Quick Teaching Tip: Teacher Note Cards

written by Paula E. Bird, ©2013

I have been teaching a long time, and although I had definite lesson plans in my earlier years, now I find that I have to be more flexible in my teaching approach. Once students reach a certain point in the Suzuki literature, I need to approach each student individually. Sometimes I even play "catch-up," where the student moves so quickly that I am addressing teaching points after the fact rather than as previews.

That is alright, though. Every student is unique and comes from a different environment than another student. Every student has a differently developed ability depending on the environment, the routine, the parents, and any number of other factors. So I go with the flow during lessons. I do have one tip that I use when I teach, and that is the Teacher Note Cards. I have put together these Note Cards while I teach, and these cards mostly pertain to later repertoire, any time after book 2, but mainly from books 4 and above.

Many times during teaching I would think of ways to relate earlier literature to a student's current piece or technical difficulty. For example, in Suzuki Violin Volume 6, the last movement of the Handel D Major Sonata, I would discover that the student's ability to play a tight dotted eighth and sixteenth note rhythm had disappeared from book 2's Witches' Dance. So out we would trot a review of Witches' Dance. Perhaps a student would lose the Seitz Concerto No. 5, 1st movement (Seitz "2" in book 4) rhythm of the dotted quarter and eighth note learned in Chorus from Judas Maccabeus, so we would review that point from book 2 to fix measure 16 of the Seitz concerto.

These impromptu thoughts were the real gems of my teaching experience because they represented the years that I had developed my expertise. These impulsive thoughts were the little connections that I had made in my teaching study of the Suzuki repertoire. There were so many of them, because each student brought a unique discovery of new connections. Each spontaneous connection that I made seemed logical and brilliant at the same time and so often different from those thoughts I had with other students.

I began keeping Teacher Note Cards in order to capture these flashes of teaching insights. When such a thought occurred to me, I scribbled it down on a large index card (5" x 8") with one card per song. In the Seitz "2" example above, I included these notes about review:

• Chorus from "Judas Maccabeus" for the dotted rhythm of measure 16

measure 16

• Variation C of Twinkles for the 16th note bowing pattern in measure 79

measure 79 bowing

• Hunter's Chorus for the slur and bow lift section of the triplet slur and lift measures in measures 32 and 33

measures 32 & 33

• Bach's Bourreé from Book 3 for the high third finger in the E major section of the Seitz in measures 52 and following

measure 52

These are a few examples of the types of notes that I might include on my Teacher Note Cards. Not every student will need to review all of these items in particular when studying Seitz "2", but having generated a Teacher Note Card for the piece will bring ideas to the forefront of my mind, and the Note Card makes an excellent reminder for me of the piece's teaching points and relationship to earlier repertoire. So I find these notes helpful to pull up and review for me when a student begins to study the piece. I pass along the specific review songs that would help the student. If I discover something new while working with the student, I will add it to the card.

These Teacher Note Cards are my personal gems, as they represent my many years of teaching experience in the Suzuki repertoire. They resemble the teaching point and review cards that Sue Hunt provides in her book Review - Making it Fun, Gets the Job Done. If you are unfamiliar with Sue's work, here is the link to my interview with Sue: interview. She provides similar review cards for books 1-3 as well as reminders of teaching points and suggestions for fun review.

So my teaching tip today is to build your own set of Teacher Note Cards. This is a simple thing to construct. Buy a set of large index cards (or use a 3-ring notebook with plain notebook paper, one sheet per song), and begin capturing your own flashes of teaching brilliance. Many of my articles about book 1 and 2 contain examples of teaching points or review songs that could provide the foundation for your note cards. Have a look at Sue's books about review. You may find more information about Sue here and here.

How to Get Started After a Break

Let us face the truth: we all take a break now and then. Maybe we are resting up after a strenuous season of performing. Maybe we have just finished a grueling series of activities that demanded a great deal of our time and emotion. Maybe we just came back from a much deserved vacation. Whatever the reason, we needed a break and we took it. Now we have had our rest and we need to get started back up again with our practice routine. But how? What is the best way to get started up again? I suggest that you follow three steps:

1. Evaluate Your Routine
2. Start Small
3. Build Your Plan

Step One: Evaluate Your Routine

First of all, I presume that you had a routine in the past. That would be good. If you did not have a routine or did not have much of a routine, this is a great chance for you to nail down this important point. As any music teacher will tell you, your child's music education and ability development will go much smoother and be much easier for you, the practice parent, if the child has a regular, structured practice routine. Your child's music teacher will be able to accomplish a great deal more in lessons. Your child's self esteem will grow as the child has more of a sense of accomplishment at lessons and in practices.

