It's times like this that I wish I was a skilled musician.

[xiphias]

See, I've got SOME talent. What I've got little of is skill.

So, Rafi wants, for tomorrow, for me to teach the kids a song by Debbie Friedman about Hillel's three rules -- "If I'm not for myself, etc." It's called, "Im ein ani li mi li", naturally enough. And I've got it in one of my songbooks.

But I've never HEARD it before.

I've got a keyboard that undauntra left with me when she moved to Far Away Land, which is good. So I'm now sitting around, hunting and pecking at the keyboard trying to work out how the song goes.

I mean, I've figured out that "three sharps is the key of A", which is good, and is making things a bit easier, since I can figure out where to put my fingers on the keyboard, and I know the scale I'm working in. But still . . . I kind of wish that I'd not only TAKEN a class in music theory in high school, but actually PASSED it. I kind of wish that I'd not only SIGNED UP for a class in keyboard in college, but actually NOT DROPPED IT after two weeks.

I kind of wish that I'd studied reading music at some point more recently than sixth grade.

On the other hand, I think I can be happy that I grew up in the era when we DID have things like elementary school muisic classes which taught us how to read music. But, still. . . this is such a pain to do when one isn't very good at it.

Comments

[gingicat]

Do you want to come over and work on it together? I can play the melody for you on flute.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

You've maybe sorted it by now, but if you're still having problems, try tapping out the rhythm on something, get the timing in yuor head and *then* add the notes in, always helps my sightreading (my music skills and reading are just fine but I'm lazy and always do better if I can hear it played)