Aujourd'hui est le premier jour de l'automne

Bonjour tout le monde! Aujourd'hui est le premier jour de l'automne. The weather was perfect here in Melbourne: Sunny & a max of 22°C. Finally more wind and cool breeze instead of hot dry air! Just in case if you are wondering, I am learning a little bit of French & trying to use it regularly. So from now on, I might use 1 or 2 sentences in French & hopefully one day, I could write the whole entry in French! :)

I have 4 students in my schedule today & my first student, Adi, came at 12pm. He just came back to Melbourne 3 days ago from his long holiday. I am glad that he still remember how to play scale without any flat fingers! :) He will be doing Grade 5 Piano for Leisure in June or August. I will post his short profile next week after he writes his own music goal for 2010.

I have 2 theory students today & both will be doing Theory grade 3 exam in May. They need to memorize a list of musical terms from grade 1 up to grade 3 material. For example: Adagio, andante, prestissimo, con moto, meno mosso, morendo, agitato, dolce and so on. They also need to memorize 3 folk tunes set by AMEB and today we learn "the lone birch tree".

I encouraged my theory students to study each tunes by using scale degree as well as playing the notes on the piano, but first of all, we need to identify the key signature and then start to work on the scale degree. They can also sing the tune, if they want to. Some students are too shy to sing! :) 

For the last 2 weeks, I assigned 1 topic for each week. I need to increase the doses starting from next week in order for them to be well-prepared for their exam. They did well for Grade 1 & 2 theory last time.

Click on these links to find out who they are:
http://ria-musicdesign.blogspot.com/2009/10/theory-grade-2-result-2009.html
http://ria-musicdesign.blogspot.com/2008/10/theory-grade-1-result-2008.html

Next on my list is Stefanie. She is preparing hard for her AMusA exam this year. She must do well for her exam as we are taking her pieces to the next level of performance. She has done well with her Mozart sonata in G major. She really picked the right sonata that suits her character. She has shown a significant improvement and great spirit of learning from the very first lesson this year. I hope she can continue to maintain the same spirit & even more until the end of year :) I have a great feeling that she will reach great improvement and achieve lots of achievements this year.

That's all for today... It's time for me to have a little bit of practice piano before I go to bed. I am going to post 2 videos this month. So keep an eye on it!