However, even if you had a regular, structured practice routine, this does not mean that you must remain tied to that routine. If you have taken a break, this would be a very good time to evaluate the effectiveness of your practice plan and routine. Is the practice plan still serving you and your family well? As you look ahead to the coming month, semester, or year, will your current routine fit well with whatever other demands there are on your time and energy?

Now would also be a good time to introduce any new elements that you planned to include in your home practices. Will you use a new recording system? Have you discovered a goal-planning form that you thought looked promising and useful? Do you have some new practice incentives or review plans? Have you learned of a new practice tip from another helpful parent?

Now is also a good time to do a little research about practicing or reviewing. I have a friend who recently published a book about reviewing. I would love to interview her for you, but in the meantime, you might look into her books now: Sue Hunt and her Music in Practice website.

Another useful website is Leslie Thackeray's The Practice Shoppe. You may find many interesting items here along with numerous practice charts in the site's free downloads section. I hope to bring you an interview from Leslie too one day.

Step Two: Start Small

As with any endeavor, it is better to start with a small step. For my pre-twinkle and early book 1 students, my "small step" is to go back to the very beginning. At first, the student's concentration and focus will need attention. If the student had enough ability to concentrate and focus for a 30 minute lesson previously, I may now find that the student's focus is merely strong enough for half that time. That is alright, because the student's focus will grow back to normal in as little as a week or a few days of concentrated effort.

I start with concentration games: staring contest, look-at-the-toy, peek-a-boo, and other "fascination" type games. I also go back to the basics in terms of posture. I notice that after a break, students seem to forget how to take a bow, stand in rest position, and get ready in playing position with the usual set up steps. So I go back to the beginning and work these initial set up steps again and again until students can once again do the set up steps routine without thinking. I may spend the entire first lesson working on this issue. I try to turn this into a fun game of "Suzuki Says," but my goal is to have my student and his or her parent go home with this issue well in hand. To read my previous article about set up steps, click here.

If there is any time left in the lesson (I would certainly hope so!), then I go to the next step. For pre-twinklers, my next step is to work through the pre-twinkle songs that we learn in lessons and group classes:

• Flower Song (Marilyn O'Boyle)
• Monkey Song (Marilyn O'Boyle)
• Songs from Joanne Martin's "Magic Carpet for Violin" (e.g., Tango, Easter Island Monkey, Bow River Fiddling)
• Songs from David Tasgal's "Strings Fun & Easy," such as:
• Lullaby
• Duck Song
• Blast Off
• I'm Number One
• We also use many of these songs to learn to read music.

For my book 1 students, after I check the set up steps and posture issues, I begin with the Twinkle Variations. If the student and parent have taken a break, then the Twinkle Variations are exactly the place to start. Even though I am a professional performing musician for over 42 years, I still find the Twinkle Variations to be the best method of cleaning up any bad habits in my posture, my playing, or my sound. I begin with the Twinkle Variations for all of my students as well as for myself. From there I progress to songs that occur in later books.

For most of my young students, I find that it never hurts to review songs that the students previously learned; in fact, I highly recommend review as the best step to take to improve a student's learning. I may spend most of the first group class in the fall semester reviewing songs that we already should know. I want my students to review regularly, but I know that unless I check on this every week, it may be skipped in home practices.

Even my most advanced students benefit from a review of early songs. I have my favorites for checking various points: Perpetual Motion, Etude, Minuet 2 or 3, Musette, Waltz, Gavotte from "Mignon," Minuet in G, Becker's Gavotte, Bach's Two Gavottes (book 3), Bach's Bourrée (book 3), the Seitz Concertos, the outer movements of the Vivaldi A minor Concerto, and so forth. Still, all of the songs in the Suzuki repertoire serve an important purpose in advancing a student's skill development, so all of the songs are worth reviewing.

