Author: Elaine's Violin Studio

Video on Improvisation on the Violin

- Elaine's Violin Studio

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

- Elaine's Violin Studio

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

- Elaine's Violin Studio

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)

- Elaine's Violin Studio

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

- Elaine's Violin Studio

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.

Fiddle Arrangement

- Elaine's Violin Studio

Here is a fiddle arrangement of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, played by brothers Zane and Tristan. Older brother Tristan is playing an improvisation on the melody and I am accompanying them both on guitar. I like to get siblings playing together if they are interested in that. It adds interest for them and in these two boys instance, they are practicing something they really like doing. Tristan is very interested in improvisation. Sometimes I call it “applied theory”. You have to get acquainted with the chords and how they move to be able to fit into what is going on. Variations come as one gets comfy with simple harmonization that fits.
Enjoy!

Congratulations Chad!

- Elaine's Violin Studio

Congratulations to Chad on all his hard work! He started teacher training with Elaine in 2008. He was honored at the 2012 Employee of the Year Banquet by the Poudre School District:
Chad Fisher awarded by Poudre School District at ACE Banquet

“Chad Fisher, coordinator of enrichment/violin tutor at Laurel Elementary School of Arts and Technology, is credited with growing a unique, school violin arts-based program that is recognized across the district. Since he began teaching violin at Laurel in 2008, the program has grown from 50 to 175 students. Chad, who teaches 40 small group violin classes weekly, also took the initiative to start a Mandolin club, Fiddle Club and Blue Grass Club, which meet either before or after school. He is eager to do whatever is necessary to create a successful experience for his students, including adapting a violin for a special needs student so that he could play from his wheelchair.
“Chad truly enjoys working with children and teaching them to play violin and mandolin. He continually seeks ways to improve the program and teaching. During the summer of 2010 Chad attended a national Suzuki training and learned that Laurel’s program is unique and may be the only violin program in the nation that serves K-5 students during the school day at no cost,” said Tommie Sue Cox, Laurel principal. “He is an ambassador in the Fort Collins community, promoting arts in Poudre School District.”

– Poudre School District