Practice
It is important to be practicing at least 20 minutes a day at this stage. Practice time should consist of reviewing and playing well known, earlier learned pieces (5-10 minutes) and slow and repeated practice of new pieces. A new piece must be learned a bar at a time and at a very slow speed (this cannot be stressed enough). All pieces in this book have been recorded and are available as free online audio. Not until the piece is mastered without stopping should the student play along with the recording. This will help the student to learn faster and receive more enjoyment from playing and practicing. The recording should also be used to listen to before and during practice, to determine what a piece should sound like.
Whenever a new technique or concept is introduced, it is best learned by plenty of repetition. Since it is not possible to fit the total amount of exercises needed to learn every new concept, it is left up to the teacher’s discretion to create simple exercises and insert them into the flow of this method book where necessary.
Each piece on the recording is played twice.
- The first time contains the song with the accompaniment and the melody.
- The second time contains just the accompaniment.
- Woodblock clicks are used to begin each exercise.
