Making Music with a Twinkle Circle

As a teacher, I struggle with how to teach my students about making music. What does it mean to be musical? How do I teach them about making phrases and connecting the performer's heart and soul with the listener? It seems that however I approach the subject, I lack a connection of insight and understanding with my students. They do not seem to "get it." I explain. I demonstrate. I play examples of fine performances from famous artists. Still, I do not get the response that I desire from everyone. Occasionally I will see a student play "from the heart," but as a whole, I do not get the results that I seek. And then one day, I found the answer!

I showed my students how musicality feels. I let my students feel the experience of making music and feeling others make music. We created the Twinkle Circle.

Let me digress for a moment to attribute this idea to the various sources and roots of my thinking. I have been thinking a long time now about the use of energy. I raise nine miniature dachshunds in my home, and I have a horse, several donkeys, 13 alpacas, and ten chickens. These different creatures respond to different energy approaches, as do different human personalities. I draw my ideas about musical energy from Cesar Milan (The Dog Whisperer), Pat Parelli (The Horse Whisperer), and Edward Kreitman's book, Teaching with an Open Heart. Of course, there are so many possible sources of an idea, but these are the big three that influenced much of my thought in this area.

Music is vibration in the air. Vibration in the air is an expression of energy. We can feel this as well as hear it. We can see the vibrations when we look at our violin strings while we play. When we go to a rock concert, we can feel the rhythmic pulsations. As a seasoned professional musician, I know that we connect our performance of musical energy with our listener. A good performer knows how to do this. How many times have we listened to a "flat" performance from a concert artist? We know that the performance was good; after all, the performer dazzled us with pyrotechnical technique. However, something did not quite "sing" or resonate with our inner being.

I have thought a long time about these questions. As I worked with my animals, I noticed how easily they responded to my use of energy. In this case, when I refer to "energy," I am referring to a definiteness of purposeful motion of some kind. I can stand my ground and block a dog's food bowl just by "claiming" the bowl as my own in my head. I can create a musical phrase by connecting the musical line with my listener. I can feel the zing of my listeners' heart strings when they connect with my musical vibration, and I can weave a musical, magical moment between us.

As I explored these ideas with my students in group classes and lessons, I finally tried out a simple exercise to help my students to begin to feel the energy of musical purpose in the air. We often form a circle in group class just because it eliminates a sense of hierarchy (youngest to oldest) and brings everyone into the same plane in a way. And here is how I used my Twinkle Circle to help my students feel the music:

• I played a "flat" Twinkle theme that was devoid of expression. Then I played a more musical rendition, where I increased the intensity/volume slightly to mirror the direction that the notes went (ascending notes increased in intensity and descending notes decreased). My students heard the difference! They preferred the more beautiful version.
• We played the theme together. As we increased our intensity and volume, we slowly walked toward the center of the circle. We could feel the increasing energy of the other members of the circle as we crept toward each other, and we felt the ebb of energy as we backed away from each other as a phrase ended.
• We played Lightly Row and Aunt Rhody using the same technique. If we thought we should include an "echo" place, then we quickly stepped back to our starting position to indicate the diminished volume.
• When we got to Long, Long Ago, a curious thing happened. We played the first two measures with a growing intensity, then we began to ebb our energy in measure three as the musical line descended in pitch. However, in measure four, there is another "beginning" to the phrase. My students recognized that little "bump in the road" by stepping forward again toward the center of the circle and then creeping backward. I was amazed that they recognized this musical device. In fact, at this point, I was amazed again and again as my students eagerly looked for ways to step into or away from the circle to represent the musical lines.
• Then we played Twinkle theme again but stood in our initial position. Instead of walking away from and toward each other, we played in a way that made each other feel the same energetic ebb and flow that we had created earlier through collapsing and expanding our circle.
• At this point, since my group classes currently include students of all levels from book 1 through the more advanced books, I took the exercise through several other book levels. We played Two Grenadiers and Gavotte in G Minor. We considered how we would do the exercise in the Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor.
• I used this same exercise in my university studio seminar class. We began with Twinkle theme, and then I performed the same exercise with each student individually on one of the student's repertoire pieces: Mozart's Concerto No. 5 (2nd movement), Bach's D Minor Allemande, Handel's Sonata No. 4 in D Major (1st movement), and so on.

This Twinkle Circle exercise produced amazing results for me. My university students play with more musicality now than I have previously heard from them. My private students sound lovely in lessons, and a group ensemble piece is exquisite to hear.

My favorite reaction from the experience was to watch the mothers' faces in the waiting area during that first group class experiment. The mothers' mouths hung wide open as they heard the most beautiful Twinkle Theme that we have ever played.

Quick Practicing Tip: Long Bow Day!

I hereby declare today to be "Long Bow Day!" If you are not a string player, do not despair! You can still participate in  Long Bow Day! You may want to change the name to suit your instrument, but the concepts will basically be the same whether you play the violin, the piano, or the trumpet.