I focus very strongly on review after my students have taken a break. I find that this type of intense review may take a few days or at most a week, but if a parent approaches this review with the right focus, the Suzuki practice world will improve immensely.

Step Three: Build Your Plan

Once you have evaluated your previous practice routine and plan and done some intense review of the building blocks of posture and playing well, it is time to build your future plan. There are several important ingredients to a good practice plan no matter what the age or level of the student or musician. I include the following components when I build a practice plan for my students: listening, review, tonalization, technique building, interpretation time, and performance time.

• Listening

I ask my students to listen every day to the repertoire they are studying. For example, if a student is in book 1, then I expect that student to listen to the book 1 songs daily. I ask parents to play the CD with a "background" volume and set it to repeat ("background" volume is a volume that allows you to talk without feeling a need to raise your voice to talk over the recording. When you set the volume appropriately, you will quickly forget that the music is playing, but the music plays and the listening magic happens). When appropriate, the student can add the book 2 CD, and so forth. I knew one mom who made a special recording of all ten of the Suzuki violin volumes and looped it through the house every day. I myself listen regularly to the repertoire that I study.

I have heard criticism about the listening program from non-Suzuki teachers that says listening will cause students to be robotic in their playing. I do not agree. As painters learn from studying and imitating the great masters in the Louvre, I believe that music students will learn with study to imitate the great performers that my students hear in good recordings. My advanced students do not automatically copy what they hear on a recording but instead bring a discussion to lessons about what they like and dislike in the recordings that my students heard. I encourage this sort of scholarship. This discerning evaluation all begins with a solid and consistent listening program.

• Review

A practice plan should include review of previous material that the student learned. Everything in the Suzuki repertoire builds on previous material. It is simpler to introduce new skills by incorporating them into material that is familiar and therefore easy for students to play. I strongly recommend that parents develop a systematic plan that will review previously learned material. Whether this plan includes a review chart, a coffee can full of popsicle sticks, an envelope with slips of paper, or a creative game challenge, parents should develop a system that will keep the student's focus on this important part of skill development. I like to include review items in the beginning of a practice routine to warm up the student's muscles, mental processes, and memory.

• Tonalization

Vocalists vocalize by practicing long tones to develop a beautiful sound or tone. Dr. Suzuki created the term "tonalization" to represent the similar study that other instruments do. Brass and woodwind players practice long tones. Dr. Suzuki thought that string players should also work on building tone through similar exercises. There are many possibilities to practice tonalization in the Suzuki repertoire; Dr. Suzuki included many such exercises throughout the Suzuki books. For more advanced students, a scale program or etude book might also serve as a place to develop a good tone and strong sound. Even pre-twinkle students may work on tonalization by playing open string songs or simple Twinkle rhythms on open strings. Every student of every level should incorporate tonalization of one kind or another in a practice plan. I like to include tonalization exercises early in the practice plan while the student is still warming up. Tonalization exercises provide a nice connection between warming up and technique building, the next area of my ideal practice plan.

• Technique Building

This area of the practice plan would include any areas of new skill and ability development. Perhaps the student has several previews of new songs to practice, or the student is adding new skills to previously learned songs. I would include anything new in the student's practice plan in this area. For advanced students, this could also include scales and etudes. I like to add technique building items early in the practice plan while the student's energy and focus are still fresh.

• Interpretation Time

This area is especially important for advanced students, but even younger or less advanced students can include this in the practice plan. I find that sometimes students and parents focus too easily on the technique building phase and neglect the expressive phase of music making. By focusing some time and attention on the skill of expression and interpretation, students learn how to build something larger than themselves. Students learn how to use music to connect with listeners and others, including fellow musicians.

Interpretation time includes attention to phrasing, dynamics, style, and musical expression. Here is a link to an article about artistic phrasing rules that was written by Leila Viss.

• Performance Time

One of the best ways to get back into a practice routine is to set up a performance schedule. Look ahead and schedule any possible performances. Perhaps it is a monthly community performance. We have a local coffee shop that provides performance opportunities for young students on the first Thursday night of each month. Performance opportunities might also include school talent shows, church services, studio recitals, community Christmas programs, or book graduation recitals. Put these performance opportunities on the calendar and work backwards to figure out mini-goals to prepare for the performances.

