Parts of the Violin

It is 1 pm, that is to say, mid-morning on a lovely snow day in Indiana.  I was sick this week.  On Sunday my breathing felt really tight, as though I was having my old asthma attacks (in the middle of winter?) so I told myself it was allergies (in the middle of winter?).  By Monday morning, I was definitely ill with something that had settled right into my throat.  I met with a prospective student but cancelled my voice lesson and rehearsal.  By the afternoon, I had body aches, chills, and was in no condition to go back out to teach.  And herein lies the story:

I was texting my two assistant Suzuki program teachers, Anna and Angelica, about covering the beginner group class for me Monday evening.  I promised I would send them over notes on what to teach in the class, so I started typing them on my phone while I was curled up in little ball in the corner.  Our repairman had come to reinstall our microwave, and was flipping the breaker switches for the whole house trying to figure out which one went to the microwave (there is nothing in our house that is not wired weird).

So, when I was trying to specify the part of the violin that I put my thumb on for left hand pizzicato (which I have always just called "the hump") I decided to go all technical and call it by the correct term.  Which is heel.  But I forgot and thought it was the saddle (down at the other end of the violin under the tailgut!).  Since my modem had just been turned off by the repairman trying to find the microwave, I tried but failed to confirm this little detail via Google.

The next day, I realized to my horror that my assistants had enthusiastically taught two 4 year olds and their PhD fathers the entirely wrong term.  Maybe this will seem funny to me someday, just as I thought it was hilarious that my son gave himself a nosebleed later on in the same class while singing the Sunflower Song. . .

So, if you were at (or teaching!) the class a few days ago, please accept my apologies.  Maybe you can spend some of your snow day watching these videos on the parts of a violin, and what it's like to make a really beautiful instrument from scratch.  Everything is better with little kids and popcorn.

The Violin...and tips for removing the neck

The Architect of Sound

Milestones for a child

I had a thought tonight.  Quick background:  as we've been working on moving to a new town and selling our house, my youngest son (just turned 3) had quite a spell of baby talk, whining, crying, and general silliness.  (Thankfully, his toilet skills remained excellent.)

I have noticed, and this was my theory throughout the summer, that when children are about to hit a big milestone in their growth, they get insecure about the changes ahead and "revert" to more infantile behavior.  (I think adults do this too sometimes.)  I really think the moving transition was behind most of the sometimes annoying, sometimes adorable, behavior my son had these past few months.

Now, it is almost sad for me to see that he has jumped ahead to a new maturity and independence in his social relations.  He has become assertive, especially with his older brother, calm, and is showing off some impressive pre-reading skills.   He makes facial expressions that reveal a sort of arrogant confidence in his status as "big boy."

Well, this observation relates to everything parents experience with their children, who are always growing and changing, but I also wonder if it relates to violin lessons and practicing.

Sometimes,  a student will become very frustrated at their lack of abilities or progress, right before they make a major improvement in their playing.  It is as though their standards have become higher, as their ear and understanding improves, and then there is a breakthrough in the actual playing.

What is this like for parents practicing with younger children?  Does it get more emotional or more difficult to get them to practice at all, when they hit these pre-breakthrough spots?   I wonder if this point would give me a better understanding and point of encouragement to share with my students and their parents when they have practice meltdowns.

I think I shall continue to observe to see if this theory is substantiated. . .

Changes

As I write this, I am sitting in our new home in Marion, Indiana, just a few days after moving from Fort Wayne.  My husband Jason Thompson teaches full-time in the music division at Indiana Wesleyan University, and we have made the move into a lovely house around the corner from the campus.  It's a very short walk to work now!

It was very hard to make this decision, as I have had wonderful friends and students in Fort Wayne for the past 4 years and more.  We haven't severed our ties in Fort Wayne---we are still going up for church on Sundays---but I did have to pass most of my students to new teachers.  I think it still hasn't hit me how much I am going to miss them.

I am working on updating my website to attract business traffic from our new area in Northeast Indiana:  I'm guessing most of my students will come from Marion via my university contacts, but I am hoping to continue to get wedding gigs from all the surrounding cities: Wabash, Huntington, Muncie, Anderson, Kokomo, etc. as well as continuing to play in Fort Wayne.   I've had about 1 wedding per month this year, all for solo violin.  It's been an adventure, and I'm just now starting to feel really at home up there carrying the entire music along myself.  It's more typical that musicians play in quartets or trios for these events, but there is definitely a market for just one musician to fill in the live music where there might not be any, such as in a remote country field or quiet lakeside, or simply for a lower budget wedding.  Not the same as a fancy big-city wedding with a quartet, but I am starting to get used to it and really quite enjoy the setting.

Finally,  I had a fantastic photoshoot a few weeks ago and I'm going to be sharing some of the lovely pictures from my friend and fellow violinist Ashley Smith at Aayria Bella Photography.  She has a ton of creative energy and we had so much fun during the whole thing.  Some of the pictures have a special glow---I think it was 90 degrees or so that evening, especially when we were shooting in the church balcony.

My upcoming plans include a trip to Indianapolis for the first meeting of the Indiana Suzuki Association, preparing to teach a music appreciation course at Indiana Wesleyan University, and playing at a few more weddings and any number of special church events.  We have started a new group at our church this summer that we call, "The 17th Century Praise Band."  It's a combination of 2 baroque violinists, 1 organist, 1 trumpet player, and 1 recorder/saxophone player.  As the title suggests, we perform mostly 17th century music with occasional excursions into the 16th and 18th centuries.  Love it!

