is all I needed because having someone with me helped, I was able to focus, and I actually got a lot of work done!

This week I decided to show my piano progress through a video on Final Cut Pro. If you want to give it a watch, that would be great!

Final Cut Pro has some very cool editing tools. It is important to note that the program that I am using requires you to buy it, however, my dad already has this application, so it was no cost to me. Also, Final Cut Pro is the more intense version of iMovie, for little editing projects iMovie works perfectly.

While using the program I found the “rename clip” very helpful. With this tool, it was easier for me to organize my clips with the different songs I played. This week I played

“You Belong With Me” and “Love Story” by Taylor Swift,

“Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White Tees,

“Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond,

“What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction, and

“Mama Mia” and “Dancing Queen” by ABBA.

Needless to say, there were a lot of clips that needed to be labeled and organized so this tool was helpful.

The highlighted section says “Rename Clip”

Another tool that saved me was the blade tool. This tool helped me cut a clip at any point. I played for about 2 hours on the piano so there were times that I had to cut parts of the video. Sometimes I needed to cut the clip because I messed up my song and I went back and improved.

The highlighted portion says “Blade”

So, when making my video I chose the clips that best exemplified where I am at in my piano process. The piano I play on is in the basement of my residence and it is a place where many people like to hang out, this caused a few problems when I was recording. The image below shows a clip that is labeled “TOO MUCH SOUND”. I had to cut this clip out because there were people playing pool in the room beside me, so the blade tool made it easy to cut out the times that they were really loud.

The clip on the bottom is labeled “TOO MUCH SOUND”

The final tool I used in this program was to increase the speed of my piano playing. I was learning this week on YouTube how to play different songs. The video ex. linked here was of the song in the regular tempo, but this was a bit too fast for me. My solution was to play the YouTube clip at .5 or .75 times the speed. This was very helpful but because I was playing slower the song is not as easily recognizable. The first minute or so of my video is of me playing the song at .75 times the speed but when you hear it, it sounds very slow. Final Cut Pro allows me to increase or decrease the speed of my clips.

The highlighted portion is the video being sped up to 125% times the speed of the original clip

The image above is of me setting the speed of the clip to 125% times the speed. This counteracts what I am playing at .75, and ends up with the song sounding similar to the tempo it is meant to be played.

Different video editing softwares would be a great tool in the classroom. Students can use this to make a presentation rather than using presentation tools such as PowerPoints. Students who do not like speaking in front of the class would be able to use this to do a presentation without having to stand in front of the class.

Overall, I would recommend video editing softwares as a classroom resource. However, for students who are using this to make videos for class, I think iMovie would be a better tool to use because it is simpler as well as cheaper!

Tune in next week, I don’t know what I’m going to be doing but I know that it will be a blast! Thanks for reading, you’re a gem! ?

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 ?

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.