Tag: Violin Practice Lists and Routines

Categories
Practical Violin Practicing the Violin Staying Motivated to Practice Transformation through the Violin

Everything You Need to Know About the Violin in Eight Notes

You’ve crash landed on a desert isle with only your instrument. No music or books of any kind, and nothing committed to memory. And you can still develop (or maintain) virtuoso level skills on your violin. Simply play scales.

This much maligned musical element has a huge image problem: it is associated with the screeching, torturous notes of beginning players. And mind numbing boredom.

Still, everything you need to know about the violin can be found in a simple scale. Pitch, rhythm, tone production and every known technical feat on the bow or in the left hand can be embedded in a simple scale routine. Even musical gestures and phrasing can be cultivated through the lowly scale.

In fact, the scale is the most utilitarian of all-in-one practice tools, as I have written and often told students. Mostly, they seem unconvinced, offering only a blank stare.

When you come to accept this gospel of scales, it signals that you have made an important transition as a musician. You have finally embraced that practicing is about process, as much as it is about musical content. Pieces and etudes can become extraneous distractions to the work at hand.

Another way to say it, think of practice in its Eastern sense as a state of being. Release the Western implication that it is a verb.

Scales are a perfect fit for this Zen of practice. They can create a spacious sense around your daily work. Scales offer you the promise of pure, high quality practice. This, in turn, enables you to truly master the fundamentals with a higher sense of ease, clarity and purpose.

Try this: next time you stuck on a musical or technical  problem in your favorite song or piece, simplify that problem by copying and pasting it onto a scale. You’ll immediately gain a fresh perspective plus new clarity on causes and solutions.

Your transformation: the violin teaches us to clarify and simplify what seems complex and to move through life with ease.

 

Categories
Getting Started on Violin Suzuki Violin

Music Teachers: How to Push the Practice Reset Button

Viola with Reset Button

Aargh!! It’s lesson time and here comes that nasty passage. Your student’s execution sounds no better than it did last week. Or for the two weeks before. Did he even practice at all? Did she just blindly plow through those four measures thinking it sounds fine? No amount of explaining, cajoling, pleading, demonstrating, or drilling seems to make any difference. Another week rolls by, and still no improvement. As a fellow music teacher, I feel your pain.

Continue reading “Music Teachers: How to Push the Practice Reset Button”
Categories
Parents and Music Lessons Violin Lessons for Kids

How to Take the Migraine Out of Music Practice

bored violinist

The kids just hopped in the car on the way back from school and already the complaining begins. “I don’t want to practice music, it’s boring.” Once home, the the arguments pick up steam as notebooks and music are nowhere to be found. Finally the practice begins, through your kids gnashing teeth and still grumbling.

At this point even you are thinking: “I’m growing to hate this, and yes, it is boring. Truly, I’m tired of all the fighting. Maybe music isn’t for us. It’s weird, some families are doing just fine with their lessons”

Music’s Cancerous Warning Sign

When a student complains (or even fails to complain) of real boredom, it catches my ear and raises a red flag. Boredom is real, and it makes no sense to pretend it doesn’t matter. Kids won’t improve when they’re bored. Eventually they’ll quit music altogether, whether we like it or not.

Sometimes boredom is the result of “shutting down” when we feel completing a task is beyond our reach. In this case students tend to practice in a zombie-like endless repetition, without interest or engagement. Obviously, progress in this mode is painfully slow. More often, boredom during practice results from lack of variety or lack of challenge. Young or old, spending your day bored can poison any part of life, music practice included.

Talent Is Not Genetic

Plenty of kids no different than yours love and adore everything about their music experience. They’re zooming through their assignments and performing on stage with ease. They get their practicing done with a minimum of fuss, and wean their parents from the practice process at an early age.

What some parents call “talent” is simply identifying problems clearly and then quickly finding a solution that brings about a small improvement, on the spot.

Flip This Switch and Practice Changes Overnight

It’s simple. Practice only to improve, and to make progress right now! Set up your kids for easy success. Start with small problems, and short sessions, and let them enjoy their accomplishments in the moment. Do this every day and soon the practice habit becomes a pleasure.

Here’s what doesn’t work: shut your kid in a room for 30 minutes with a vague instruction about “learning your song.”

