Practice sheets

Just popping in from my crazy schedule of teaching all 3 of my kids piano now - ak! - to share what  I do to help my kids practice.  We are getting into the groove of having a lesson on Saturdays, and then I give them a list of what to practice on their own for the week.  I have been brainstorming how to make this easier on the kids - I've had notebooks, but they get lost, so today I went on Pinterest for "piano assignment sheets" and came up with a lot of great ideas, but nothing was just right for my middle child, so I made it based off the awesome examples I saw, and laminated it so I can write on it with a dry erase marker:

He's a HUGE Horrible Histories fan so I added some pictures from the books for him :)

My two oldest are lucky enough to have keyboards in their rooms, so I slapped a command hook up on the wall and punched a hole in the top so it could hang right where he could see it.

Here's a lovely round-up of brilliant practice chart ideas from around the web.  Happy practicing!

Bow arm ideas

Months and months ago, Desiree asked:

I was just practing with Lizeth yesterday and I used the ribbon on her violin. I've noticed that she uses her shoulder and not just her elbow. Do you have any videos or visual ideas I have use to show her about the proper way to move the bow. Its especially hard since I don't play the violin myself.

I have put it off long enough, and since WonderGirl is home sick, I had time to beg her to be my model so I could SHOW what I mean.  Sometimes words just get in the way.  First, find a wall.

Have the student stand at a slight angle, with their right ride touching the wall and the other side at a 45ish degree away from the wall.

Their bow arm, from the shoulder to the elbow, should be touching the wall completely.  Then, have the student play open strings (A is best to start with), but their elbow and entire arm cannot come away from the wall.

They may try to pull the shoulder so the elbow swings away and bumps back into the wall, but gently touch/hold their arm just above the elbow to help their body understand.  Their elbow will begin to kick move the right way.  The next problem may be their bow is still sliding around the string - remind them that it is their wrist's job to help keep it straight.

It's not best to have them practice this way the entire lesson, but it's a great way to remind the body of how playing with a straight bow feels.  Come back to it from time to time as a refresher for older students too.

Also, as I've said before, I use a Bow Right with WonderGirl.  At first I was nervous that I was cheating, but I called my veteran violin teaching aunt and confessed to her, and she laughed and told me to use ANYthing that made it easier for WG to play and enjoy the violin.

I found a video someone made of a student playing with a Bow Right.  As you can see, it doesn't restrict them totally - they can still play with their elbow, but they tap into the device when they do and it reminds them to straighten out.



I grew up with devices my mom invented - from popsicle sticks to pencils rubber-banded to the violin in about the same way.  I've never been as good at makingthem, and since we use the Bow Right daily, it is easy to take on and off and store.  

Also - this is something I've never seen before -the video description says it's a Bow Right but it's not a generation I'm familiar with:



My sincere apologies to Desiree for my tardiness, and my thanks to WG for being my model despite feeling less than tip-top :)  If you have any other ideas, please share them with us in the comments!

Jingle Bell time

I've been a little stymied on what to post lately because sometimes it feels like I've written on everything I can think of about music education.  Which I know is false, but I'm also hip-deep in actually just plain doing it. WonderGirl is doing amazing at both violin and piano and I'm a happy mama.

Christmas is coming soon and is a fabulous opportunity to get kids to practice.  Taking a break from their regular music and getting to play familiar and fun songs is great for revving their desire to play as well as sight reading skills.  I'll post the piano books I'm currently using for WonderGirl, but today I have a treat for you violin parents out there - I whipped up a version of Jingle Bells that I've been teaching WG.  She's pre-reading, so I used this easy notiation my mom used to use with me.

Blue notes are A string, E is red, and it's pretty easy to follow.  It's a lovely step to getting a student used to getting outside of their violin box without distracting them too much from developing their technique.  I use this kind of notation along with aural and verbal teaching songs until about the minuets in Suzuki book 1.

I started teaching this to WG last week and she has it memorized by now - it's a very simple tune for just about every instrument.  She's even going to be playing it for her school's Christmas program!  *squee!!*  If you want to see Christmas songs or other song examples in this notation, I'll whip some of those up too.  Have fun!

