Preparing for Etude

I wrote an earlier article about teaching Etude, but in my current timeline of discussing Suzuki Violin Volume One, this is the place where I would introduce an article about Etude. In the previous article I did not discuss those things that I would introduce to a student in order to prepare for Etude, so I will discuss these items now.

First of all, I discuss the meaning of Etude with my students. "Etude" is a French word meaning "exercise" or "study." I discuss with my student that there are many "etudes" in the violin repertoire, and that these pieces are generally shorter in length and designed to teach particular skills. These skills may include a rhythmic unit, a new finger pattern, or a particular bowing variation. Generally etudes focus on one bowing variation or rhythmic pattern, which makes etudes useful for learning a particular skill because they direct the student's focus to a smaller area of technique or skill set. In this case, Dr. Suzuki's Etude will teach a new finger pattern, focus on strengthening the student's ability to make string crossings, and teach the student how to articulate notes well on an up bow (beginnings of notes). Most of the string crossings occur on an up bow to a lower string.

In addition to the student's regular listening program, I urge parents to play the Etude recording an extra number of times. Etude can confuse both parent and student aurally, so more listening helps. I also have a copy of the song laid out phrase by phrase. I made the copy by cutting and pasting the song into its four phrase components and lining up the phrases underneath each other. In this manner the parent can view the song phrases in comparison and easily see the different endings or contrasting parts of the song.

Here are a few things I might introduce to a student as preparation for learning Etude:

• G major scale, 1 octave: this scale is played with the G string as the starting note and uses the Twinkle Variations finger pattern on both the D and G strings. Sometimes we play the scale using one of the various Twinkle variations.

• G & D String Songs: We transpose as many of the songs that the student has learned onto the lower strings, if possible. Most of the book 1 songs can be transposed down a string. There are some that do not work. For example, Allegretto is impossible to transpose to the G string since it already contains a note on the G string, although Allegretto is a good song to work on because it requires the student to play on both the G and D strings. The other earlier songs in book 1 usually work well for transposition to a lower string. If we join forces with viola or cello students, our ability to play on a lower string will mean that we can play together with these other instruments.

• G Major Scale, 2 Octaves: This two-octave scale introduces a new finger pattern. The student builds on the one octave G major scale and adds another octave set of notes up to the E string with a different finger pattern.

• The teaching point here is that the student will learn a different finger pattern on the A and E strings.

• The two octave G major scale requires one set of finger patterns on the G and D strings and another set of finger patterns on the A and E string.

Additional Teaching Points: Once we learn the scale, we can add additional teaching points.

• 30 Second Scale: This is a game I play to encourage students to practice the two-octave G scale. I set the timer for 30 seconds, and then we count the number of times the student can play the scale  during the 30 seconds. The record is five for students of the Etude book 1 level (I do not show off my or any of my more advanced students' abilities to break that record). We only count the scale if a student plays it correctly -- the appropriate finger patterns and all of the scale notes.

• Fourth Finger Descending: Once a student has strengthened the ability to play the two-octave G scale, I introduce the pinkie fingering on the scale's descent. I stress the importance of leaving the index finger down in place while the student swings the left elbow under the finger board and sets the pinkie in place.

• Bowing Variations: Here are a few possible variations for the G scale. There are many other possibilities, and all of these ideas are excellent points in a group class lesson plan:
• slur two notes
• slur four notes
• 2 hooked staccato bows (up-up, down-down)
• 4 hooked staccato bows (up-up-up-up, down-down-down-down)
• combination of slurred and hooked bows (slur, up-up, slur, up-up)
• combination of slurred and separate bows (slur, up-down, slur, down-up) 
• Scale Patterns: We practice a little extra on the different combinations of scale patterns found within the G scale. This can be a fun thing to add to a group lesson plan. Here are a few examples:

• Broken Thirds Scale: I teach the G scale as a series of "broken thirds." I find that when a student learns how to play a scale in broken thirds that much of the battle of learning how to "feel a key" is won. I happened on this discovery one day while helping a student to learn the Bb finger pattern in the middle section of Gavotte from "Mignon," which is the 9th song in violin volume 2. Just on a lark, I taught the student how to play the Bb scale in broken thirds, and I found out that when the student finally learned this skill, that she also really, really learned how to feel the Bb key. Since that day, I have tried to remember to teach my students how to play all their scales in broken thirds. Here is the G scale in broken thirds:

• New Etude of Finger Patterns: We create our own "etude" by practicing a series of finger patterns that we developed based on note and finger patterns found within Etude. I use ideas that I learned from my personal study of Ševčik exercises to develop these exercises (here is the link to see my previous blog post about the Ševčik connection). We repeat these little fingering fragments several times:

And finally, the Suzuki violin revised volume one provides a full page of finger exercises just prior to the Etude song. These exercises are designed to strengthen the student's use of the pinkie.

