I have a little boy who is too smart for his own good. The other day, he had to do the following composing activity in his piano book. The idea was the they wrote the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 in the blanks under the rhythms, and then used the corresponding fingers to play the resulting song--their very own composition. Well Dallin being Dallin, he decided to just write 123451234512345, etc. over and over. He got bored on the second page and wrote 33331111111111 to finish it up.
Unfortunately, even playing 123451234512345 was not as easy as he thought it would be because of the accents created with having five finger numbers but only four beats in each measure (and some of the rhythms being half notes). He found out that he would still have to actually work at being able to play his little piece (or at least, he would have to work at playing the first page!)
But our Dallin was smarter than that. He figured out how to outwit the darned old assignment. If you look very closely, you can see that underneath the original fingering on these pages, he has made some changes. Page One now plays: 1111 1111 111 111 and Page Two now plays: 2222 2222 222 222! What a stinker! I probably should have made him do it over, but I have to admit, I thought he was pretty creative to figure out how to beat the system and write a piece of music that would require absolutely no effort whatsover for either the composer or the performer.
Unfortunately, even playing 123451234512345 was not as easy as he thought it would be because of the accents created with having five finger numbers but only four beats in each measure (and some of the rhythms being half notes). He found out that he would still have to actually work at being able to play his little piece (or at least, he would have to work at playing the first page!)But our Dallin was smarter than that. He figured out how to outwit the darned old assignment. If you look very closely, you can see that underneath the original fingering on these pages, he has made some changes. Page One now plays: 1111 1111 111 111 and Page Two now plays: 2222 2222 222 222! What a stinker! I probably should have made him do it over, but I have to admit, I thought he was pretty creative to figure out how to beat the system and write a piece of music that would require absolutely no effort whatsover for either the composer or the performer.
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