Violin hacker

All music teachers have little tricks we use to help our students develop certain areas of technique.  I thought I'd share two things I've been using recently with WonderGirl on the violin.  First, these:

These Dr. Scholls cushions are just perfect for violin teachers, and you can find the at any pharmacy or grocery store.  They are small, soft and have a light adhesive so we can stick them anywhere and they come off easily.  I use one for her left thumb here:

It gives her a tactile reminder of where to move her thumb and keeps it from creeping up over the fingerboard.

I also use it on her bow to keep her pinky in check:

The other thing I'm using lately is a Bow-Right:

It's guides her bow and helps her to notice the difference between using her elbow as opposed to her shoulder.  It's a handy thing to use, and it helps to have it there so I'm not constantly harping on her to use her elbow and I can focus on other things.

Do you have any tricks?

IT'S A BIG DAY!!

The Dude's birthday party centered around a mattress on the floor.  It doesn't take much with that kid!

A few months ago WG and I made a video of 3-armed singing and I likened it to when violin teachers will play the bow or the fingers for the student so they can focus on their other hand.  Then yesterday, in order to get a feel for how she's progressing, her entire lesson was simply a recital of her 3 songs for her dolls and I, who had to be good audience members and cheer and NOT give constructive tips or suggestions.  It was TOUGH!  But she had fun because it was THE WG SHOW DAY! (she LOVES to throw a show) and I was able to get a really good look at which things I should be focusing on.  First up was her left hand.

So today, I announced it was LEFT HAND DAY!!!  I said it with the exclamation points too.  Today I would be the bow, and she was the fingers the WHOLE time, WHAT A DAY!!!  I thought she'd see through my thinly veiled trick, but it totally worked.  I put a mirror 3 inches from her scroll so she could see how she was doing, and her technique was just fantastic.  Afterward I asked her if she wanted to put both hands together tomorrow, or have BOW DAY!!! (again, with all the exclamation points) and she fell for it.  "OH YES, BOW DAY!!  PLEASE BOW DAY!!"  Heh heh.

My point is that sometimes, it's nice to have a random Wednesday be a special day, with lots of extra exclamation points.  To distract us from the fact that it is, in fact, work.  It even cheered me up to think that I had something to look forward to tomorrow - a lesson where she's totally jazzed just because she gets to play the bow only.  It's the little things.

And now, I plan on using this the next time she's having a tough time with a piano lesson.  A day where I play everything in the bass clef, and she plays all the parts of the songs on the treble clef.  I'll call it CONJOINED TWIN PIANO PLAYING DAY!  Maybe.  Just another thing to mix stuff up and add superfluous exclamation points to my weekdays!

A Two Grenadiers trick

I follow a super nifty blog by a Suzuki cello teacher who has some great stories about her teaching processes.  Today topped it all though!  To anyone who has ever tried to teach Schumann's The Two Grenadiers, you have GOT to try her "texting" approach!!  Click through to see what her student came up with! :)

Straight bows with a bow

I remember teachers putting pieces of colored tape under my strings to encourage me to follow it and give them nice straight bows.  So when I started teaching, that's what I did, to some success.  But the other day during WonderGirl's lesson, I almost went looking for the tape but I found some ribbon first.

It's so simple - grab some pretty ribbon and tie it around the fiddle.  It doesn't move, doesn't get in the way of the strings, and she  loves accessorizing ANYTHING, so it fits her perfectly.

I tell her to aim her bow over it, and she does.  Mostly.  She's a work in progress, but every day is better and better.  Teaching isn't an exact science - it's looking for what will click with each kid and hoping it works.  Ribbons for my little girl are the ticket - I think when the Dude starts violin, I'll have to wind a rubber snake around it for him.

I love my little fiddler :)

Practicing tip - timers!

I found this nifty science activity via Pinterest and then put it to good use.  It's pretty self explanatory - there's one empty glass and another with water and food coloring, and a piece of paper towel running from one to the other.  Give it some time, and the water walks from one glass to the other!  A loooot of time.... we started this about 2:30 this afternoon and it's about halfway done now.  But that wasn't our initial goal...

I set it up and we eagerly watched the color creep up the towel.  I put it within eye shot of the piano, and had WonderGirl work up two new songs in her book.  When we spied the first drops of water in the other glass, piano time was done!  It was a good 30 minutes of pure, excited practicing time, and no "when will I be done??" questions.  It wasn't up to me - it was up to science :)  I'll experiment with smaller glasses and shorter towels for quicker practicing days - and all different sorts of "timers!"