Much of the Etude preparation work not only helps to pave the road for good teaching of Etude, but it also prepares the road for the songs that succeed Etude. As with all of the songs in the Suzuki repertoire, each song is connected and related to all the other songs in some way, whether great or small. The fun of teaching lies in the discovery of these connections and relations. With every student, I uncover new teaching points and therefore continue to grow as a teacher.

For my previous post about Etude, click here. Let me know of your ideas concerning how to teach Etude and how to prepare a student for Etude's teaching points.

Happy Etude-ing!

Quick Practice Tip: Releasing Tension in the Shoulder

The shoulder is a magnet for tension, especially as the student matures in age. Just about all of my older students or adults exhibit shoulder tension. Shoulder tension must be an adult person's most favorite way to "hold it in." I know that this was the case for me. I still work at it, and I have developed a few tricks to help me set my playing posture in a relaxed way.

Try these three simulations or games away from the violin:

• When driving your car, rest your hands on the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions (please make sure that you are still paying attention to the road!). While you are driving, notice how light your hands feel on the wheel. Now, let your shoulders relax and your arms hang down. If you do this exercise correctly, you will notice that your hands begin to feel fairly heavy and hang from the steering wheel almost enough to pull the wheel down. Your shoulders are now completely relaxed.

• When you are standing in church, rest your hands on the pew back in front of you. Or if you grocery shop instead, rest your hands on the handle of the shopping cart. Notice how light your hands feel on the pew back or shopping cart handle. Now let your shoulders relax and your arms rest downward. If you do this exercise correctly, you will notice that your hands begin to feel fairly heavy and hang from the pew or shopping cart handle quite strongly. Your shoulders are now completely relaxed.

• Spaghetti Arms Game: You will need a partner for this game. Have your partner make fists in both hands and hold up the thumbs like joysticks. You grab onto the "joysticks." Your partner will then swing your arms around wildly, trying to take you for a wild amusement park ride and shake you off. Your goal is to stay connected to the joystick but to allow your partner to flail your arms around wherever your partner wants to go. If you are completely relaxed with "spaghetti arms" and still hanging onto the "joysticks," then your shoulders are completely relaxed. Note that this game is the most similar simulation to that of playing the violin. The joystick is your bow hold, which must be turned on. Your relaxed arms are how your shoulder should be: aware, relaxed, and going wherever it is led.

Try these two simulations with the violin:

• Submarine Air Lock Game: Pretend you are on a submarine, but you need to explore outside the vessel. Go into the air lock chamber. Turn on the mechanism that lets the air out of the chamber. Now you are ready to go outside the vessel. Relate this to the violin.

• Set your bow on the string at the frog. Now, release the air from your shoulder.

• "Set, Sink" are the two commands I use.

• Flat Tire Game: Set your bow on the string at the frog. Now release the air from your tire (shoulder) so that it goes flat.

Carry this to the next level in review work or group class activities:

• Play "Song of the Wind" (violin book 1) and stop after every down bow circle. Recite "Set, Sink" before playing the next note. Make sure your bow hold is impeccable.

• Play "Allegro" (violin book 1) and add  "Set, Sink" after every down bow circle.

• Play "Perpetual Motion" (violin book 1) with a down bow circle after every note. "Set, sink."

• Play "Etude" with a down bow circle after every note. "Set, sink."

• Play "Chorus" (violin book 2) and add "Set, Sink" after every down bow circle.

• Play "The Two Grenadiers" (violin book 2) and note the three down bow circle places. Are you setting and sinking at those places?

• In violin book 4 and the Seitz concertos, there are several opportunities to set and sink the shoulder when placing down bows at the start of new sections. Play these concertos and ask the student to find places where the "set, sink" idea will be effective.

When I first realized how much tension I had allowed to creep into my shoulder while playing my violin, I also found many opportunities to address the issue. I used my teaching in the studio to allow me to practice the exercises I have outlined above. I also found opportunities in symphony rehearsals and concerts to remind myself to "set, sink" before playing The only adjustment I had to make was to get ready to play in symphony a little earlier than usual to allow myself enough time to actually "set, sink." To this day, I still remind myself to "set, sink" after every down bow circle or after I have set my bow on the string.

I also practice this exercise while driving, singing hymns in church, or grocery shopping.

