Karen Lauffer, Teacher and Performer


Karen Lauffer has video demos on her YouTube Channel of familiar tunes embellished by use of improvisation; she adds a new idea here, a new twist there, all adding interest and freshening already familiar material. Karen demonstrates the advance technical skills one learns in classical music training.

Here is the point! Lets start teaching improvisation right along with the classical techniques and understanding of music. Classical technique and sight reading of musical notation and improvisation can all grow together.

Video on Improvisation on the Violin

I recently read this article on Christian Howes’ blog and right away I understood that this violin/improvisation teacher is passionate about teaching improvisation to children. This is right up my alley! I could not possibly write a better intro to this site and the Bach case study than what Chris wrote himself on his site.

Before I got heavily into jazz, I improvised using the only vocabulary I knew. Jazz has a history of drawing from classical composers, but I predict an explosion of new music once improvisation is taught to classical musicians from an early age.

This so exactly states my view!!! That is why I have spent time and energy organizing my experiments in teaching the first baby steps in improvisation to my young Suzuki students, into a booklet, Elements of Music Theory/Improvisation. Here is Chris’ video below. Enjoy and be sure to check out his site as it is full of great resources!

 

Practice Techniques and Positions

Another Tumblr blogger reached out to me recently with the following message:

Hi Elaine… I would love to discuss practice techniques & the various complexities that you have found, learning, in your personal practice sessions. What do you enjoy most about the violin? Which position do you find more difficult, fifth position or second position, and why?

Practice techniques

Well when people want to get into this subject, I usually steer them to the book, Basics by Simon Fischer, Edition Peters, 300 exercises and practice routines for the violin. He covers everything, believe me! And it is a big subject, for sure!

What do I enjoy most?

Well, I would say, making beautiful music, also playing with other people.

Positions

Fifth position or second position, which is more difficult? Fifth position is of course, the same fingering as first position, but over a string and up the finger board to where the hand can get caught on the violin box (it actually doesn’t need to if we are willing to stay free). Second position is not difficult either. It has just been largely neglected in some circles and therefore it tends to be unfamiliar. In the European system, one learns all the two octave scales using all four strings, staying in one position for each scale. If we realize that we are only playing by ear and not aware of what notes are being played, we can play and name the notes as we go. This is a great exercise for learning key signatures!

Shinichi Suzuki basically uses this system in his book Position Etudes. He gives exercises for getting to the position and then the student plays Perpetual Motion in each position, in each key possible. I have the student do the two octave scales at the same time so they get playing the scale while naming the notes, exercises to get to the position, and playing a familiar melody in each position to get used to the feel of the position. I don’t find second position more difficult than other positions.

Thanks for your questions.

Teaching Vibrato

A new violin teacher reached out to me recently on Tumblr (where he goes by TheVoraciousEar) to ask the following question:

Do you have any tips or exercises or resources that would be useful when it comes to teaching vibrato?

I’m devoting this blog post to answering this question by outlining how I teach students vibrato. Below is the response I gave on the subject.

First Step: how do you (as the teacher) do vibrato? There is an arm vibrato, wrist vibrato and finger vibrato. Most people do some combination of these methods. It helps to understand what you do and to be able to lay out the steps involved.

When I teach vibrato, I start with the student not holding the violin, but rather we both hold both our arms in front of the body with hands and wrists free and relaxed. Then we rhythmically flop the hands by an impetus from the fore arm, as we count 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4, etc. That is the assignment for the first week.

Second Step: the next assignment is to put the violin on the shoulder and place the hand roughly in third position with wrist against the violin box, second finger on A string. The finger must be relaxed and willing to change shape because now it rolls up and down the string as the hand moves back and forth along the neck of the violin, from the wrist, thumb and hand totally free and relaxed with no clenching. Second finger can try each string, hand and arm adjusting under the violin to reach the different strings comfortably. This is the assignment for the second week.

Third Step: Next assignment is to transfer this action to the other fingers. First finger needs to be free at the base which is against the violin most of the time. Taking the thumb off the violin neck can loosen the hand. Also, with thumb on violin neck, the student can practice “push away, touch“. That is, the hand and thumb open up as the base of the first finger pushes away from the violin neck and then touches again. The hand needs to be able to move along the violin neck freely, back and forth.The other fingers learn from the second and first fingers. Fourth finger is often weak and can cave in. Sometimes I let the student use third finger along with fourth in the beginning to get the motion going. The student is still working in third position with third position notes. All this can take several weeks.

