I talked last week about introducing a new ritual to an advanced violinist in order to start every practice session on a meditative, reflective and conscious note.

For Helen, the older student I was teaching, I provided a simple broken chord sequence for her to play while listening to and analyzing the quality of her tone. But in working with her, I began to reflect on all of the ways we set up (or need to set up) this opportunity in the Suzuki method.

Suzuki insight that we can learn music as we learn language, implies that successful repetitions is a necessary part of learning. When learning to speak we continue to use all vocabulary words and grammatical structures, not just the most recently learned words.

So as we learn to play, we return back to the skills we learned in the very beginning, not just to repeat them, but to use those skills to communicate something meaningful.

As Suzuki put it, “Ability breeds ability.” [Read more…]

I had a blast giving a master class for the students of Deana Badgett. I started lessons with her when I was four until 6th grade. Returning to her studio to teach just weeks before I travel north to continue graduate studies was very meaningful, almost poetic.

The last student I taught that afternoon was Helen, a 15 year old violinist working on Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major.

Helen performed the exposition from the first movement with a beautiful singing tone and obvious technical control. She had a coherent idea of the form of the piece and was working to convey intelligent musical ideas.

However, I felt her playing contained inefficiencies in the execution of what she wanted. [Read more…]

I went to church with my grandmother yesterday. I must admit my attendance had far more to do with my addiction to the way bass pedal notes of an organ reverberate through a cavernous, beautiful church than my desire to hear the priest’s sermonizing.

Though it was during Fr. Ben Nelson’s sermon that my gears began turning.

He discussed, rather seriously, the way the Holy Spirit moves through us. And during this serious discussion young kids throughout the church giggled, squealed, dropped plastic toys on the stone floor, crawled under pews, and squirmed around in their parents’ laps. My first instinct was to wonder why these parents didn’t drop their kids off in the nursery or leave them at home or step outside until their children were quiet enough for everyone to easily focus on the words of the sermon.

But the more the children cooed, the more I realized that Fr. Ben actually wanted them right where they were. Every time a child made an exclamation he turned in that direction and smiled. His words kept flowing beautifully as children on either side of him rolled around or stood up on the pews. Not only was he not distracted, but it was almost as if he were speaking to, or even performing for the children in the pews. [Read more…]

Some problems require a lot of thinking, planning, and practiced execution (small steps to finish lessons on time), but others can be solved with a simple solution borrowed from the talented teachers that came before us.

Discovering the solutions that have already been developed is a matter of paying attention in your own lessons, observing other masterful teachers, and hitting the books to see what other teachers say about their teaching. (These would be some good places to start… Duke, Scott, Kreitman).

But regardless where you get your solutions from, the ones you want to prioritize are the ones I consider “elegant.”

Elegant solutions are simple ones, easily understood by parent and student, that solve several different issues and maintain your values at the same time. An elegant solution is like a drawstring that pulls together disparate folds of cloth while also gathering into a package the contents desired. Elegant solutions, whether in the form of a well turned phrase, a structured game, or a simple exercise bring together entire principles of violin playing while also building multifaceted, long lasting skills.

Elegant solutions are seemingly magical; they are the parts of the lesson that, when you observe another teacher deploy them, that you get goosebumps on your arms, quit taking notes, and admire, with your jaw hanging down, the artistry of teaching.

One such solution, one that I use nearly every day I teach, is the phrase, “Touch your toes to my toes.” [Read more…]