I Love Etude!

I feel like writing about Etude today. Etude is the twelfth song in Suzuki Violin book 1. It is in G major and it is a never-ending series of eighth notes from the beginning until the end with a variation in 16th notes.

When preparing to teach any piece, I remember that Dr. Suzuki's mantra was: "Finger, Bow, Go!" To me this translates into left hand skills, right hand skills, and then creating ways to pull it all together. Here is my breakdown of the skills introduced by this Suzuki song.

Left Hand Skills:

• Close 1-2 finger pattern on the A and E strings while continuing the close 2-3 finger pattern on the D and G strings.
• G major 2-octave scale.
• Reinforcement of the 1-3 spatial finger pattern learned in Song of the Wind (#2, book 1) (fig.1 below).
• Expansion of the 1-3 spatial finger pattern across the strings; for example, in measure 8 (at the end of the 2nd phrase) (fig. 2), similar to the "jumping finger pattern" from Song of the Wind (#3, book 1):

fig.1

fig.2

Right Hand Skills:

• Clean string crossings with no dirty sound between the notes.
• Playing a lower string with a good "catched" upbow; notice that most string crossings in Etude involve going to the D string on an up bow; except for the last D string of the song, every other D string is on an up bow.
• Playing on four (of the 7 basic) string levels: G-D-A-E strings.
• Good crisp beginnings to staccato notes.
• Solid forearm motion in the square of the arm for the détaché bowing on the variation; in the variation, the "catched" bows on the lower string level will be on down bows throughout the piece.

Challenges:

• Helping the student and parent to learn and memorize the piece.
• Helping the student and parent to understand the form of the piece (A-A1-B-A2).
• Coordinating the fingers and the bow on the string crossings.
• Coordinating the fingers and the bow so that the bow does not "slurp" the fingers as they change pitches.

My Silly Words:

These words are a combination of things that I have heard over the years. There is a set of words out there that tells the story of a little girl named Henrietta Poppeletta, and that is where I heard the name. However, the words below are not the same as that other song. I did not have those words at the time I began teaching my first student how to play Etude, so I made something else up. At another time, a parent mentioned drawing a huge lake on a plastic picnic tablecloth, and that gave me the idea of coming up with a set of flashcards that guided the student in a large circle around an imaginary lake. The game seemed to interest enough students that it became my teaching method for Etude for those students for whom I actually have to teach the song.

Henrietta Poppeletta goes around the lake

1 time she goes, 2 times she goes, 3 times she goes around the lake

3 step stones

Henrietta Poppeletta goes around the lake

1 time she goes, 2 times she goes, 3 times she goes around the lake

the "3" bridge

Little waterfall she walks beside

the D bridge

Bigger waterfall she walks beside

3 step stones

Henrietta Poppeletta goes around the lake

but then she's tired and she goes home!

How to Teach -- Previews:

• I start with the 1-octave G scale beginning on the G string and build from there to the 2nd octave (figures 3 and 4):

fig.3

fig.4

• I build facility on the G scale until the student is ultimately able to play four or five 2-octave G scales in a 30-second period of time. Boy do we have fun setting the timer for 30 seconds and then counting the number of times the student can play the entire G scale! I only count those G scales where the student plays the correct finger pattern on the A and E strings (close 1-2 finger pattern).
• I ask that the parent play the recording of the piece extra times for listening.

How I Teach Etude:

• I teach the song in little units or chunks of material and match each chunk to a set of words I made up years ago.
• I usually present the first four notes repeated one time as "Henrietta Poppeletta":

Henrietta Poppeletta

• "Goes around the lake": here I introduce the concept that I refer to as a "turnaround." This is a useful concept for the student to understand, especially when the student starts learning Handel's Bourree in book 2, which has a lot of "turnarounds" at the cadence points. This is an example of what I call a "reverse turnaround" because it immediately reverses direction. The turnarounds in Handel's Bourree in book 2 are what I refer to as basic turnarounds, where the notes go up a scale and then suddenly return to the starting note. Here is the Etude reverse turnaround:

turnaround

• "1 time she goes" and so on matches the sequence of notes in the next chunk. I matched my words to the number of times we go (3 times):

1 time she goes, 2 times she goes, etc.

