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…]

Last week I outlined a mechanism for developing and maintaining habit change called the “small steps” approach. Today I’d like to walk through exactly how I would “small step” a new habit in my own teaching.

Example: Using a Step List to Improve Punctuality

One problem I want to address in my teaching is punctuality. Respecting the parents and students in my studio is of utmost importance to me, and I want that to be reflected in the way I start and finish on time.

A challenge to staying prompt is that it is very easy to run a few minutes late (transition time, a student breaks down and has a tantrum, I get caught up teaching something very important, the parent asks an important question), but I feel it is unfair to end a lesson early. Like a ratchet — or public transportation — it is impossible to get ahead and all too easy to fall behind.

Since I can’t anticipate when delays occur, it seems the solution to this problem is planning for every lesson to finish 10 minutes early. Unfortunately, I’ve trained myself to be comfortable with 35 minute long lessons instead of 20. But efficient, intelligent, and practiced teaching would help me finish on time. So let’s analyze how I will make this change.

The first thing to note is that the ONLY change I’m making in my teaching right now is my ability to teach 20 minute, compact lessons. Every other habit is established and on maintenance (see the listed articles in Small Steps), or waiting on my habit wishlist. [Read more…]

Have you ever been to an inspiring conference, or participated in an amazing teacher training course, or simply had your mind blown by a TED talk and consequently resolved to change everything about your life?

In the thralls of motivation you decide to completely revolutionize your meal plan, your work out goals, the way you think about vulnerability/love/education/technology, and the way you operate as a professional. Perhaps you completely revamped the way you schedule your lessons, the way you expect students to review, or the manner in which you ask parents to take notes. Coming away from an inspirational learning experience, you want to change everything all at one.

But how much of that change lasts? How much of that change persists, and how much of it drifts back to your state before the moment of divine inspiration?

Much literature has been written about what to change in your teaching, but not not much has been written about how to make those changes. I’ve published many habits and routines that are seemingly minor on their own, but have had a huge net impact on the ease of learning in my violin studio. The “what to change” included…

Using a practice chart
Maintaining discipline
Integrating performance
Giving feedback
Using gestures
Prepping recitals
Preparing your mind and body through meditation
Using growth language
Using time spent walking to practice teaching

I invited you to join me in making these changes in your teaching, but now I want to clarify “how” to do so. [Read more…]

With consciousness and memory divided each week between 3 orchestra rehearsals, 16 hours of college coursework, a lesson with my own private teacher, band practice with the Light Horse Harry crew, and attempting to remember the odd set of batteries or tube of toothpaste when I make it to the grocery store, I sometimes worry that I won’t be be mentally prepared to engage with one of my private students. I want to make sure that when a students approaches me for a lesson, I at least remember all of the work we have done together, acknowledge progress that has been made, and have a few assignments ready to continue development. Even more importantly, I want each and every student to know I prioritize our unique time together while I provide them with my undevided attention.

The method I have developed to accomplish this is two-fold. First, I make sure to keep written records of each lesson for each student, and return to those notes on the following lesson day to remind myself of previous lesson objectives and to plan for a productive time together. Second, I make sure that our time together is sacred — clearing my mind before we start and only focusing on individual learning styles, sequences, and success while we work.

RECORDS

Efficiency guru David Allen says the mind is for having thoughts, not remembering them. I find that I cannot rely on my own psyche to retrieve past information in a lesson when I need it most, without a proper system of collection, organization, and personal refreshing (the memory jog).

I like to begin this process as I ride the 18MLK bus back from the studio where I teach to campus. As I pass each stop, I use the time to mentally reflect on all of the previous lessons of the day. I have a note in Evernote for every student in my private studio, and use that space to jot down the structure, pace, big discoveries, and ideas for each of their weekly lessons. I even make sure to capture when their upcoming orchestra concerts are going to be, and when they mentioned an interest in a particular movie or game to take advantage of in a future lesson activity. The idea here is to release every relevant bit of information to the note taking software while it is fresh on my mind (when I am most accountable).

As ideas come to me throughout the week I note them on each student’s note, but the notes remain relatively untouched until the morning of our lessons. I take at least 2 or 3 minutes, sometimes even 10, rereading through the developments of each student’s previous lessons. I then plan a general arc of the upcoming lesson. This includes any questions I need to ask the student or parent before the lesson begins, any specific assignments I promised to check up on, the maximum or minimum amount of time I want to spend on lesson objectives, and any general goals I want to accomplish in our time together.

I do a final review of my lesson plan as the student is unpacking their instrument, and before I launch my tuner app to initiate the tuning process.

FOCUS

Preparation is one thing, but undivided attention is another. My longest continuous link of lessons right now is four students, for a total of two hours. There are some days where I move from sight-singing class, to a Book 2 lesson, to a String Project meeting, to a pre-twinkle lesson, immediately followed by a Book 1 lesson. The quick turnarounds necessitate a sort of ritual to be implemented at the beginning and end of each to establish the boundaries of our time together. I choose to use the traditional practice of bowing to indicate the beginning and end, as well as physically demonstrate the mutual respect I have for my students.

Additionally, I have adopted a tool Ed Kreitman writes about in his book Teaching from the Balance Point in order to clear the minds of both student and teacher. After tuning and before beginning review or checking up on technical excercises, I play the “Watching Game” with all of my pre-twinkle and book 1 students. Together we stand in rest position, bodies quiet, look into each other’s eyes and count to 10, I then give a sniff and we take our bow. The consolidation of energy and focus students bring to the room through this exercise is sometimes awe inspiring. It also serves as a checkpoint to measure the readiness of a student to begin the lesson, and gives them a task to accomplish before the violin is even settled on their shoulder.

By establishing these routines, quick capturing of relevant lesson information and focused bow to begin and end lessons, I allow my brain to relax between in within the lessons of each of my students. With my mind refreshed and cleared, we are ready to work and make progress together.