link love

Lately I've found myself searching the Suzuki website for ideas and have found some great articles - the first,

101 Ways to Practice One Note, One Measure, One Line… - it's a fabulous list from the silly to serious, written for piano students, but can easily be used by other instruments as well.

I Love to Practice!  - written for parents, it reminded me of a few truths about practice, especially Mr. Suzuki's great advice - "Move slowly and never stop."  

Lastly, I just taught WonderGirl the dreaded Suzuki Book 1 Etude and was seriously lucky to stumble on some lyrics to it that a teacher posted on the Suzuki site:

Harry Potter Harry Potter had a special friend to play namedRonald Weasly Ronald Weasly, and he brought along his quaffleHarry Potter Harry Potter picked it up and threw it back toRonald Weasly Ronald Weasly, but it crashed right through the window 

Dumbledore came down the stairs and called to HagridHagrid came right down the stairs and quickly picked upHarry Potter Harry Potter, picked him up and said, “Bad boy!” andSent him back to class.

She's only 5 so I haven't let her start on the Potter series yet, but she knows enough that it excited her to no end to learn the words AND helped her from getting lost in that maze of repetitions and teeny tiny changes.

I have also found some music education gems on Pinterest!  What a fabulous wealth of awesome!

Just a spoonful of sugar

Does anyone feel like some summertime family snuck into their house in the dead of night and sprinkled some  I-don't-wanna dust all over their children?  Maybe it's just our house, what with the onslaught of family vacations, uprooted schedules, ridiculously hot weather and hosting the family reunion in our house with 12 guests last week.

Whenever I've managed to get WonderGirl to play violin or piano with me for our guests, it's obvious her memory and technique have taken a vacation as well.  I've been at my wits end with her with most things lately.  Today marks the first day where our lives are slightly back to normal, and I expected some whining on both sides of the lessons (I'm not perfect!) - until I remembered my greatest idea ever (I can't take credit, I know it was divinely inspired!) 

I grabbed 5 chocolate chips and put them in a bowl beside us, and we did mainly review on on both piano and violin.  It was a WG I hadn't seen in weeks!  She was disciplined, obedient and adventurous.  I really do need to remember when things feel like they are slipping out of control to get back to the basics - that making the medicine/practicing go down easily always goes better with some sugar!