• "Around the lake" is a pinkie scale down:

pinkie scale down

• "3 step stones" are the 3 notes that transition from part 1 to part 2 (and from part 3 to part 4) of the song:

• I resisted trying other words that related to repeating the words used in the first part of the song, because the students tended to get confused about the number of times they were to play that 4-note phrase in between parts 1 and 2 (and 3 and 4).
• The confusion problem I think stems from the fact that just counting the 4-note group three times does not fit the structure of the music, and intuitively the students understand that and become confused.
• Part 2 is the same as part 1 with a "3 bridge" at the end (note how the 3rd finger "bridges" the first finger):

3 bridge

• I teach the waterfalls:
• Little waterfall starts with 2nd finger on the E string and travels down the G scale until the 2nd finger on the D string.

little waterfall

• Big waterfall starts with 3rd finger on the E string and travels down the G scale until the 3rd finger on the D string:

big waterfall

• Part 4 starts similarly to parts 1 and 2 but finishes up with a descending scale in G major:

Etude ending

• We draw a series of flashcards that represent the various chunks of the song, and we lay the cards in a circle. The student walks around the circle and performs the various units of Etude at each station in the circle.
• The hardest part of learning this song is the transition between the first and second parts. I labeled these parts "3 step stones" and "the 3 bridge." My student and I play a game where I throw a dice for even or odd numbers, and the student plays "3 step stones" for odd numbers or "3 bridge" for even numbers.
• As the student improves, we add a new dimension to the circle walk. At each point where a new section begins, the student will switch to the variation for the next section and will continue alternating between the regular Etude and the variation until completing the song.
• I find the suggestions on www.thepracticeshoppe.com to be helpful regarding new words to learn this song. I might use this practice tool to teach the various units of the song similarly to the way I teach my present song units. I am eager to try this new set of words with my next Etude student!

Review for Advanced Students:

• We find opportunities to use third position.
• We find places to shift to higher positions throughout the piece.
• We practice spiccato.
• We practice up bow or down bow staccato for 4 notes, then later 8 notes or the entire phrase.
• We practice sautillé on the variation.

Useful Advice (I hope):

• I do not always have to teach a student how to play Etude. Sometimes the student figures the piece out without my help, and I do not have to use the "circle walk" exercise. Ask the student's parent to play the song many, many times extra during the week between lessons, because I think that this is key for students to have an easier time learning Etude.
• I find it helpful to set the student up for success before even beginning the learning process steps. I drop hints during earlier songs about "how excited I am that you will be getting to learn Etude soon, since it is one of my favorite pieces and one that is so fun to play! And I just KNOW it is going to be your favorite too. I even think it will be your very best piece that you can play. Ooooh, I can't wait, can you?" Sometimes the parent helps this along by agreeing with me that it is their favorite song to listen to on the CD.
• I xerox the song and cut it up into strips that match the actual parts of the song. Then I lay the strips in the appropriate order and xerox the finished product. Now the different parts of the song are very clear to see, and my parents understand what the song's format is.

Group Class Ideas:

• Set up a line of chairs or traffic cones or some other delineation on the floor across the center of the room (masking tape also works). As you walk around the room playing "Follow the Leader" and weave across and back over the line, change from the regular Etude into the variation depending on which side of the line you find yourself after crossing over the line.
• Break the song up into chunks and take turns playing it down the line of students. When the students get really good at this game, make the chunks even smaller until ultimately the students can play the entire song by each playing one note apiece.
• Stop playing suddenly and try to catch students who may not be watching.
• Slow down (or speed up) while playing to see if the students can follow you.
• Penguin game: this is a game I made up to help my students refrain from "rushing" or speeding up. We get down on our knees, and we "knee-walk" to each of the notes of the song. To an observer, the class looks very much like a rookery of penguins. This is actually hilarious to watch! FYI, adults do not enjoy participating in this game; it is too hard on our bony knees.
• Play the hide-n-seek dynamics game: while one student is out of the room, hide a toy in the room; then when the student returns, direct the student to the hidden toy by using louder or softer dynamics to tell the searching student whether he or she is "hot" or "cold" in the direction the student is looking.
• Advanced students may review the piece in group class by adding the advanced techniques suggested above.
• Intermediate students might attempt making up an appropriate duet part. There is a Suzuki duet part that corresponds to Etude, but I have several students who have come up with their own accompaniment that matches better the rhythm of the original music.
• A great review activity is to play the song with a down bow circle for every note. Adjust the tempo accordingly. This is a great activity for students as they progress in maturity because it allows you to note whether students are starting to put too much tension in their shoulders. [see my blog post about releasing tension in the shoulder].

I think Etude is a wonderful piece, and I review it regularly with my students and for my own personal practice. There are many more advanced skill possibilities to talk about than I have taken the time to discuss here. I enjoy reviewing Etude for my own personal reasons, and I hope that you will enjoy learning and reviewing this song as much as I do.