Recital Time

Our next studio recital is in two days.   My students from Book 1 will be performing their solo pieces at 2 pm at the Allen County Public Library downtown theater.   I am proud of all their achievements.  I think this might be the best semester my students have had.  

  

Recitals are such a great learning experience for all of us.  Recitals teach important skills, unique skills.  Such as:

1.  Public Presentation. 

2.  Personal Confidence. 

3.  Concentration under Pressure.

4.  Professional Preparation. 

5.  Memory.

6.  Collaboration.

One of the best things about my recitals is how young and inexperienced all the performers are.  Years from now, if they continue studying and performing, they are going to be highly experienced when they are performing difficult works, and when they are in judged competitions and auditions.   

By the way, while I am bragging here:  all of my students and former students who have auditioned for college, orchestras, or lessons with advanced teachers, have succeeded in those auditions.  One former student, and one current student are now concertmasters of their youth or school orchestras, and two of my younger beginners (age 7 now) are playing in middle school orchestras.  All students who have moved or "moved on" have gone straight into the studios of university-level teachers.   

Do you know what I think of when I consider these successes? Months of lessons on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  

Brain Rules and Music Lessons

I've just finished reading a book by John Medina, Brain Rules for Baby.

I love reading good books.  In fact, if you are interested in learning with any age of child, you should read this.  My children are 2 and 4, but reading about their brains from infancy gives me the insight to see where they have been, and what I can do now based on that understanding.

My favorite insight in this book: "the brain seeks security above all." Medina offers an entire chapter about the importance of the parents' relationship to the developing child.  In another chapter, he makes an analogy to the victim of assault who can remember the weapon perfectly, but not the perpetrator's face.  "The brain is learning under these hostile conditions (stress can marvelously focus the mind); it is just concentrating on the source of the threat." 

Weapons focus also occurs during lessons:  Medina tells about a flight student who is struggling during a flight.  The teacher begins to yell at her, hoping to boost her concentraion.  Instead, she starts to cry, and the teacher has to land the plane.  "The teacher's anger could not direct the student to the instrument to be learned because the instrument was not the source of danger.  The teacher was the source of danger."

Here's the part of the book that is relevant to music lessons 

10 years of music lessons

"There's another powerful way to fine-tune a child's hearing for the emotional aspects of speech: musical training.  Researchers in the Chicago area showed that musically experienced kids--those who studied any instrument for at least 10 years, starting before age 7--responded with greased-lightning speed to subtle variations in emotion-laden cues, such as a baby's cry.  The scientists tracked changes in the timing, pitch, and timbre of the baby's cry, all the while eavesdropping on the musician's brainstem (the most ancient part of the brain) to see what happened.

Kids without rigorous musical training didn't show much discrimination at all. They didn't pick up on the fine-grained information embedded in the signal and were, so to speak, more emotionally tone deaf.  Dana Strait, first author of the study, wrote:  'That their brains respond more quickly and accurately than the brains of non-musicians is something we'd expect to translate into the perception of emotion in other settings.'

This finding is remarkably clear, beautifully practical, and a bit unexpected.  It suggests that if you want happy kids later in life, get them started on a musical journey early in life.  Then make sure they stick with it until they are old enough to start filling out their applications to Harvard, probably humming all the way."

That was silly

Part of being a violin teacher is the need to keep some sort of composure during whatever comes up in the lesson.   I am very self-conscious of my response to musical problems---I constantly anticipate, analyze, and adjust my tone to give the best feedback to the student.

But I don't feel too solemn when they do things like,  show up in a bikini asking for a bandaid for her owie knee,  reply to all directions in a squeaky voice,  topple over backwards at random, have gas, say, "my legs hurt," and "I have to go to the bathroom."   I usually laugh, and do my best to accommodate.

As I said,  I concentrate so hard on their technique, musicality, and practicing habits, that I really enjoy the comic relief!   As my 2-year-old likes to say, "That was silly!"

Summer Violin Lessons

This summer has been quite relaxed at my studio. Most of my students are traveling, at camp, etc. so that my schedule looks like swiss cheese. On the other hand, I find that when I do teach a lesson, everyone seems really happy to be here and ready to work. Having a break can really help with concentration and creativity!

Here are my suggestions for summer practice:

1. Organize. How is your practice environment? Summer is a great time to change things up, but make sure that you keep track of things like lesson times, and when/if practice is happening at home. You might have to be creative, but make sure you have a plan for your daily routine with a good time to practice included.

2. Journal. Write down questions, goals, your favorite pieces from CDs or performances that you want to work towards. Sometimes, having less stress from school-year commitments gives you the freedom to think about long-term dreams. If you have a younger child taking lessons, take them to the library to find a violin CD to listen to and write down the name of the violinist and any favorite pieces in the journal. Or, have the child make a list of 'famous violinists' that they see in local concerts, on TV or internet, and on CDs.

Also, in the journal write down the dates that you practice, and any other details that are important. It's good for a younger student just to have a visual record of how many days they practice, and they can put a sticker or picture in lieu of written notes.

3. Review, review, review. Get a good Suzuki review chart---for an advanced player, make a system to play all your scales and etudes regularly, one key per day, etc. AND you have to play old repertoire that is technically easy for you. It is the best way to beat performance nerves, build a relaxed technique and a rich, full, personalized tone.