Fourth Step: Next assignment is to transfer this action to first position. With the hand in third position and the hand against the violin box, the wrist remains still and the hand moves back and forth which is what we want. Sometimes when the student moves to first position, suddenly the hand remains still and the wrist pumps back and forth. In this action the finger does not roll, so no vibrato and the emphasis now is to achieve the same action in first position as in third position.

Fifth Step: Next assignment, likely some time later, learn to let a slight impetus come from the fore arm, to move the hand back and forth at the wrist with more speed and energy.

Well, there is a quick outline of how I teach vibrato. It can be done!

Cheers, courage and good luck!

For more info and Exercises and Practices, see “Basics” by Simon Fischer, Edition Peters. Part G – Vibrato pages 213 to 226

Suzuki Ideas Only? (Video on Improv)

Sometimes among Suzuki trained teachers there comes up a question. Do we use only Suzuki’s ideas or do we incorporate ideas from other famous teachers for the best success of the student? For my part, I can only see any experienced effective teacher eager to exchange ideas with other teachers and then try those same ideas out in their own studio. Honest exchange of ideas brings us as teachers into a more open space of heart and mind, which in turn, allows our students to see and feel this in us and thus be able to process this into their own frame of being. How else can any of us, teacher or student, progress beyond our present state, mentally, musically or in any way? Yes, we must to the greatest degree possible, understand and assimilate and utilize our gifts from a loving seasoned and dedicated teacher! I am convinced that going beyond where we are now would also be one of his goals for us! Isn’t going beyond where we are now, the goal of any of our endeavors?

Actually, I see the idea of developing theory and improvisation abilities in our students in the same context. For a long time our educational system has taught music with the same goal in mind as for most of the other subjects, namely, to prepare the students for the work place. Music classes were there to at least start to prepare the student to play in the professional Symphony Orchestra. So, it was thought, what they needed to learn was to properly read and play orchestra parts. I have no wish to put down orchestra playing or the ability to read musical notation. May we long enjoy both! What I am saying is, can we also get beyond the printed page? That is not something new. Music is and was always improvised back through time, until it began to be written down. Why are our students unacquainted with this musical form? I think we teachers are involved here. We can actually, take the first steps to remedy this situation. I have outlined how I deal with this in Elements of Music Theory/Improvisation.

Below is a Ted Talk by musician and researcher, Charles Limb, on the effects of music improvisation on the brain. The findings of his research are basically that there is heightened brain activity associated with music improvisation versus activities of memorized musical performance. Thus, a music curriculum that includes music improvisation should stimulate more brain activity than does a music curriculum based on memorized music only. Personally, this does not mean I will abandon learning and memorizing the music of the baroque and classical masters, but it does mean that I embrace forms of improvisation, in addition to classical methods.

Some Thoughts on My Teaching and My Life

Being a Suzuki Violin teacher does shape my life path and my teaching path. I like to hang on to what works best for most kids. Lately I’ve been thinking through why singing through the folk tunes which make up the first half of the Suzuki Violin School Vol. 1 make it easier for the youngsters to memorize the tunes. I find two reasons.

No. 1 We can break up the tune into its underlying form, ABA, ABCB etc. as we sing. This helps fix the whole tune in the youngster’s mind before he/she starts to learn the notes, one part at a time. Then when all the parts are mastered they can be strung together to form the whole.

No. 2 The youngster has learned to sing the scale to the words, “The little train goes up the hill. The little train comes down again.” So he/she has a notion of notes going up or coming down. This helps him/her follow the melody in his/her head and recognize the next notes as going up, coming down or skipping up or down.

So there is the mental concept of the form of the tune. There is also the melody we follow in our head, which contains the pitch movements and the rhythm. It forms the path through the tune. I believe these two concepts come together to make memorizing the tunes easy.

I have found kindred spirits in ideas about teaching in other blog sites.
In the blog Young Human’s Music Teacher, I love that blog author Sara Buller says,

“Never stop learning to do what you love better. That is what keeps us interested and enthusiastic.”

That fits in with the Suzuki approach to teaching. We keep taking in summer Institute courses, local workshops, chances to watch each other and learn. We try new things, like my projects using improvisation to teach music theory.

Another quote I like, found on the blog A Music Student’s Thoughts, is:

“A painter paints his picture on a canvas, but musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music and you provide the silence.” Leopold Stokowski.

Truly, music from the heart can be welcomed into the silence.

SAA Conference and Improvisation

I attended the Suzuki Association of the Americas 2014 Conference in Minneapolis, MN, held May 22 to 26. I was delighted to find other people doing improvisation with young children there and holding sessions on their experiences.