Summertime practicing

I'm back!! Did you miss me?  I missed you!  We haven't been slacking in the music department, though - WonderGirl regaled the grandparents with her piano skills, and I had 7 shows - yes, seven!! with my bands over two weekends!  It was fantastic and I am super warmed up right now :)

But now we're back and trying to get into the swing of practicing again.  It's not easy after a vacation - especially when it's summer!  There are so many more interesting things to be doing!  I stumbled on this post by a fabulous blogger, Music for Tots that gave me some hope.  Her plan for summer practicing is to give her students easy folk tunes to learn to keep up their note and sight reading, and to learn lots and lots of them.  It keeps them active and having fun!

I love the Faber 5-Finger Melodies books, and I picked up their PlayTime Piano - Level 1: Rock 'n' Roll (Faber Piano Adventures) a few weeks ago to give the summer some excitement.  We've been having fun with Rock Around the Clock and other tunes that are enticing enough that WonderGirl has motivation to learn them without too much pushing from me.  I'm taking Music for Tots advice and going back and getting more easy music for WonderGirl to play around with!  She also posts some great free sheet music to snag online!!

Oh, and the Faber Chordtime books are no slouch either.  I'm a poor pianist at best, but I was able to play some really well-written and great sounding tunes this past Christmas with the ChordTime Piano Christmas (Faber Piano Adventures).

Tis the season to have fun with practicing!






PS - Are you on Pinterest??  Holy cannoli, what an awesome site!!  I'm here, follow me so I can follow you!

WG's violin debut

This is a little ditty we call Leprechaun Song.  And it's her first performance on violin EVER!!  We only just introduced the left hand a few lessons ago.  I won't lie, I'm crazy giddy right now.  Great job, WonderGirl!!!!!!

Anatomy Week: violin lesson

I want to begin by saying this is how our early lessons go - of course with every child and every stage it changes dramatically.  We'll discuss practice for an older child later.

Me:  Which should we have first, violin or piano time?

WonderGirl: Violin!

Me, internally: wooohoooo!!!

We sit down in the middle of the living room floor on her red mat, I put her 5 pieces of candy/fruit snacks/pretzels off to the side.  We get the violin out togehter, I put the shoulder pad on and she gets the bow out and rosins it.

"Konnichiwa," we say together as we bow.  This is something one of my violin teachers would do with me when I was young, and it signaled the beginning of our lesson.  It is used to give us both a formal transition into our time together, past the informal chit chat we'd had as I entered the studio. It means "good afternoon" in Japanese, but you can pick any phrase you'd like. We also practice bowing - the kind of bow a good violin student makes :)

1.  Bow time.  We start out making llama shapes with our fingers to practice the shape they'll make holding a bow - sometimes she gets me to make us a story about our llamas and we act it out together.  Sometimes I make her wait until the end of a lesson for a llama story.  Then we hold an actual bow and do all the typical games and exercises. 

kissing her "llama"

2.  Violin time.  She stands up - I get on my knees so I'm at eye level - and we get our feet into position.  She takes the violin from rest position to her chin over and over, and we make a game of it.  Currently, she loves to pretend she's a robot putting the violin up.  We sing some songs and do some dances with her violin under her chin to pas the time while she's practicing having it up there.  I'll play the bow on the strings for her sometimes, or she'll pluck the strings I call out.  It's mostly just activities to distract her while she's getting her "violin muscles."

Doing a dance without dropping the violin - woohoo!

3. Together time!  She plays the bow on the strings!  I control this time carefully, dancing the line between her getting to play and experience the sound - and concentrating on her bow arm technique (and that darn shoulder).  We play a few games, a few rhythms and basic songs all on open strings.  She's just moved to using her left hand, but we don't do it for very long.  I mostly want her to get really strong technique on the bow and violin holding before we jump ahead with actual playing of the instrument.  Together time is very short - maybe two minutes or so.  I want it to be a novel thing she looks forward to and isn't too frustrated or sick of it.


4. Domo arigato.  We bow formally and say "Domo arigato" to each other - which means "thank you" in Japanese.  This is for the same reason we say "Konnichiwa" at the beginning of the lesson, and it signals the official end of the lesson and start of us being mother-child again instead of violin teacher-violin student.