Start at Your Very Next Practice Session

  • Before beginning a practice session make sure you and your kids know the “big picture” goal(s). Normally these goals will be provided by your music teacher, making it important to take good notes during the lesson. Never begin a practice session without a clear picture of the specific results you’re working for.
  • I’ve found that during practice, a constant and clarifying “self-talk” can make all the difference. Ask your young student “are you practicing that spot for tone, rhythm or pitch?” a few dozen times, and he/she will begin to internalize that strategy.
  • Build a “library” of problem solving routines or drills. These drills help you break down large problems into smaller pieces. Every teacher uses these drills, so pay attention during the lesson, and you’ll pick up some great ideas. Eventually, you’ll become adept at inventing your own drills, perfect for the musical problem at hand.
  • Get kids inspired by exposing them to great music and musicians. Enjoy live concerts and videos. Give kids a role model, and a sense that music is more than just practice and lessons.
  • Fill out a practice journal. Celebrate accomplishments in the moment and in writing. Make note where you need help from your teacher.
  • Most of all, make music a daily priority. The rewards come when you decide that practice is on your “short list” of important projects. Go deep with this one project, and reduce the clutter of an over-busy life driving from one activity to another. Ironically, life can become richer by doing less.

A key thing to remember is that as much as the subject matter in my studio is centered around songs and the instrument, what I really want to teach is the ability to improve through practice. It’s a skill that is transferrable to any subject matter or goal in life.

What do you think? Have ideas like this worked for you?

Categories
Getting Started on Violin Practical Violin Suzuki Violin

What to do if Your Child is Too Young to Start Violin

 

Parents: Are your kids just getting started on violin? I’m not going to pull any punches. In my studio, violin lessons can get pretty intense, fast. There’s a lot to remember, and a lot that can go wrong. All of this means that the average 5 to 8 year (and you, as his home teacher) will need draw upon an unusual amount of focus, a reasonably robust physical makeup and some real fine muscle control.

Even something as simple as the slope of a shoulder and the relative position of a collarbone can make holding and playing nearly impossible for some kids until the moment is right. But not all is lost!

Six “Must Have” Skills for your Future Invincible Violinist

So, here’s my short list of necessary activities that will support the first song your child will likely need to learn in a Suzuki (and/or) traditional violin studio:

  1. The Twinkle Rhythm Vocabulary. Be able to clap these the six basic twinkle rhythms accurately, crisply and at consistent tempo.
  2. Clap and March Be able to march in time with the songs from the Suzuki Volume 1 CD, and at the same time clap at a matching or (if appropriate) double speed.
  3. Match Pitches Be able to sing and match a pitch in the range of middle C to G, after hear thing pitch sung or played on a keyboard.
  4. Follow a Melodic Contour Be able to sing along with a familiar melody, and follow the up and down contour of that melody, if not the exact pitches.
  5. Object Focus Be able to visually focus on a single object for increasing intervals, without turning away or being distracted.
  6. Tone Up Be able to hold an empty violin case in front of the body with arms fully extended. Be able to march in tempo with empty case held above crown of the head.
  7. Tap and Count Be able to demonstrate fine muscle control and basic counting skills using a simple song.

The honest truth: if your child has significant problems with any of these items her violin journey will likely be short. Don’t let this happen to your family!

Here’s the Proven Invincible Practice Strategy

This list is fairly basic, but at least one point deserves your consideration:
Set up your kids to be successful from the start. Break down these activities into their simplest components so that every repetition, every practice session, is in some way successful. This is at the heart of the Invincible Violin system.

Add complexity as appropriate to the development of your child. Instill the belief that can meet challenges and continually improve. At all costs, avoid dull, mindless repetition of any activity. Constantly provide your attention and support, provide praise when appropriate, and never offer it when it isn’t merited.

Here’s a website loaded with ideas and tools that can help with early motor skill development.

Grab The Unbelievable Power of Getting the Basics Right

This stuff is way, way underrated. The connections to playing with a beautiful tone and great technique aren’t obvious to the average person. But a lifetime of playing and a decade of teaching has shown me otherwise.

Parents and kids alike are always super excited to get started on the instrument and learning songs. That’s great, but motivation dies quickly without having these six skills mastered. And that’s sad, and all too common.

Whether it’s baseball, math or violin the fundamentals do count. As parents, it’s our job to give our kids this solid starting point. It’s the foundation of becoming Invincible.

Why You Should Get Started Now

Don’t waste time! If the moment is right to start actual playing, there’s plenty you can do to make that moment shine when it finally arrives.

Have your own “too young” story or question to share? Please leave a comment below!