Tag: Violin lessons

Going Over the Basics

- Elaine's Violin Studio

A student put the following question out on Tumblr recently:

Small Child Playing Violin. Believed to be in Public Domain From Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collections.
From Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Collections.

I’ve played violin for about 5 years but only in the school orchestra. Our teachers were never very good so I’m still kind of awful at understanding how keys and scales work and all fit together ( this is embarrassing omg) so basically I was wondering if you can think of any sources (preferably online) that go over all of the basics so I can review and finally understand what it is I’m playing? Thank you so much 🙂

While there a numerous online resources for this (and others on Tumblr have mentioned a few, such as Teoria), if you want a paper book to work your way through, there are some good ones specifically for string instruments:

Either of the theory sets listed above will take you progressively through the basic steps and lead you to a good understanding of music theory. The note reading book is a good beginner book for reading music.

What is a Cadenza?

- Elaine's Violin Studio

The baroque and classical composers included in their concertos a spot where the orchestra could stop, and the performer was on his own to improvise on the theme of the movement he had just performed, in order to show off his virtuosity, but also his ability to improvise. This was the Cadenza. Antonio Vivaldi wrote several student concertos, possibly for his students. On this video, my student, Ryan is playing the 1st movement of the Vivaldi A minor concerto, which is a student concerto. I took the liberty to designate a spot for Ryan to add in his own improvised cadenza. Ryan’s cadenza is a little different each time he does it.

This video was taken at one of my students monthly play-ins. We get together informally and play what has been prepared for the occasion, like an informal recital, at Everyday Joe’s, a local coffee house. There is background noise from the coffee house patrons, but do enjoy anyway!

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

Setting up a Beat

- Elaine

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.

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!

Scales with Twinklers

- Elaine

As most of you know, beginners in the Suzuki method start off learning how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This  is a very simple and well known children’s song, so chances are, the student can already sing the melody. Because the first set of pieces learned in the Suzuki method are variations on this song, we call our beginners, Twinklers. Our Twinklers can learn their first scale by singing it and I often sing it to the following words, (one syllable for each note in the scale):

“The little train goes up the hill. The little train comes down again.”

(The first sentence is the scale going up and the second is the scale coming back down – one octave.) I will play the scale for them, first pizzicato (i.e. plucking the notes rather than bowing) then the student does the same and practices this at home. Then we can bow a fun rhythm and it can become a monkey song – a good activity to insert between the focused learning tasks.

On the violin the first scales we learn are A major, D major and G major, while on viola it is D major, G major and C major. The student may start his or her scales in pizzicato (this removes the challenge of using the bow correctly, so we can just focus on the notes of the scale in the beginning). Then I have the student go up the scale naming each note as he or she goes, for example:

“A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A”

And they turn around and go back down again.

When they know the names of the notes on their instrument, they are ready to name the notes on the staff and effectively to begin reading music. This is where I recommend using I Can Read Music: A Note Reading Book for Violin Students (Volume 1). (Also available: I Can Read Music: For Viola Volume 1 and I Can Read Music: For Cello, Volume I). I use this book for various activities. When the book is open to lesson one, the Pitch page is on the left and the Rhythm page is on the right. For the Pitch page, the student names the notes and then plays them, one line at a time. For the Rhythm page, the student claps and counts and then plays and counts, one line at a time.

By the middle of the Suzuki Book 1, I have the students put the book on the stand and point to the notes as they listen to the recording and then practice. This is the daily routine.

“Did it Sound Better or Worse?”

- Elaine

As previously mentioned, I spoke as a Suzuki Teacher Trainer to the String Pedagogy class at Colorado State University, about the progression through the Suzuki Violin School Books. One of the topics I covered was intonation.

Intonation needs to stay on the instinctive, intuitive level, so I watch for the first sign that the child hears when the notes sound better or worse. Most children do hear this difference and also subtly let us know that they do and are not quite sure what to do about it. Here is our chance to teach the appropriate basics, which would be, move your finger.

Nine times out of ten, they instinctively move the finger in the right direction and to the best ringing sound. If they do move it the wrong direction, a simple question is:

“Did it sound better or worse?”

In the case of worse, move it the other way. Sometimes I ask the child if the finger needs to move a little more. They very soon get the idea that they can get the pitch/sound that they want.

Finger pattern exercises and scales continue the process as far as pitch is concerned and also note learning on the instrument, which makes note learning on the page pertinent and make sense. For students who are further along in the repertoire, shifting the violin hand into the upper positions follows in line with these basics.

New Student Materials Checklist

- Elaine 1 Comment

When parents ask me what materials will be needed for beginner lessons, I recommend the following items:

  • Notebook and pencil for Mom or Dad, whomever is the practice companion at home;
  • Foot position mat for the child (I show you how to make one);
  • For quite a young child (under 5 years old), a home-made cardboard or a purchased foam “violin” may be used for a short time. This allows the youngster to:
    • Become accustomed to placing and holding the instrument correctly on the shoulder;
    • Learn how to carry and balance the instrument correctly;
    • Learn how to tap fingers in good form; and,
    • Learn how and where to place the “bow.”
  • When the child is ready to use a “real” violin, the teacher can measure the child’s arm to determine the size required. The parent has the choice of buying onto a trade-up-in-size plan, or renting from a local dealership or from one of the online companies (I like Shar Music and Southwest Strings. The violin outfit includes:
    • Violin;
    • Bow;
    • Violin case and rosin.

This list shows you what materials you’ll need when getting started with violin lessons. As you can see, some items are age-specific and therefore not appropriate for all beginners.