Today we did:
- A little note reading off of the instrument.
- Meadow Minuet
- First, we listened all the way through. Then we worked through the first 8 bars, stopping at one point to listen and sing along a few times. M got frustrated at one point when she wasn’t hearing the next right note, but eventually she got it when I played it on my guitar out of her sight. M also kept trying to play the bass part along with the melody, and I had to remind her that it wasn’t part of our assignment.
- Song of the Wind with the metronome.
- M did well on this when she watched her hands, but her gaze and attention often wandered, and she missed a lot of notes whenever that happened.
- To combat this, I gave her a noticing job along with her listening and playing jobs: I asked her to notice where her eyes went as she played. And after each repetition, we compared notes about where her eyes had been. During one repetition, she played the first half of the song nearly flawlessly while looking at her left hand, and then botched the second half the minute she started staring around the room. I pointed this out to her right when it happened, and I think it had an effect — I think she’s buying in to the notion that if her eyes wander, her mind wanders, and her playing suffers.