Students having difficulty with the order of Night Storm
Found in: Foundation Songs
Rebecca G., Colorado
I seem to be having increasing numbers of students struggling to put Night Storm together in the correct order between the lesson at which it teach it and the next lesson. Have other had this problem, and what’s your strategy to overcome it? I watched the final SHM chapter again and do see that the order really only gets played, not explained, which I think is what’s causing difficulties. I’ve had people coming back who play the whole first section two times and then the tailpiece, or who play the first section once and then go directly into the tailpiece, for example.
Kathleen C., Australia
I also like to tie it in with the “secret of this song – 2”, i.e. on the second time, only play two sets of twos then play the tailpiece.
Mark Meritt, New York
I use the same approach as Kathleen, saying that in the second half, only do two groups of two. I think the alternate last line may actually be a devious trick on Neil’s part. Why would he do that, why put that there, and not do it with any other song? Why make it so that it’s too easy to follow the words and do the entire first half and then still have words left on the page to fill up the tailpiece, and even have those words in parentheses, set off from the rest, the same way the tailpiece is musically set off from the rest?
I think he does it on purpose – precisely to see how well students are paying attention to the teacher and the video. If they’re really paying attention, they should get it right. I’ve had many who don’t get it right. So be it. It’s a teachable moment – and I even may tell them that I think Neil put it in there for the reason I mention, so we get to really hammer home the idea of the importance of mindfully following instructions.
Jacqui G., Canada
I am teaching Night Storm to a class of two 7-year-olds, and a workshop group of four middle-aged ladies. They happily learned it, then came back the next week playing the RH first sentence twice and tacking on the tailpiece. I had them play through the first sentence. During the repeat, after the second set of 2’s, I “froze” the student’s RH and added the run down from finger 5. To integrate the LH with the tailpiece, I told them to play a LH note at the beginning of each set of 2s in the tailpiece. I have the student play the tailpiece a second time using the second set of lyrics, slowing it down, which gives the song a nice ending.