All in all, a lesson is rarely longer than 10 minutes.  The patience it takes to play the violin is not natural for a child, so I revel in the luxury of being able to have many mini-lessons with her as we build all that up.  We didn't start out by doing this much - we started just by having a mini lesson practicing bowing and listening without racing all over the room, then adding on to it.  


It's such a wonderful bonding experience!  I don't plan on her choosing to be a professional violinist someday, but I use the violin as a tool to teach patience, hard work, and to have something wonderful to enjoy.  

Bowhold practice

It's a typical violin teacher trick to use things in place of an actual violin and bow at the early stages.  I have a dowel rod that I use for lots of different exercises for early bow technique.  I taped a clothespin on to simulate the frog, and we practiced tapping her pinky up and down.  Then it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to use that cool sport function on my next fancy camera!

Behold the awesome power of the gif!



Okay, that was fun :)  Another thing we came up with when trying to get more comfortable with bowhold was this little ditty:

One Two Three (place first second and third fingers on the stick on the first knuckle) and Thumb on the stick (thumb down) then you put down the Pinky on the tip tip tip (tap pinky in place three times)!

click on image for full size

Then we flip the hand over ans say Thumb check! to make sure her thumb is curved outwards and not bent inwards. I surprise her with Thumb check! every now and then while we're doing something else, and if it's bent inwards I correct it, and if it's right I fawn all over her (a really successful motivating technique for WonderGirl:)

So that's a great little song we sing every time she picks up her bow and her hand is looking really fantastic.  If anyone wants, I can make a video of myself doing it.  Being the teacher and cameraman is not always easy :)  Do you have any bowhold tricks you'd like to share?

Guest Post - How to teach your own child violin!

Sabrina and I, circa 1995-ish

We are in for a serious treat today - I talked my best friend Sabrina into writing a post for us about teaching your own kids violin!! Sabrina is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and mother to 5 positively adorable children.  She was kind enough to get married and start a family long before I did, so she could have lots of experience and advice for me when I'd need it most.  She's thoughtful like that :)  

Sabrina and fans, present day

We met in a local youth string orchestra in junior high, where we were stand partners in the 2nd violin section and unbeknown to her, mortal enemies.  Every time I showed up to rehearsal, she was sitting in my chair!  Eventually I got over it, we moved up to the youth symphony and have been thick as thieves ever since.  Oh, the stories I could tell you... like the time we both stopped the All-State Orchestra rehearsal by hysterically laughing about a knock knock joke about an orange*... but back to the matter at hand.  She is a mom to a whole gaggle of kids and is managing to teach them her violin know-how.  I'm swamped with just the two!  She's modest, sweet, and an inspiration, and since I'm about to turn up the heat on WonderGirl's violin time (I'm mucho nervous), I've been begging her for advice on how she has managed to do it successfully with multiple kids even!  Here we go!

When do I know my kid is ready for lessons?

I know when they're NOT ready for lessons.  I tried on two of my kids to start them on lessons before the age of 5 (hey - I was taking 'lessons' at 3...so why not?), and it was a disaster both times.  With my son, he really badly wanted to play the cello, so I figured he was ready for it.  Boy, was I wrong.  After about a month, he started to get really frustrated.  He wanted to be able to play a song, dangit!  If you start a little kid on piano, no matter how beginner they are, they can push on a piano key, and get a nice note as a result.  Not so on a violin or cello!  There are so many ways to do it wrong, that it takes quite a while just to figure out how to hold everything correctly to get a decent sound out of the instrument.  So after a month of working with my son, we had only gotten as far as playing "Pepperoni Pizza" on an open string.  And he was not happy about that!  He started becoming less cooperative during our practice time, goofing off and messing around.  When I asked him what the problem was, he told me he wanted to be able to play a real song.  ...So, I decided to put the whole thing on hold for a couple of years until he was a little more mature and could learn faster.  Boy, what a difference a couple of years made!  By the time we came back to it (he was in first grade then), he was able to catch on sooo much faster, and he got to play a song fast enough to satisfy his impatience.  Not only did he learn the songs quickly on violin, be he decided he still wanted to do cello, and taught himself all of the violin songs on the cello as well!

Obviously, not every kid is the same - there are going to be genius kids, and then kids like mine.  Some of them might be ready at 4 or 5 years old.  But in my family, I found that everyone was much happier when they could learn quickly and easily the concepts I taught them...by my waiting until about first grade to start lessons. 

