Two Holiday Songs and "The Monkeys"

This morning the seventh grade learned "Rudolph" and "Winter Wonderland." They are making great progress. The C major seventh chord sounds really cool on "Wonderland" and Darian's bass licks are adding a lot to the mix. Taylor is really making progress on the drums and keeps a mean rock shuffle behind both of our Holiday tunes.

We shifted gears near the end of the class and learned "I'm a Believer" by the Monkeys. These guys have made a believer out of me...they will be ready for "prime time" soon. It's quite an accomplishment to be able to play these tunes. The chords are complex and they have to strum in rhythm. I don't know too many teachers who can do this...any takers??

Hey! Hey! We''re the Monkeys!

The tenth age boys began learning a tune I wrote for the holidays called, "A Holiday Recipe." they said they liked it...that's a good start. The rest of the tenth age classes will learn the tune, as well and we will perform it at the end of their Thanksgiving play. These tenth agers have such great singing voices. I look forward to hearing all four classes singing the song together on stage. I'll keep you posted as to our progress.

The sixth grade is taking a little break from guitars to do some keyboard work. We will take a look at the C scale. The students will build a scale on C and find the primary chords...C, F, and G. We will then tranfer this knowedge to the keyboards and play "Twist and Shout." This should be lots of fun! I haven't done the twist in years.

The fifth grade will continue to work on their arrangements of "In the Hall of the Mountain King." What an exciting way to end our day!