Thursday, May 21, 2009
Post Presentation
I had my presentation in April and I thought it went really well. What i tried to do was focus less on actually teaching people about music theory and more about how piano has become a vital part of my life. I mean some music theory is pretty complicated and there was just no way to teach people most stuff in one day so I taught them the simplest thing i know about music, beats, which has an impact on the timing of how you play. I spoke a lot about my main song Fur Elise, which was a really big deal for me because the short version was the first real song i played and the long version was the last of my senior exhibit so it came full circle which was kind of cool and I also used the song as my written document by transposing it up to a different key. I also played Fur Elise and i think i did pretty well doing that too, so all in all i think this was a really successful senior exhibit, i mean it isn't at all about the grade for me anymore (not that an A wouldn't be nice) it is the fact that that i am going to continue music for the rest of my life and it has opened new doors for me that i didn't have before. I mean music is so important to me now i don't even know how i got along without it before this.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Presentation Outline
My Outline to my Presentation
Intro: I will start out by talking about my journey of learning how to play the piano. I will talk about all of the different songs that I can play, also how hard or easy it was to learn certain songs.
Theory: After I talk about my journey I will talk about different theory that I have learned. I will then talk about how theory applies to different songs. For example I will talk about keys and then I will play a couple bits of different songs demonstrating different keys. This also ties into my written document so I will talk about that here too. Then I will talk about starting out with scales then moving on to full scale transpositions. So here I could actually play a bit of the real Fur Elise and then play it according transposition, demonstrating how the same song in a different key can be very different. There is a lot more in depth I can go into theory but I won’t write it all here, suffice to say that I have plenty of theory to talk about during the presentation.
Concert: I will shows some bits and pieces of video of my three recitals (second and third are in February and march) I will definitely show a bit of Fur Elise because that has been a huge part of my project considering I am transposing it for my written doc, the first ‘real’ song I played was the short version of Fur Elise and it has taken me months to be able to play the full version and it is far from perfect still, so I will show that video. I will also show bits and pieces from each recital to show how I have grown just in these short months from not knowing any music at all to being able to play Fur Elise and now Debussy (well not quite yet but I’m working on it, it is a ridiculous song but Ms Eschen is helping me with it).
Intro: I will start out by talking about my journey of learning how to play the piano. I will talk about all of the different songs that I can play, also how hard or easy it was to learn certain songs.
Theory: After I talk about my journey I will talk about different theory that I have learned. I will then talk about how theory applies to different songs. For example I will talk about keys and then I will play a couple bits of different songs demonstrating different keys. This also ties into my written document so I will talk about that here too. Then I will talk about starting out with scales then moving on to full scale transpositions. So here I could actually play a bit of the real Fur Elise and then play it according transposition, demonstrating how the same song in a different key can be very different. There is a lot more in depth I can go into theory but I won’t write it all here, suffice to say that I have plenty of theory to talk about during the presentation.
Concert: I will shows some bits and pieces of video of my three recitals (second and third are in February and march) I will definitely show a bit of Fur Elise because that has been a huge part of my project considering I am transposing it for my written doc, the first ‘real’ song I played was the short version of Fur Elise and it has taken me months to be able to play the full version and it is far from perfect still, so I will show that video. I will also show bits and pieces from each recital to show how I have grown just in these short months from not knowing any music at all to being able to play Fur Elise and now Debussy (well not quite yet but I’m working on it, it is a ridiculous song but Ms Eschen is helping me with it).
Friday, January 9, 2009
Journal Entry 25
Journal Entry 25
January 9, 2009
I am finally done with Fur Elise, it has been a long road working on Fur Elise, but I think I have finally finished it, my teacher told me that I can move on. I also finished another page of the transposition of Fur Elise. I also finally figured out what the mechanics of my transposition are. I figured out that since Fur Elise is actually in A Minor that it is going to be moved to another minor key, so since I am moving it up one key it is in B Minor, which is D Major’s relative minor. B Minor has C sharp and F sharp so that is my key. I will have to revise my transposition because I only recently found out that it is in B Minor. So today I started a new song La Fille Aux Cheveux de Lin, or the Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Debussy, it is a very difficult song but I think I am up for it, Ms Eschen helped me start it today and I scheduled an extra lesson with my teacher tomorrow so I can work on it some more. I will also have my normal lesson on Monday and I hope I can meet with Ms Eschen again; this song is pretty tough so I am going to use all the help I can get. This song is much different from Fur Elise, rather than the normal flow of the song it is based on a lot of chord but also has an excellent melody, so it is a really good choice I think. I also have to work on my ten minute presentation for the next F day which is next Tuesday. Somehow I have to figure out how to get the audience involved in piano. I plan to break it up, teach them a little theory, nothing too heavy, things they can understand, probably teach them about keys, tones and semi tones, major keys vs. minor keys vs. flat major keys vs. sharp major keys. Then I will talk about my journey, how I picked piano, my progression in learning, how often I practice, the songs I have learned and the passion I have developed for piano. Then I will play a short song, maybe a Billy Joel song, maybe she’s always a woman, something that is fun to listen to but not too long like Fur Elise. So basically, on the agenda for this week is working on the next page for my transposition, doing some chord inversions with piano man, work on she’s always a woman.
