Now what does that title have to do with anything? Well, I
read over my blog stats on a daily basis, including which blog posts are
popular, where my readers come from, how many readers have visited the site,
and what search terms bring readers to my little blog community.
Recently several people have been searching for information
about Becker Gavotte, Gossec Gavotte, Gavotte from “Mignon,” and some other
songs that I recognized instantly as the ones that typically cause teachers trouble. Hence my
title today.
I remember when I first realized that I had teaching problems in my studio. I had been teaching for many years, but at the
time I had recently opened up my studio full time. Since I was working long
hours every day to accommodate a full studio, I was tired at the end of my
teaching day. I did not have the reservoir of patience and creativity that I
might have had if I only taught ten to fifteen students. I began to consider
what areas of my studio did not produce an energizing return for me, and that
is when I discovered how to fix the troubles I saw in my studio. Below are some
basic lessons I learned and how I began to figure out how to address the
problems.
Listening Deficiency
I noticed that some students had a difficult time learning a
new piece. I would have to practically stand on my head or write down the notes with some sort of fingering code in order for the student to remember (or even
learn!) the piece. Allegretto stands out in my mind as one of these pieces. Etude, Minuet 3, and Minuet in G were others. When I puzzled over why this might be an issue, I
considered what tools I could suggest that would improve the learning process.
Why, listening to the recordings frequently, of course! So I asked the parent
to play the recording of the piece a few extra times every day, and that is
when I really noticed the look on the parent’s face. Oh, they were not doing
the listening in the first place, I realized.
I stopped being afraid to talk to parents directly a long
time ago. Parents naturally want what is best for their child, and if they do
not, then they should. So, I stopped hesitating about bringing up these sorts
of issues with parents. I believe that parents should do everything they can do to the best
that they can to be sure that their child is able to learn to the best of the child's capability. I cannot expect to place the responsibility of playing the
recordings daily on the shoulders of a five year old. Gosh, children need to be
prodded to brush their teeth before bed, take baths, and eat their vegetables! And that is when they are still in high school! No, a parent’s touch is required here, and if a parent has trouble remembering
to turn on the recordings, then I suggest steps that the
parent could take to help his or her memory. Sticky notes are good, alarms on the smart phone work well, and text and email reminders from the teacher are really successful!
Now I frequently ask parents if they are doing the listening
every day. Do they have the CD playing in the car? Can they find the CD? If the
parent has put the recordings on the child’s electronic device, how has the
parent made sure that the child is actually listening to the recording?
If the parent is playing the recordings and the child still has
trouble with the new song, then I recommend doing additional “extra” listening
every day for a week or two. Usually the problem clears right up in a week once
the parent steps up the listening work.
Daily Practice
This issue would seem to be a no-brainer, but yes, there are
still parents out there who think that their child can learn a new skill and
develop a high level of ability without actually having to practice the
instrument every day. There are also parents who may understand the value of
daily practice but who seem to think that a minimal amount of effort is all
that is needed to accomplish what needs to be done. I even had one parent who
was doing the 100 days club requirements but doing a minimal amount of practice
for it (5 minutes per child). I let it slide for a while because the daily
practice habit was the purpose of the 100 days club, but after awhile I started
urging the mom to step it up and increase the amount the children practiced. I
knew they could accomplish more than they were. The parent might establish the daily habit of practicing, but by limiting the practice to five minutes, the parent was not enjoying the experience of finding out how good a parent she could be. As any good Suzuki parent will tell you, the practice issues happen after the first five minutes, when the going gets tough and the parent has to draw on good parenting skills and exercise maximum creativity.
Again, I do not hesitate to ask parents and the student how
much practice is being done at home. I find that if I phrase the question in
certain ways, that I am sure to encourage the parent to do more in the practice
department. This is not the time for my open-ended question technique. Here is
when I turn on my lawyer charm: Did you practice every day this week? I like to start out
by asking whether the parent has practiced with the child the optimum amount, which is every day. The parent may whittle the answer
down into a lower amount, but at least they know where the “top” is.
Intonation Problems
Boy was this a tough one to figure out! There were some
spots in the Suzuki repertoire that eluded me for a long time in terms of
intonation. The teachers all know what songs I mean: Gavotte from “Mignon,” Gavotte
in G Minor, and Becker Gavotte to name just a few. Also, as part of the
intonation problem, I had to deal with left hands that fell down under the
fingerboard or left index fingers that would not stand up, or pinkies that did
not play on their tiptoes. I have written several previous blog posts about
addressing intonation, so I will not address the issues again in this post. If
you would like to revisit those articles, here are the links:
Learning How to Fish
I am sure you have heard of the paraphrased expression: Give
a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a
lifetime. Well, here is how I learned how to fish, I mean teach, through the problems I saw.
