Christopher Norton Connections™ Forums

[mlamb]

Hi everyone! (Anybody out there??)

I love this piece. (Counterintuitive, Connections Level 4). The offbeat rhythm is so much fun to play.

When I was teaching this to one of my students the other day, I decided to do the "Reading Chords" exercise in the activity book first. After we identified how the chord changes occur in the piece, we played the right hand alone to learn the progressions. This kind of analysis makes reading chords so much easier. We tried the right hand alone with the practice tempo on the recording (the version that includes the solo part).

We found the "Rhyhm Ensemble" exercise really helpful too. I tapped steady eighth notes while she played the LH rhythms with claves. Using claves helped her lean into the tied notes - she really felt the syncopations in her body. Before going to the piano, we tapped the exercises as written, then with the right hand tapping quarter notes (like the piece).

I keep a basket of rhythm instruments in my studio. Sometimes I simply use them as a "rhythmic distraction" for kids who need to get up from the piano for a couple of minutes. I think there will be plenty of opportunities to use these with many of the pieces in Connections.

This is a tricky piece, but Christopher Norton has cleverly limited the number of left-hand notes so the student can concentrate on rhythm. I think it will be a while before my student can play it hands together with the recording - but you never know - she seems to really like it so she might actually practice more!

I'm looking foward to exploring more of the pieces in this series.

Maureen

[chrisnorton]

Christopher Norton here..actually this is one of my favourite pieces in Connections - with the backing track it seems to be both highly rhythmic and also mysterious and soft-edged at the same time. It does indeed lend itself to rhythm games with a variety of instruments (cello playing the left hand??) I'm sure your student will end up so secure it will be easier to play with the backing track - that should always be the aim...

[marietjie]

Hi Maureen

I found your description/discussion very encouraging. I have bought the whole series for myself to work through (I am a returning adult student, who's also teaching beginners). At this stage I am concentrating on the swing and Latin pieces, and have just finished working through Level 1. (It will take a while before I get to Counterintuitive!) So far I have found the exercises in the Activities book very helpful.

My only 'problem' at this stage is that I can't play the recording I made on a CD on my boombox that I keep at the piano. I've tried both a CD-RW and a CD-R and neither would play on the Sony boombox that is advertised as having this playback feature. What did you do to make a recording of Counterintuitve (or haven't you done that yet?) How do you plan to let your student play with the recording?

I actually posted something under Problems and Issues yesterday, but I thought I'd try this discussion as well to see if you can help me.

Marietjie

[mlamb]

Hi,

I'm glad to hear from someone else who is exploring this series. I must admit, I'm enjoying playing the pieces myself as much as I am teaching them. I've managed to play through all of the books once, and now I'm going to spend a little more time polishing the pieces in levels 7 and 8. (I think 7 is one of my favourite levels - I could play these pieces at a party!)

I'm not a computer expert, but I'll tell you how I made my CDs and then perhaps you can write to the site administrator if you need more help.

I've made a CD for every level of Connections. I first downloaded the zip file which contains all the accomapniments for the level. Then I opened the zip file and selected the backings I wanted and put them in a new folder. (I wanted the backings only, without the solo part, at a practice tempo - for now at least!).

Then I opened itunes. I think this might be the step you missed. I dragged the folder with my selected accompaniments into itunes, then selected "burn CD" from the itunes menu. (This won't work if you drag the zip file).

I hope this helps.

ml

[marietjie]

Hi Maureen

Thank you so much for your reply. It helped a lot. The webmaster has also in the meantime responded in the other forum. I created a data CD and not an Audio CD because I didn't burn the CD from itunes - I just downloaded the data.

You've inspired me - I'm looking forward to getting to Level 7!

Marietjie