Today was Rina’s 14th piano lesson and she’s moving right along. Her hand position is greatly improved and she has a nice appreciation of the singing tone.
Irina Gorin’s instruction is laid out in such a way that a student takes no short cuts in learning piano. The physical approach to creating a beautiful tone, one note at a time is a priority, laying a solid foundation for further learning. A student almost unconsciously absorbs each chapter in the fairytale atmosphere of a castle with King Meter, Prince Rhythm, and Princess Melody reigning as central figures in this royally enticing musical journey.
Currently, Rina is exploring melody by playing notes going up and down in step-wise motion.
She began this undertaking a few weeks ago when she identified the musical alphabet going forward and backward, with its associated animal names and pictures on colorful flash cards. As icing on the cake, Rina had climbed the stair steps of my home after she placed alphabet cards on each level.
Irina Gorin has a nice pictorial summary of the music alphabet in a laminated format.
To enrich Rina’s understanding of pitch and rhythm working together to create a pretty melody, we used a “conversational” approach, by dividing the five-note piece, “I am climbing up… I am climbing down” between us. Singing and clapping activities were integrated into this activity along with written insertion of note names into circles along the staircase in Gorin’s Book I. During the week, Rina will “fill in” the short sounds
The lesson also included a playing review of notes, F, G, A and B, where Rina tapped these to prerecorded selections, using assigned fingers of each hand.
We will continue our Journey through the “Magical Kingdom of Sounds” next week.
