Lesson 31

Who's That?

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Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're learning a new song: "Who's That?"
This song is about someone who hears a tap at the window,
and then a knock at the door.
Did you hear that? I wonder who that was.

♫ Who's that tapping at the window? ♫
♫ Who's that knocking at the door? ♫
♫ I am tapping at the window. ♫
♫ I am knocking at the door. ♫ Croak!

Frog, It's you! Come on in.

Thank you Mr. Hoffman.

How about I just place you right up here grandpa frog, where you can watch.
Okay. Now, can you help me figure out the first two notes of this song in solfège
Here they are:
What would that be in solfège? If you said DO SO, You are correct.
Let's try and draw that on the grand staff. To draw DO SO on the grand staff,
since we're in the C major pentascale today, we'll put DO on middle C here. DO.
And then, SO will be up here on the G line. SO.
Can you point and sing the solfège with me? Ready, go:
DO SO.
Now let's say the letter names. Ready, go:
C G
All right, the next part of "Who's That?" goes: RE RE MI MI RE DO.
Can you do that with me? Doing hand signs too? Ready, go: RE RE MI MI RE DO.
Now, let's take a look at that pattern on the staff.
Okay now, to add a RE, since DO is on C, RE will be here on D.
So we need to add RE RE, and then MI is a step above,
so we'll come up to this line here: MI MI, and then RE.
We step down to DO, so we'll need one more ledger line to end on DO.
So this part will sound like this: RE RE MI MI RE DO.
Can you point and sing with me? Ready, go: RE RE MI MI RE DO.

Good! Now let's say the letter names. Since this is a step above C,
what letter would this note be? If you said D you're correct.
Let's sing the letters now, together. Ready, go: D D E E D C.
Now, so far we have drawn:
♫ Who's that tapping at the window? ♫
Let's figure out how the next part is different. We have:
♫ Who's that knocking at the door? ♫
Aha, do you hear that something's different here at the end?
We have: ♫ knocking at the door? ♫
What note is that in solfège? It's a DO, and we skipped RE this time.
So, here in the song, we'll go: RE RE, step up to MI MI, then skip down to DO.

Okay, with your right hand in the air,
let's practice moving our fingers for "Who's That?" Starting with finger number 1,
my turn first. DO SO, your turn.
Good, now we're going to go up to RE and repeat twice. RE RE MI MI, your turn.
After we do that, then we step down. RE DO, your turn.
Now, let's put those two patterns together. RE RE MI MI RE DO, your turn.
Good. Then the next phrase is very similar. DO SO, your turn.
Good, this time we have: RE RE MI MI DO Your turn.
Good, so that time, instead of stepping down, RE DO, at the end,
it just skips all the way from MI down to DO.

All right, for "Who's That?" we're going to use both hands.
Our right hand will ask the questions, then the left hand is going to answer.
So let's start with the right hand in C major, as well as the left hand in C major.
But, our right hand will begin, I'll play a part first and then you echo back. My turn:
♫ Who's that ♫, your turn.
Then we'll have: RE RE MI MI RE DO, your turn.
Good, then the right hand asks the next question.
♫ Who's that ♫, your turn.
Good, then: ♫ knocking at the door ♫, your turn.
Good, and remember, that pattern goes RE RE MI MI DO, your turn.
Good, now the left hand will answer those questions.
Starting with the left hand: ♫ I am ♫, your turn. Good.
♫ tapping at the window ♫, your turn.
♫ I am ♫, your turn.
♫ knocking at the door ♫, your turn.
Now, press pause and practice the whole song, right hand asking questions,
and the left hand answering. Then press play to go on.

Let's check out the sheet music for "Who's That?"
Just take a glance at this, and tell me what you notice.
You might notice our treble clefs here.
So we've got a treble staff, another treble staff;
that's going to be played by the right hand.
Remember, usually the right hand handles any of the notes in the treble staff.
Down here, you might have noticed we switched to a bass clef for this bass staff,
which is for the left hand to play. Did you notice that sometimes,
we have these stems going down? The reason for that is,
if the note head ever goes above this middle line, or on the middle line or higher,
the stems go down, and that's just so they don't stick up too high.
So, remember, stems can go up or down in music. It doesn't change anything.

Now, it would be very helpful for you to have your own copy of this sheet music
for this next part of the lesson. So, if you haven't already,
download the sheet ...