A Long Bow Day is a day when we play songs that require long bows more than any other bows. You know which songs I refer to: Twinkle Theme, Lightly Row, Aunt Rhody, O Come Little Children, Long Long Ago, etc. These are songs that require legato bowing. If you are a pianist, these are songs that ask for legato phrasing, and there are many songs like this in Suzuki Piano Volume One. In fact, a good deal of the Suzuki Piano Volume One is teaching the student how to play legato with one hand while the other hand learns to play staccato or use the wrist drop/lift motion. For us string players, that means that the pianists are learning how to use both right and left hands independently, as we do.

Have you figured out what ten places you need to practice your legato or long bows? There are three possible ways to approach a Long Bow Day:

• Tone and Sound Quality
• Good Form
• Musicality

For string players, a good tone and sound quality stem from a good contact point between the bow and the violin string and from the absence of tension in the body. Is the bow articulating the individual notes well? Is the tone scratchy or just right? Is the bow on the highway or drifting near the sidewalk (fingerboard) or bridge? Are there any points of tension in the skeletal joints? Is the student releasing tension from "inside" muscles and directing attention to "outside" muscles?* Most of all, is the bow straight (parallel to the bridge)? Get a mirror and check this, or have your practice partner help you to know when your bow is on the straight highway.

• My students and I use the numbers game to learn when the bow is straight. If the bow is straight and parallel to the bridge, that is the number 5. If the bow goes crooked inward toward the player, that is a series of numbers going down, such as 4 or 3. If the bow goes crooked outward away from the player, then the numbers go up to 6 or 7.
• As the student plays, the practice partner calls out the number, usually 4-6. This helps to guide the student to know when the bow is straight or crooked and in which direction to move the bow to straighten it out.
• A student can also learn how to look in a mirror and gauge whether the bow is moving in the straight groove across the string. Parents, please note that when the bow is "straight" and parallel to the bridge, that it actually looks crooked from the player's perspective. The player must learn how to see the bow when it is straight, and this is not easy.

Tone production for a string player may include how much bow the student uses. As the student advances in technical skills and ability, the repertoire requires that the student use more and more bow without sacrificing the tone quality. As pianists learn faster note passages and use the right and left hands more independently, the tone quality should remain consistent. In some cases, the student will learn how to balance the tone between the hands so that both right and left hand parts sound equal. In other songs, the student will learn how to voice the left hand or the right hand part in a way that will bring more prominence to that part.

For pianists, a good tone and sound quality is how the student executes the note with the finger on the keyboard. Beginning students do not yet have much muscle development in their fingers, hands, or arms, and in many cases, the families do not own pianos but are using electronic keyboards in the home, so that the students do not develop the appropriate musculature to execute a good tone on a real piano keyboard. In the beginning, I use a lot of imitation with students to help them learn how much weight to drop into the piano keys and the notes of the music.

Good form is always crucial to good tone, no matter what instrument a student plays. Always check posture and the form of execution. Good form also includes whether the student is playing the instrument correctly. If a violin student is not bowing parallel to the bridge or does not place the bow to make good contact with the violin string, then we need to focus on good form, because good form goes hand in hand with producing a good tone and sound quality. When I evaluate a student's form and posture, I start from the bottom and work my way to the top. For violinists, we start with balanced feet. I should not be able to push the student over sideways or backwards. (To learn more about how I set up my violin students' posture, click here).



Balance is always crucial when playing an instrument. Violinists shift weight from side to side and have to hold an instrument before them (off to the side), and this instrument carries weight too. Pianists need to be able to shift from side to side to reach keys at the ends of the keyboard; if a student is not balanced, then the student will topple over or play with little strength and tone in the sound.

Musicality refers to the more advanced musical concepts of phrasing, dynamic expression, and how the human body's mechanics create these things. If a student has the physical capability of executing a musical phrase, I introduce how a good musician would end a phrase. Just as humans let their voices trail off at the end of a sentence (or a voice runs out of steam at the end of a long note), we imitate that sound with the instrument. String players learn to let the phrase tail off in a whisper and which bow stroke accomplishes that best. Pianists learn how to lighten up the finger touch on the keyboard in order to create the phrase.

Now, being good teachers and practice partners that we are, we will follow the one-point lesson. We have our list of ten songs or ten places that require legato playing. Now we will decide which one of the three approaches we will use, and it may be that we use different approaches for different things on our list of ten. For example, a newer song or passage might benefit from attention paid to good form. A more familiar piece might require more attention to phrasing and musicality. And a song that falls somewhere in between might fare best with attention paid to tone production and sound quality. As long as we focus on one thing at a time, we can reap the most benefit from our practice efforts. Remember that younger students will need to focus on smaller segments and may need simpler tasks or smaller steps (baby steps) to work on. You should know your child, so be gracious about forming a practice plan that will encourage and nurture your student's learning.

Happy Practicing!

*"Inside" muscles are those muscles that create tension. Think of a body builder's pose down in a weight lifting competition. The body builder leans forward and makes his or her arms tighten the muscles on the inside of the arms. This squeezing causes all the arm muscles, shoulder muscles, chest muscles, and abdomen muscles to appear. "Outside" muscles are the other sides of the muscles. These muscles cause the tension to dissipate. If a body builder were to turn on the "outside" muscles, the arms would lift out to the sides, and the other muscles would not be showing. If I find tension, I help guide the student to turn on outside muscles instead of inside muscles. This one teaching area is probably the issue where I address most of my teaching time and focus because it affects tone and sound quality, good form, and musicality.

