Frosty the Snowman - Melody

Hi, I'm Stephanie and we're learning the classic "Frosty the Snowman" today. You've probably heard this song many times, and probably sung it a few times too. Now before we begin, I just want to call attention to this repeat sign here. This repeat sign is going to take you all the way back to the beginning where you start playing again, then you notice there's a first ending and a second ending. That number one and that number two it's what it's called first ending and second ending. So once you've repeated, gone back to the beginning, and played through, you'll skip that first ending and go to the second ending. Okay, so let's get started. We'll start with the main theme that you know so well. Right hand is in C position. Left hand is an F position. That means your thumbs are on the same note, they're just kissing like this. Okay, so you'll start with your right hand playing C, and then it looks like you go down really low, doesn't it? But it's actually just one skip down to your 3 finger and your left hand. ♫Frosty♫ Okay, you'll hold that for a moment, and then B-flat you notice my 2 finger is on a black key here. ♫Frosty the Snowman♫ So the phrase ends on your forefinger in your right hand. One more time: ♫Frosty the Snowman♫ Try that once. Great. From your forefinger, you're going to step down to your 3 finger and go, ♫was a jolly happy soul♫ So you notice, you start in your 3 finger, you step up to your pinky, and then you Boomerang and go all the way down to your thumb. ♫was a jolly happy soul♫ Easy enough. Now there is an interesting rhythm here. It's a dotted eighth note connected to a sixteenth note. In rhythm words we might call this like TIM-KI. TIM-KI You notice I'm holding that first one pretty long. So the first note, that dot, it adds length. So on the word 'was', you'll hold the note a little longer. So to put in context, ♫Frosty the Snowman was a jolly happy soul♫ Now if that seems hard right now, you'll probably get the hang of it by the end of the song, because you're going to see that rhythm over and over again. So don't worry we'll keep trying. Okay, going on. ♫With a corn cob pipe and a button nose♫ So you start on your 3 finger again. ♫With a corn cob pipe and, repeat, button nose♫ Okay, so you do the whole phrase again basically from before you start on your 3 finger. and then you end with 4 3. Okay, you try on your own. Great, and the last phrase, ♫and two eyes made out of coal♫ Okay, so we start with an upper neighbor: ♫and two eyes♫ That's when you start on one note, you go up, and then come back down. Upper neighbor. ♫and two eyes made out of coal♫ We start on C and end on C. Make sure to get that B-flat. Now you try. Okay, back to the beginning. Slowly you can feel free to watch and then rewind later if you need to. But if you're feeling confident, try to play slowly with me. ♫Frosty the Snowman was a jolly happy soul♫ ♫with a corn cob pipe and a button nose♫ ♫and two eyes made out of gold♫ All right, pause and rewind if you need to. Now we'll go back to the beginning and play the repeat. That means we're playing the second line of words this time, and when we get to the first ending, we won't play it. We're going to play the second ending instead. Okay, so we're going to say 'Frosty the Snowman is a fairy tale they say.' Now I'm going to play all the way through to the second ending just so you see how it looks. ♫Frosty the Snowman is a fairy tale they say♫ ♫He was made of snow but the children know how he came to life one day♫ So you see I skipped the first ending, I went right to 'came to life one day.' Now, that whole first part is the same because it's a repeat sign. So when you get to the second ending, you're just going to go down all the way this time. ♫how he came to life one day♫ So that's just 2 3 4 5 ♫to life one day♫ All right, so now we know the whole first half. I'm going to play it with you. First ending, then the second ending. Just a little slowly. Just so we get the hang of skipping over the first ending the second time. So from the very, very beginning. 1 2, ready go. ♫Frosty the Snowman♫ ♫was a jolly happy soul♫ ♫with a corn cob pipe and a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal♫ ♫Frosty the Snowman is a fairy tale they say♫ ♫He was made of snow, but the children know how he gave to life one day♫ All right, you can pause and practice that a few times on your own. When you're ready come back, we'll learn the next new section. Okay, the next section your hands are in the same position. Now these have some new notes, so we're going to take it a little slower. Just to play the first phrase. ♫There must have been some magic in that old top hat they found,♫ So lots of changing directions, skips and all of that. Let's break it into smaller pieces. Whenever something is hard, usually you're just taking too much of it in too soon. So you just need to break it into smaller chunks. So, ♫There must have been some magic in♫ We'll stick with that for now. It starts with your pinky in your left hand. ♫There♫, then you're going to jump all the way up to the 2 finger in your right hand. Repeat, and then skip up to ...