Happy Birthday Practice Challenge
1. Elliot S - 895
2. Emory W - 659
3. Ruby T - 569
4. Gentri C - 393
5. Sloan S - 252
Way to go!
For the month of December we'll have another little rest from practice challenges while we finish preparing for the Christmas Festival on the 14th, enjoy some holiday themed theory games, and work up some short playlists of Christmas pieces to entertain family over the break.
When we resume lessons in January, we are going to kick off the Happy Birthday Practice Challenge. This one is actually quite easy, we just have to learn how to play "Happy Birthday"! I feel this is an important song for students to know because when birthdays come around, playing a piano accompaniment along to the singing of the birthday song can make it a little extra special. Or if you're wanting to send birthday greetings to someone from a long distance, take a quick video or your piano kid playing the song and add a short personal message to it to make it a little extra special. Bringing our piano playing into the parts of our lives that already incorporate music is a great way for piano students to feel the value of what they are learning, and to start to identify as musicians outside of the piano studio, and the singing of the birthday song is one of a handful of times where we still culturally participate in singing together. So why not make sure we can add our piano music to it if we want?!
How the challenge will work:
At our first lesson in January, each student will be given a level appropriate version of Happy Birthday. Over the course of the month, they will work on learning it. Once it's worked up to a good performance level, we'll add their name to the birthday cake chart on the studio wall. My goal is by the end of the month for every single student to be able to play their version of Happy Birthday with confidence!
Prizes:
This is our 3rd of the 4 practice challenges scheduled out at the beginning of this school year session, and any student who completes 2 or more of these challenges will receive an exclusive Dawn's Piano tote bag. These are perfect for carrying piano books to and from the studio. Congrats to Ruby, Julianna, Brooklynn, Bronwyn, Rynn, Gentri & Elliot who have all earned a tote bag already! As always, we will also take brag photos to be shared on social media for this challenge, and students will of course have the pride of being able to play Happy Birthday on demand.
(Tote bags will be ordered in January, so if your name is listed there, you'll be getting one soon!)