The first one I heard was John Hamil from the Kansas City area. He is a bassist and teaches young children as well as older ones. He brings them into improvisation by means of some of the basic bassist skills needed in pop band gig work. He then develops these concepts into more advanced techniques. That sounds practical to me.

The next Improvisation session I attended was was done by Lisa Rebecca Caravan and Meredith Blecha-Wells, both cellists. They worked with cello students to show how they start improvisation work in their studios. They also start with basic skills that the beginning student has and give them a new idea; make something up within a given framework/key. Then they moved on to more parts of the improvisation set up. The kids pick it up easily when we start simply and they feel at ease.

The third Improvisation session I attended was given by Nancy Modell of Springfield, NJ. She brought video recordings of her piano students performing their compositions. She explained how she leads them to composition by way of improvisation, which of course is a natural progression. She has them perform their pieces in a performance setting, for parents and friends. They love the sense of accomplishment.

I was so excited by being able to watch others teach improvisation and talk about what they are doing. I don’t feel like I’m the only one with this idea. I’m happy that the idea is gaining traction in studios around the country.

Why Teach Improvisation?

In the booklet I recently prepared on music improvisation/applied theory, I related the following anecdote about asking a question of Dr. Suzuki.

The last year that Dr. Suzuki came to the American Suzuki Institute in Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, I was there. When we were given a chance to ask our questions, I asked about sight reading musical notation, as there was at that time, some question as to whether we Suzuki teachers should be teaching this skill. He inquired as to whether the children in my area learned to read musical notation at school. I replied that not always did they learn this skill at school. Where upon, he brightened and replied,

“Whatever the student needs to know, the teacher needs to teach.”

This has been my guiding principle in all of my teaching. So, because improvisation is more and more a required skill for young musicians, I propose that we need to introduce it early on, as we do the other skills that we need to develop. Let’s take on the challenge of the present!

Alice Kay Kanack has developed a very informative improvisation method for piano students and also extended it to violin (see Fun Improvisation for…Violin, Viola, Cello, Piano). She does a very good job of laying out the philosophy and method of creative development. I highly recommend her books! She also makes the very well placed point that the famous classical music composers such as Hayden, Beethoven and Mozart all practiced improvisation exercises as young students. It is self evident that improvisation feeds into composing skills. With all this in mind, what I am proposing is an approach more through the use of Theory of Music. As soon as the student can play the first one octave scale with ease, he/she can use those notes as building blocks, mix them up and make up/improvise something. At first the attempt may sound labored and inert, but the student is becoming aware of the sounds of different consecutive intervals and what he/she likes better and they start to develop and use their imagination and get adventurous. Things get interesting and fun.

Improvisation of an Accompaniment

Photo credit: Meredith Bell
Photo credit: Meredith Bell

To start working with the idea of harmonic accompaniment to tunes or improvisation, I start with “Twinkle Twinkle” in A major. I make sure the student understands the A major scale and arpeggio set.

Next, I give them a simple accompaniment pattern and show how to put it in all keys. Here is an example. Then I also give them a chord chart. The part marked “guitar” contains all the first position notes the violin player can choose from for the pattern. Of course not even the guitar plays all the notes given. The letter names above the chords indicate the name of the chord as the guitar player uses it. The roman numerals below the chords indicate their relationship to the A Major scale.

The first pattern on the “Patterns and Keys” document gives the chord patterns beginning on the open strings, G, then move to D and repeat, move to A and repeat. The second pattern starts with the A major chord pattern beginning on the G string. That gets out of the range of the written “Twinkle”. I use this set up until the student can play the accompaniment to “Twinkle” guided by his/her ear. I like for them to be able to do that in D major and G major also. At that point we can try another tune.

Setting up a Beat

For putting a beat with what the kids are playing in their “improv” game, I wait until they have lost any hesitation about trying something new. Then I show them how I might put a beat with something I might play, using my feet to tap out a straight beat, preferably a rather slow beat so as not to intimidate the youngster. The parent can do the same thing with the youngster at home. When they are at ease with that idea we can set up a metronome beat.
Next step would be to set up a meter as in STRONG, weak, weak, STRONG, weak, weak, or other combinations of strong and weak beats, again preferably slow beats to begin with. I do this first by clapping the beats for the student and getting the parent to join me. As the student gets used to this I can then turn to a metronome which is programmed to give meters. I use simple quarter note beats at first as in 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4 meters. We are still on simple little made up tunes of roughly one phrase. We have not set up phrase parameters other than, start on the key note and finish on the key note. I let all of this percolate for a while.