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Practice Chart February 2023
It’s February 2023 and if your students are like mine, they are tired of recess inside, cold weather, rainy weather, homework… With Valentine’s Day this month here is a Practice Chart for February 2023. Each day they practice they have to draw a face in the heart reflecting what their heart was like while practicing. You can get creative for your student. Some of the ideas I do with students. Weekly Goal: If they practice ___ days each week, they get _________ Month Goal: If you practice _____ days each week for every week of February, you get ______. OR If you practice every day (5 minutes minimum on the really…
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Wobble Gobble November Vibrato Challenge
I’m doing a November vibrato challenge for my students. Once a student has a basic working vibrato sometimes it falls by the wayside. Once the newness and excitement of learning vibrato has worn off they stop using it. I have to remind them to add it into their pieces. And keep giving a weekly assignment to use it. An assignment could be play tonalization and vibrate on every note. Or, play Chorus this week and vibrate on all the 3rd fingers. Another assignment could be, this week vibrate on all the notes that are eighth notes or longer in Humoresque. I’ve also said, “This is the vibrato section in Seitz.…
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First Position Card Game
Here is a first position card game for beginning violin students. It’s spring time, kids are ready to be out of school and playing outside. They are tired after all the testing. Having a variety of activities for lessons or practice can be a good thing at this time of year. What Do They Need To Know? Students will need to know the letters for the basic finger pattern position in first position on all 4 strings. 1st finger a whole step above the open string, 2nd finger a whole step above 1st finger, 3rd finger a half step above 2nd finger and 4th finger a whole step above 3rd…
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Composing with April Showers
Since today is April 1, it’s only appropriate to use do some composing with April showers. We have some of those April showers forecasted for the rest of the week. And appropriately this is the next step for my Twinkle group class in their composing journey. The Beginning Steps Here’s what they have done already this year. First, we used Twinkle rhythm patterns that they already learned. They chose what order to play open A and open E. The could chose one Twinkle pattern to play for their whole composition. You can read more about this first step here at my blog post: A Beginning Step to Composing. Next, still using…
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Checklist for an Online Violin Lesson
Are you looking at teaching your students online violin lessons? Here is a checklist to help you prepare for an online violin lesson. Life is changing for the next few weeks as the U.S. is facing the coronavirus outbreak. Limiting our physical interaction in order to help protect the vulnerable and limit the spread of this virus. This outbreak is touching so many aspects of life, from how we do education to our entertainment. The Philadelphia Orchestra performed their concert last night to an empty hall and it was broadcast on facebook live. It felt so weird to hear no applause when they finished. I’m so glad this isn’t the…
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Book Review: Treat Your Own Neck
My primary care doctor recommended Treat Your Own Neck by Dr. Robin McKenzie. Dr. McKenzie is a physical therapist from New Zealand who authored a series of booklets. I’ve had some numbness and tingling in my hand at night for the last year. An x-ray showed nothing broken. After explaining that sometimes in the morning I would turn my head and feeling a pop in my neck that sent a tingle down my arm to my hand. My doctor recommended checking out this book. Treat Your Own Neck is a short book you can read in about an hour. It’s just 61 pages and it has pictures. There are seven chapters:…
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A Beginner Christmas Practice Story
Where the idea came from I have 6 beginners that I started this year and I’m teaching the pre-Twinkle beginner group class at the Centenary Suzuki School. So, my brain has been full of all things beginner. We had our holiday concert last night and played all of our favorite beginner and open string songs. Songs like, Up Like a Rocket, and Pumpkin on a Fencepost, Listen to the Bird Tweet and Open String Blues. It will be 4 weeks before we have group class and so it got me to thinking about how to keep them practicing over the holiday break. So I created a beginner Christmas practice story.…
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Listen to the Bird Tweet
Listen to the Bird Tweet is a great pre-twinkle song that helps us on our journey to Twinkle. The words are were created by Susan Kempter. Students play the rhythm from variation A in Suzuki Book 1 four times. At our school we first teach it using just 1 open string. So all 4 repetitions of the pattern are on one string. (But like any good Suzuki exercise, it can morph into whatever you need!) How this post developed: We have been doing lots of different pre-twinkle songs in group. Songs like, Up Like a Rocket, Pumpkin on a Fencepost, Chicken on a Fencepost, Open E Concerto, Open A Concerto,…
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Yoga App for Musicians
There’s a new yoga app for musicians! We spend a lot of time using small muscles with repetitive motions. Musicians like athletes need to stretch and care for their bodies. I know I am guilty of just picking up my violin and playing. Either I’m running late or just want to jump right in without warming up my muscles. My high school orchestra director used to tell us that we would get to an age where stretching and warming up was necessary. I think I’m there! I’ve recently started attending a yoga class at our local YMCA. First I want to say, yoga isn’t easy. It might look easy, but…
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Listen
“Above all, listen.” Here at the beginning of another year of teaching, I’m rereading Dr. Suzuki’s book Nurtured by Love. I’ve been reminded of the value of each child. Also, I was again challenged to listen carefully. It’s one of the ways we can communicate care. Stephen Covey a modern time management coach says it this way, “Seek to understand, then to be understood.” –Stephen Covey As we begin a new year of teaching, may we strive to be good listeners, and to encourage our students to listen.