Teaching Lightly Row

Lightly Row is the first song in Suzuki violin book 1 that comes after the Twinkle variations, which are a tough act to follow. Therefore, Dr. Suzuki must have given this song special importance in his mind to have placed it in such a prominent place. Let us take a closer look at the treasures to be found in this song.

Left Hand Skills

• "skipping" fingers: the new finger pattern employs the fingers alternately rather than consecutively
• same finger pattern as in Twinkle variations (half step between 2-3 fingers)
• A-A1-B-A1 form (1st part is similar to the 2nd part with a different ending; the 2nd and 4th parts are identical)
• "walking fingers" at the end of part 1 resemble Twinkle variations but in reverse sequence from Twinkles

Right Hand Skills

• If you teach this song with open E string (rather than 4th finger playing E on the A string), the student learns how to drop the bow arm to the E string level and get a good ringing tone
• open E string teaches good string crossings
• later as the student advances in ability, the teacher may introduce bow distribution (using longer, slower bows for longer, slower notes, and quicker bows for shorter, faster notes); e.g., quick, quick, slow for the opening quarter note, quarter note, half note at the onset of the song

Previews

• teach the different endings to parts 1 and 2, measures 3 & 4 and 7 & 8
• walking fingers: A-B-C#-D-E-E-E (measures 3 & 4)
• skipping fingers: A-C#-E-E-C#-C#-C# (measures 7 & 8)
• doorbells or cuckoos in measures 1 and 2:
• E-C#-C# (measure 1)
• D-B-B (measure 2)
• expanded doorbells or cuckoos in measures 5 & 6:
• E-C#-C#-C# (measure 5)
• D-B-B-B (measure 6)
• Once the student learns the different endings to the first and second parts of the song, we play the song together.
• I play the beginning of the song (first two measures) on the student's violin and then quickly flip the violin around to place it under the student's chin.
• the student plays the walking fingers section that ends the first line of the song.
• I quickly grab the violin and then play the opening measures of the second line of the song.
• I pass the violin to the student to play the skipping fingers ending of line two of the song.
• We continue passing the violin back and forth with a sense of urgency so that together we partner playing the entire song.
• As the student learns the doorbells or cuckoos, the student expands the number of notes that he or she plays when we play the song together.
•  Third part of the song: I employ the student's aural and kinesthetic senses when we learn this part.
• I play the first four notes of the third line (B-B-B-B of measure 9) and ask the student to imitate me. I do not tell the student how many notes B I play. I want the student to hear and repeat the same number back to me.
• I ask the student to take a step to the side and then play B-C#-D (measure 10)
• Once the student can play both measures 9 and 10, we play them together;
• B-B-B-B
• take a step to the side and play B-C#-D
• I then teach the student measures 11 and 12 in the same way:
• I play C#-C#-C#-C# (measure 11) and ask the student to imitate me
• We take a step and then play C#-D-E (measure 12)
• I carefully instruct the home practice partner (mom or dad) to reinforce the way I taught the song, with the various steps to new positions for each measure.
• I am careful NOT to teach "play B five times then C#-D" of measures 9 and 10 because this does not reinforce the natural rhythm of the song.

Later Problems

• The student forgets elements of the song:
• walking versus skipping finger endings to parts 1 and 2
• mixing up the doorbells and cuckoos between the beginnings of parts 1 and 2
• forgetting the correct number of repeated notes in part 3
• left hand falls down on the E string
• the student tends to imitate the left hand motion with the right hand bow, dropping the left hand to mirror the dropping bow to the E string level
• this is a good opportunity to teach independence between the right and left hands
• some teachers prefer to have the student prepare the C# at the beginning of the song before playing the first E string note of the song to counteract this tendency
• Bow use becomes messy
• messy string crossings, sometimes due to a bow hold that becomes too loose and falls apart

Group Class Ideas

• play the song as partners: divide the class into two parts, and each part of the class plays a different part of the song
• students pluck E strings with left hand pinkies and bow the other notes
• walk around the room or step to the song while playing

Advanced Students

• use fourth fingers to replace open E string
• bow distribution: longer, slower bows on half notes
• use bigger bows as preparation for book 2 bowing skills
• book 3 students learn duet part
• as students learn higher positions, incorporate alternate fingerings
• incorporate vibrato

I use Lightly Row to teach various skills, which I will expand upon in later songs. To summarize:

• I begin working on ear training:
• by asking the student to distinguish between notes a step apart and notes that skip an interval of a third
• I use Lightly Row to develop the child's memory skills. Note that many string orchestra books include Lightly Row but that the version employs a simpler form (A-A-B-A). Dr. Suzuki's version requires the student to employ more mental energy to remember the slightly altered form. I prefer Dr. Suzuki's version.
• I use Lightly Row to reinforce the different string levels with the bow between the A and E strings. Later I will ask the student to use fourth finger in the song as another opportunity to strengthen the pinkie.