In teacher training with Ed Kreitman a few summers ago, I learned about the meaning of “right side up” and “up side down” students. A right side up student, according to Kreitman, would possess technical capabilities far beyond their own working piece. On the other hand, and “upside down student” is working piece far beyond their own technical capabilities.

The other night I witnessed Christian Tetzlaff perform four of the six Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin in one recital! Though Bach’s solo works for violin contain some of the most difficult elements of violin playing, it is abundantly obvious Mr. Tetzlaff’s technical ability is so expansive that he has the bandwidth to perform four in sequence with incredible musical endurance and sensitivity. Tetzlaff has played Bach for decades, has recorded repertoire from Vivaldi to Berg, and regularly performs to filled halls. He is also critically aware of his own capabilities as a concert violinists, and can reliably perform programs without faltering. His presentation of solo Bach the other night was an extreme example of “right-up-ship.”

Imagine, as a contrasting example, a student who isn’t even technically capable of playing Twinkle with good posture, intonation, or tone, attempting to navigate Gossec Gavotte. Not only are their skills underdeveloped, they are exacerbating the issue by playing a piece so technically out of their league. What is usually the most problematic about “upside down students” however is that they think they are successfully on track. They think because they did the work of note learning to get from Twinkle to Gossec Gavotte, that they are as accomplished as any person playing Gossec Gavotte. In other words they have the same mindset as Christian Tetzlaff, but none of the skill.

“Upside down students” dangerously measure success by the boxed number above each Suzuki piece in the repertoire books. The further they are in the book, the better they think they are.

But is it really a mystery why “upside down students” exist? I can think of several immediate reasons…

• it is so much easier to use a metric like piece number in the repertoire than nuance in the bow hand, shape of the left hand, or convincing musicality
• it is hard for teachers to put a brake on a student’s forward momentum when they are enthusiastically learning notes
• inexperienced teachers have trouble reacting to, or even detecting giant reg flags such as straight thumbs, a collapsed left hand, or no listening happening at home until their damage can’t be undone
• it is tempting to think that problems will be solved later as the student progresses or becomes more advanced (“of course by the time they get to Book 4 they’ll have figured out how to play in tune”)

The road to violin mastery is tough, the road to being “upside down” is less tough. Chances are your student will end up “upside down” unless you, as their expert teacher, teach them otherwise.

So how do you avoid letting your student slip down the path of “upside down?”

You do what Dr. Robert Duke, researcher of music and human learning, insists: you constantly vision your student as an accomplished learner. Mentally image your student as an accomplished violinist. What would they look like? What is the difference between where they are, and where your vision is? Teach that gap. Don’t teach notes, don’t teach new skills, reteach the unmastered fundamentals that are keeping your student from the accomplished version of themselves.

I’ll give an example of one way I actually do this in lessons. As a five year old performs May Song for me, I actually imagine them playing the Mendelssohn violin concerto. I ask myself, “Would that bow hold be able to play Mendelssohn? Would the left hand be able to shift, vibrate, or play double stops? Would my student be able to detect out of tune notes or notes with skating bow contact point?”

Notice my questions don’t dwell on the skills I haven’t before taught (vibrato, shifting, advanced bow strokes, double stops, phrasing), rather if the skills I’ve already taught (left hand posture, right hand posture, attentive listening, healthy contact point) could allow for advanced skills. If I can see that the foundation is crumbling, I have no business moving the student along to Book 2 let alone Long Long Ago. Doing so would turn them upside down. It is here that I loop back and use review reestablish our foundation, perhaps addressing a straight thumb, pancake wrist, or chicken wing bow arm, so that this student has at least the chance to play Mendelssohn in the future.

It is in this way that all of teaching really coalesces into one thing. As I teach May Song, I teach Mendelssohn. And as I’m teaching Mendelssohn, all I’m really doing is reviewing May Song. My vision of my student as an accomplished learner, a masterful violinist, is constant. That vision is constant — it doesn’t shift if we are in group class or private lessons, Book 1 or 10, or moving through literature quickly or slowly. In every teaching moment you are really teaching the whole musician in front of you.

Rainer Maria Rilke noted, “The artist’s task consists of making one thing of many, and a world of the smallest part of a thing.” I cannot think of a better way to distill the task of artistic teaching.

There are a few ways to practice “right-side-up” thinking to enrich your artistic teaching.

1. Regularly put yourself in the presence of accomplished violinists. Go to concerts, masterclasses, and watch videos. Study great artists, breaking down their body posture, left hand skills, and right hand development. Look for differences and commonalities.
2. Go through each part of the violinist and vision what “accomplished” would look like. Mentally imagine the left hand properly shifting, vibrating, extending, with finger articulation and proper intonation, etc. Do this for every body part. Move forward to imagine how accomplished learners would approach a new piece, play chamber music, hear sound worlds, show up to rehearsals, etc.
3. Set up a trigger system to remind you to do this visioning in lessons. You might set a timer on your phone, frame and hang something on the wall, or simply leave a notecard on your stand to remind you to do this. Eventually the habit will develop so strongly you won’t be able to look at a student without visioning them as an accomplished learner.