Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Hello

Anyone out there have young kids? Well, mine are 11 and 8 (Claire and Joe) and we are kind of tearing our hair out with all this rain this summer. I'm sure you can relate, even if you don't have young children. You can only play so much Scrabble and Sorry!

So yesterday, we had 2 more hours before supper. What to do? So I thought, let's write a song together. We started with a theme. They chose rainy days in summer. Lots of 'em.

The first thing we did was to decide on the form - we went with verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Then we wrote the words. Joe stated a short line, Claire answered it in rhyme. (heh, THAT rhymes). Back and forth. That worked for the verse. Then we wrote another verse the same way. Question and Answer.
Next, for the Chorus, we chose one simple idea, short sentence. In this case it was "There's always tomorrow, it's a new day". Repeat, repeat, repeat. Drill that point home!

For the bridge, I wanted it to be very different in feel so I threw in more minor chords, a higher melodic contour and just a mellower, more reflective feeling.

Back to the chorus we go. We divided up the singing between the two of them by verses and question and answer in the chorus.

I kept to a few simple chords and just improvised melodies based on the meaning and sounds of the words. Let the kids experiment with this as well.

So here is what we came up with! We're no Jackson Five, but I hope you enjoy the show anyway. Maybe you could try this with your kids too, or just for yourself. Writing music is not so hard, creative, and no one has to hear it (unless you are foolish like me and send your masterpiece out to 800 people).

Audio Postcard - Song

Still 4 more spots open for this class!

What: Summertime Serenade - One Night Piano Workshop.
Learn to play two songs - "Summertime" and "Tenderly" . Learn all the chords and interesting embellishments and techniques for playing ballads. Every student will have their own keyboard to play on.

When: Tuesday, July 28, 6:30-9:30PM

Where: Keys-for-Kids, beautiful, modern piano studio right outside of Lexington Center in Lexington, MA.

Cost: $85 includes apres class beverage at Starbucks!
Limit: 10 students only.

Mail check to EasyPianoStyles.com, PO Box 1360, Burlington, MA 01803. I will email confirmation that you are accepted.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call me. You need to know your chords pretty well to get the most out of this class. NOT a beginner class.

Hope to see you soon!
Sincerely,
Debbie
www.EasyPianoStyles.com