When starting up after a break, remember to think and start small. Build slowly. Reevaluate what you have done before. Add the components of a good practice plan that I have listed above a few at a time. It may seem overwhelming at first, but the process of igniting the practice fire will actually take less time than one would imagine.

The tricks are simple:

Get started.

Start small.

Quick Teaching Tip: Vivaldi’s Phone Number

I helped a student today on Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor, op. 3, no. 6, in the revised edition of Suzuki Violin Volume 4. We discussed some practice ideas for the section in measures 25-28, which I refer to as “Vivaldi’s phone number.” I believe I first heard this particular nickname for these measures from Terry Durbin at an institute, perhaps Elizabethtown over a decade ago.

The nickname refers to the first note of each group of 16^th notes. If you recite the fingering for these notes, it sounds like a phone number. Since Vivaldi lives in Venice, Italy, the phone number is quite lengthy to accommodate the international aspect of the call:

4 – 4 – 3 – 1 – 4 – 4 – 2 – 1 – 3 – 4 – 1 (or 4) – 0 – 2 – 3

Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor, measures 25-28

Students stumble through this passage in their initial playing attempts. There is a reason, and I find this passage is a golden teaching opportunity about how to approach passages in a way that will spur students to achieve success quicker. I also use a similar technique in a passage in Seitz Concerto No. 2, 3^rd movement, the first song in book 4:

Seitz Concerto No. 2, movement 3 passage

One of the reasons I think students have trouble with both passages is that they are reading every single note, one at a time. For example, in the Seitz concerto passage, the students have great difficulty playing this passage of double notes. When I guide the student to notice that everything is presented as pairs of notes, so therefore, read just the first note of each pair, the student reads the music quicker and with less difficulty.

Similarly with the Vivaldi phone number passage, I find that students are bogged down looking at the trees and not taking in the scope of the forest. Sometimes I suggest that my student take a step backwards and look at the music from a distance that is almost far enough away that the student cannot read the individual notes. Standing farther away encourages the student to notice the scope and breadth of the musical passage, such as the high and low points and the phrasing or grouping of notes.

In the Vivaldi passage, I ask the student to play the first note in each group of 16^th notes, in other words, Vivaldi’s phone number. This poises the student to visually group the notes, which is where I want the student to be. When the student plays Vivaldi’s phone number, the student also experiences the bowing direction that will occur in the passage once the student puts all the notes together:

Vivaldi's Phone Number

After playing the phone number, I guide the student to notice that each grouping has the same three notes and bowings after the initial note. How easy can that be to learn, I ask them. At this point, the student sails through the passage with much less difficulty.

What is my point in this teaching tip? My point is that as teachers we need to figure it out. When we notice that our students have difficulty in the same places, we need to figure out what part of the passage causes the students to have learning or playing problems. Then once we figure out the problem, we need to come up with a solution.

I do not know what Terry Durbin’s original purpose was in coming up with the “Vivaldi phone number” nickname. Mr. Durbin is a fun teacher, so my thinking is that he came up with a fun way to turn the student on to learning the passage. My purpose in using Mr. Durbin’s trick was initially to entertain my student. After years of teaching students this passage, my teaching technique has evolved into an understanding of what the problem is in learning this passage and how to teach the passage so that students learn the passage easier.

Just as I ask my students to step backwards on occasion and get a bigger picture of the task before them, so I as a teacher also must step back and look at the learning situation and figure out what is going on in my students’ learning sphere.

Every time I successfully identify and solve one of these learning dilemmas in the Suzuki repertoire, I renew my admiration for Dr. Suzuki’s brilliant insight into how we learn. I was surprised when I taught my first adult student using the Suzuki repertoire, that my adult students had the same learning and playing difficulties as my young charges. No matter what the age or ability level, students learn in similar ways. Our job as good teachers is to figure out where students have learning issues and how to solve those issues.

I love teaching! I enjoy these repertoire challenges. I seek to discover new problems in the repertoire and new solution methods. The best part of teaching, in my opinion, is when I "figure it out."

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.