January 9, 2009
I am finally done with Fur Elise, it has been a long road working on Fur Elise, but I think I have finally finished it, my teacher told me that I can move on. I also finished another page of the transposition of Fur Elise. I also finally figured out what the mechanics of my transposition are. I figured out that since Fur Elise is actually in A Minor that it is going to be moved to another minor key, so since I am moving it up one key it is in B Minor, which is D Major’s relative minor. B Minor has C sharp and F sharp so that is my key. I will have to revise my transposition because I only recently found out that it is in B Minor. So today I started a new song La Fille Aux Cheveux de Lin, or the Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Debussy, it is a very difficult song but I think I am up for it, Ms Eschen helped me start it today and I scheduled an extra lesson with my teacher tomorrow so I can work on it some more. I will also have my normal lesson on Monday and I hope I can meet with Ms Eschen again; this song is pretty tough so I am going to use all the help I can get. This song is much different from Fur Elise, rather than the normal flow of the song it is based on a lot of chord but also has an excellent melody, so it is a really good choice I think. I also have to work on my ten minute presentation for the next F day which is next Tuesday. Somehow I have to figure out how to get the audience involved in piano. I plan to break it up, teach them a little theory, nothing too heavy, things they can understand, probably teach them about keys, tones and semi tones, major keys vs. minor keys vs. flat major keys vs. sharp major keys. Then I will talk about my journey, how I picked piano, my progression in learning, how often I practice, the songs I have learned and the passion I have developed for piano. Then I will play a short song, maybe a Billy Joel song, maybe she’s always a woman, something that is fun to listen to but not too long like Fur Elise. So basically, on the agenda for this week is working on the next page for my transposition, doing some chord inversions with piano man, work on she’s always a woman.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Journal Entry 23
Journal Entry 23
December 1, 2008
Well, I am kind of idle, with all of the insane amount of studying for midterms that I have to do; I have barely had time to do anything, but I have still kept up with practicing all of my old songs. But I definitely haven’t had time to work on my transposition of Fur Elise, I plan to do a lot of the work over Christmas break, I will have a lot of extra time then to do it. So I have really enjoyed practicing all of my Christmas songs, especially with Christmas less than a month away. So its been kind of weird, like more than two weeks ago, I went for my lesson on Monday instead of Wednesday which was fine, but I didn’t know if that was a permanent change, so Allie told me that she would call me and tell me when my next lesson was, that was over two weeks ago and I haven’t heard a peep, and because of this, I haven’t gone to my lesson, because I don’t know when to go, so I don’t really know what’s up with that, but ill just keep trucking away on Fur Elise and start the transposition after mid-terms, hopefully I can get a hold of Allie before then.
December 1, 2008
Well, I am kind of idle, with all of the insane amount of studying for midterms that I have to do; I have barely had time to do anything, but I have still kept up with practicing all of my old songs. But I definitely haven’t had time to work on my transposition of Fur Elise, I plan to do a lot of the work over Christmas break, I will have a lot of extra time then to do it. So I have really enjoyed practicing all of my Christmas songs, especially with Christmas less than a month away. So its been kind of weird, like more than two weeks ago, I went for my lesson on Monday instead of Wednesday which was fine, but I didn’t know if that was a permanent change, so Allie told me that she would call me and tell me when my next lesson was, that was over two weeks ago and I haven’t heard a peep, and because of this, I haven’t gone to my lesson, because I don’t know when to go, so I don’t really know what’s up with that, but ill just keep trucking away on Fur Elise and start the transposition after mid-terms, hopefully I can get a hold of Allie before then.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)