Let me use the Gavotte Three as examples (Gavotte from "Mignon," Gavotte in G Minor, and Becker Gavotte). Here are the
discovery steps I used to teach myself how to fish:
- Identify the problem
- Specifically identify the problem
- Discover where the technique was first introduced
- Develop a strategy to shore up the technique or prevent the problem in the future
- Figure out how to present my strategy to the student in a palatable way
And here is my further discussion of each of these discovery
steps.
Problem: Student
plays woefully out of tune. Specifically the student’s left third finger does
not stretch high enough, the first finger does not reach low enough, and the
pinkie is confused about whether to stretch out to a perfect fourth from the
first finger (it is a flat pinkie in the music, after all).
Specific Problem:
Usually I will follow the Julie Andrews’ technique of isolating the two notes
where the problem occurs. Just as a basketball hoop is missed because of an improper
layup or a baseball pitch is missed due to an inadequate swing, so most musical
technique problems occur between the note where the mistake is and the note
that precedes it. However, in my current problem, I could not identify two
notes. Specifically, the problem was that the student did not adequately
understand and could not properly execute the appropriate finger pattern. The
same problem occurred in both pieces. So the fingering pattern was the problem.
Discover Where the Technique was First Introduced
I identified the technique’s first appearance as somewhere
around the Two Grenadiers. To be completely accurate, I could identify the
issue as a little exercise that Dr. Suzuki put in the beginning of the previous
version of Violin Volume 2, where he had the student hold down the third finger
and then silently move the first finger from the regular squared knuckle position to the lowered first finger position of Bb. Once I figured that out, I was able to
trace the development of the skill throughout book 2. I found the lowered first
finger first in Two Grenadiers. Then I found the finger pattern needed for Book
3 within the middle section of Gavotte from “Mignon.” Ah ha! Now I was onto
something.
Develop a Strategy to Shore up the Technique or Prevent the Problem in the Future
From that point of discovery onward, I increased my teaching
efforts in book 2 to prepare my student better for the skills required by book
3. I made sure that my student was solid on the lowered first finger in Two
Grenadiers, including the little exercise at the beginning of book 2 and using
the finger in our Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia game (substitute Bb for every
B natural in the song). Then I made sure that the middle section of Mignon was
absolutely perfect before moving out of book 2. I will explain in the next
section how I accomplished that. These small steps paved the way for a much
more enjoyable teaching experience for me, and my students were much better
equipped to handle the lessons found in book 3.
- Figure out how to Present my Strategy to the Student in a Palatable Way
I have already mentioned the Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia
game. Other ways I presented the new finger pattern was to teach the student
about transposition. Students are already transposing when they play Twinkle or
other songs on different strings. They may not have enough theory
background at this point to understand what they are actually doing, so I bring
up the issue now, although Long, Long Ago in Book 2 is a good place as well
(since it is transposed from the original A major version of book 1).
Next we transpose Perpetual Motion into the key of Bb. I do
this because it teaches the finger pattern that Mignon and book 3 require. I
also teach my students to play a Bb scale, 1 octave (on the A and E strings),
and also play the scale in thirds. We have been known to work with a tuner too. Even my
little ones find the tuner useful as well as fascinating, and working with a
tuner also helps my students to learn how to maintain an even tone with the
sustained bow.
Armed with these Bb tools, my students are ready to tackle
the middle section of Gavotte from “Mignon.” However, before they do, I staple
a $1 bill to the bottom of the song in their book 2. I tell my students that
this is a dollar spot. In order to earn the dollar, the student must play it
perfectly in tune. Whenever that happens, the student can then remove the
staples and we paper clip the dollar to the book. The student must then come in
the next week and still be able to play the dollar spot perfectly in order to
remove the dollar bill and put it in his or her pocket.
I do not let my students collect the dollar unless they
absolutely play the passage correctly and in tune. I am very particular about
this. The student may take a long time to earn the dollar. We just keep moving
along in the book while the student keeps trying. I do not allow the student to
move past book 2 until the dollar is won. Usually the student earns the dollar
within a few weeks. [And do not worry about going broke stapling dollar bills to students' music books. Usually the parent produces the dollar bill when I ask if they have a dollar for change. They kind of scurry to produce the dollar bill for me so that I do not have to use mine. Very sweet!]
Since I required these small steps in book 2 (and we focus
on them in group classes as well), my later book 3 problems disappeared! Similarly,
when I used my discovery steps to analyze problems in book 1, I discovered my
answers and my solutions earlier in the book.
I have been teaching many years now, so I have had many
opportunities to discover problems and solutions throughout the entire Suzuki
repertoire, and I have been offering many of my discoveries to you through this
blog and its articles. Try using these same questions and make some of your own
teaching discoveries, and let me know about it by posting a comment below.