How do you approach a lesson so they treat it seriously, but not serious enough that it's a negative experience?

Well, they have to practice before getting anything fun, like a movie night or dessert or game cube time (only on Saturdays) or something.  My kids are fairly cooperative, and they come to me and ask me what to work on, and I just tell them what to play.  Then I am flexible enough to know when they've had enough.  I don't watch the clock with my own kids - we usually are in such a hurry to get on to other things, that we just practice until dinner is ready or it's time to leave or whatever. 

I have one violin student who is a bit sensitive and takes things really seriously  - too seriously.  If she has worked really hard on a song, and then I find something she's not doing right and have her work on it for a long time, she will sometimes start getting frustrated.  When I first started teaching her, I didn't pick up on the frustration, and sometimes accidentally worked her to the point of tears (not that I'm mean or anything, she was just frustrated that she couldn't get it right after working at it for so long).  Now, I watch her body language.  When we are working on a tough song for a long time, I will notice when her little face starts looking sad, and I STOP.  I give her a high-five, tell her she's done a great job...and we move on to something that is easy for her to review.  

How do you structure their practicing? (ie, by task or by time passed)

So when we DO have time for practicing, we don't watch the clock.  We just work on a song or two, until they start whining that their back hurts or they are tired of the song or it's time to eat dinner.  Half of the time I am frantically trying to cook dinner while having a toddler sabotaging any efforts to accomplish anything...so the practicing isn't very structured.  It generally goes like this: "Hey Mom, what should I play?"  "Hmmm..how about you start by reviewing something?"  "Ok.  Hey Mom!  Andrew's eating cat food!"   ...after playing a song, "OK, let's work on your current piece for a while...better work on that measure a few times.  Can you play that part 8 times for me?"  "Mom, my back hurts, and I've been practicing longer than it took James to finish piano!"  "OK, can you just work on this one more time before you go?"  ...and then it's time for dinner before rushing off to cub scouts. 

Ideally, our practicing includes reviewing at least one song that they've already mastered (otherwise they forget those hard-learned songs!), then work on the current piece.  I try to get them to perfect at least one part of the song - even if it's just one measure.  They will play the trouble spot several times until I'm satisfied with the progress, then play through the whole song.  Then if we still have time, I like to have them do a page of sight reading music exercises.  That's usually about it. 

Why do you think it's worth the trouble for you?

Because it's so fun for the kids to play!  They don't love practicing (who does?), but they have SO much fun doing little performances.  The really cool thing is that somehow we have managed to end up with several friends of the kids who are also into violin and cello.  We did a performance at church for a Christmas party that involved a few of the kids' friends, and they felt like they were so cool.  It's the popular thing to do - who knew??  I have just been amazed at how many cousins are also playing - one of the kids' cousins is waaayyy awesome at violin (better than me), and he has played at family gatherings, and the kids are so inspired by it.  What a fun way to connect with other people, by having music to share with each other. 

I also believe that it helps their brain development in so many ways.  It takes a huge amount of coordination and concentration to be able to play, and music itself is quite mathematical.  What better way to learn about fractions than with musical notes?  And when we play together as a group, the kids have to learn how to follow everyone else and listen to each other and work as a group.  

Can you share anything neat that this has produced in your kids behavior or in their creative exploits?
 

One thing cool we have gotten to do is go and perform at my grandfather's retirement home.  It's been such a cool experience for my kids, and the elderly people LOVED it.  I couldn't believe how many of the residents came up to me after the performance and just had to tell me that they had a relative that plays violin or something.  It really has been such a great experience for the kids and the elderly.

A couple of months ago, James decided that it was time for Thomas (who was 4) to start learning how to hold a proper bowgrip.  So he just sat him down one day, got out a couple of bows, and spent a good 15 minutes just tutoring Thomas on how to hold a bow.  It doesn't get any better than that!

One morning, I came upstairs to get breakfast ready to send the kids out to school, and Michael was practicing the violin.  I thought that was pretty cool that he was on the ball and getting it done early.  Then I noticed Michael had an audience - he had a whole row of stuffed animals, all lined up to listen to his performance!!

Thanks a million, Sabrina!!!  And if any of you out there have experiences or advice you can share, we would LOVE to hear them!  E.mail me (or message me in the comments) and we'll get this show on the road!

* Q: Are you an orange?

   A: No.