Weber's Country Dance in Violin Book 5 and the Talent to Become Great

Written by Paula E. Bird, , ©2014

When I was a young Suzuki teacher just embarking on my teacher training experience, I remembered my first exposure to von Weber's "Country Dance" in Suzuki Violin Volume 5. I looked at all those up bow staccatos with a great deal of alarm. How in the world was I supposed to teach students how to play that bowing, when I as the teacher was unable to do this skill?

Let me relate my personal experience as a budding violinist at university. When the subject came up about this flying staccato/spiccato bowing (in the Mendelssohn concerto, third movement, if I recall), my teacher tried to teach me how to do it, but I struggled. We wound up doing the bowing with separate spiccato instead. Most of all I remember that my teacher made the comment that it was a tricky bowing, and that not everyone could do it. "You either can or you can't," but it was not something that could be taught for some students. I assumed from that moment on that I was one of those students who could not learn the bowing.

As I write this, I am reminded of something that Dr. Suzuki wrote in the preface to his book, "Ability Development from Age Zero": "I was not born with enough talent to become great," (emphasis added). He went on to write:

"A long time ago, I noticed that this common way of thinking was a mistake. Since then I have spent some thirty years proving a method about which it can truly be said, 'Look, advanced ability can be nurtured in any child. With this method wonderful ability can be developed, but with some other methods, some children will become miserable human beings with little ability.' The result is that today I can say, 'Talent is not inborn.' "

Hmm, then if I believe what Dr. Suzuki says, and I wholeheartedly believe this philosophy, then I am mistaken when I say that I am one of those students who cannot learn how to do this bowing. How do I then teach my students how to do the bowing when I cannot play the bowing myself? I turned to a fellow Suzuki teacher, Neela Kinariwala, for her advice. She assured me that my students would have no trouble with the bowing by the time they reached the piece in the repertoire. How can this be? Neela explained that my students would have worked with this bowing throughout their Suzuki education, so that when the time came, the learning of this new ability would be easily done.

Neela had me trace through the Suzuki Violin Volumes in search of the places when my students learned the up bow staccato in its various forms. Here is the tracing that we did, highlighting those pieces with the heaviest concentration of this bowing:

• Minuet "1" in Volume 1: the introduction of up-up bowing in measures 1 and 3.
• Minuet "2" in Volume 1: additional up-up bowing throughout the song.
• Minuet "3" in Volume 1: additional up-up bowing throughout the song.
• Long, Long Ago in Volume 2: the up-up bowing is found throughout the entire variation.
• Minuet in G in Volume 2: the trio increases the number of up bows to 3 and 4 in a row.
• Becker's Gavotte in Volume 3: the piece increases the up bows to as many as 6 in a row.
• Seitz concertos in Volume 4: practice tips include playing the lengthy slurs as up-up bow staccato bowing.
• Bach Gavottes in Volume 5: additional practice at extended up-up bowing.

Along with these pieces above, there are many other pieces in the volumes that include the up-up bowing in one fashion or another and frequently reinforce the skill, such that the students become well acquainted with this style of bowing by the time the student reaches the point of learning "Country Dance."

I took my discussion with Neela home and practiced tracing the bowing throughout the Suzuki violin literature, with the result that I surprised myself when I first attempted to play Weber's Country Dance. I could do it! For the first time in my life, I could play a fast up bow staccato! Then I repeated the process of tracing the bowing throughout the literature with spiccato and collé, and the result came out the same: I could perform a fast up bow spiccato as well!

Now, this is not a slight of any kind against that teacher who thought I could not learn it. Not everyone is exposed to the Suzuki philosophy or has reflected on the deeper meaning of this philosophy and its impact on talent education. Many teachers believed the opposite, and many still do. My eyes and heart were opened by this process, and I reflect deeply and often on other areas of my life where I might be holding myself back from success because of a limited belief in my ability to develop the talent to to become great.

Why Twinkle?

Recently a reader (thanks, Ann!) commented with this question:

"Why does the Suzuki method teach Twinkle with the various rhythms? Instead of just the Twinkle theme?

This is a great question, and I am sure we have all thought about this a time or two. Why did Dr. Suzuki write all those Twinkle Variations, and why did he put the variations before the theme? Here are some possible answers:

• To awaken the student's rhythmic awareness
• To awaken the student's visual, aural, and kinesthetic senses
• To allow the student to play quickly and use faster movement of the muscles (student's love to play fast; this is so far distant from my first violin days of long, slow, tedious bows on the A string)
• To stimulate the student's large muscle groups before later refining the use of small muscle groups (move from large to small muscle groups, beginning with the larger muscles required for the Twinkle variations)
• To teach the student some of the most popular rhythmic and bowing combinations in the repertoire

All of the above reasons are important. It is my understanding that the first variation rhythm, "Mississippi Hot dog" (also  known as "Pepperoni Pizza" or "taka taka stop stop"),  stems from the opening of Bach's famous two violin concerto in d minor:

Bach's "double" violin concerto

The Vivaldi A minor violin concerto movements are examples of how many of these rhythmic units are found in the classical repertoire. Pretty much all of the rhythmic variations are found in this concerto.

Students enjoy coming up with new variations. We might make up a new pattern based on the rhythm of our names. For example, "Paula Bird" and "strawberry ice cream" would translate to:

"Paula Bird" and "Strawberry Ice Cream" rhythms

I make up my own Twinkle variations as I need them to practice difficult bowing passages in the orchestral repertoire. For example, the last movement of Beethoven's 8th symphony has a fast paced set of rhythms that can be awkward to bow quickly. So I turn the bowing pattern into a Twinkle variation. My colleagues are amused to hear me practice this way, but I do not have any difficulty playing the last movement of the symphony.

Just the other day I practiced several of the Twinkle variations with spiccato bowing (bouncing off the string and airborne). I am currently in Central Oregon playing in the Sunriver Music Festival, and the air is quite dry here. My bow bounces much differently here than it does in my humid home state of Texas. So I needed some extra practice to learn how my bow felt in this new climate. Again, I caught some amused looks from festival colleagues as they realized what melody I used to make bowing variations.

What are some reasons you believe that Dr. Suzuki taught the Twinkle variations? What are some different ways that you use them with your students or in your own practice?

Quick Practice Tip: Magic Patterns

This practice tip is about building up speed in difficult passages but in a manner more advanced and complex than the earlier practice tip I posted about building up speed through the use of thoughtful chunks. I call this technique "magic patterns" and use it mostly with my advanced students. Currently here in Texas there are several auditions for students coming up that require the performance of several fast etudes, and my advanced students are struggling to build up speed.

Here are the 11 magic patterns in a nutshell:

Magic Patterns (11)

Each pattern in a measure is a separate pattern to be applied to the passage being worked on. The above patterns apply to passages that involve a multiple of four notes (16th notes, 8th notes). There are three requirements:

• Keep the same fingering.

• Keep the same bowing.

• Play correctly, no mistakes. If there are mistakes, then the speed must be adjusted or the length of the "thinking pause" in the pattern execution must be lengthened.

I think of the above Magic Patterns as a floor, and each particular pattern will reveal a weakness in the floor that may need an extra nail hammered into it. A weak finger or a slippery shift may be causing a problem the student was not aware of. Maybe a bowing does not quite catch the string at a good contact point. The magic patterns will uncover all the problems one at a time. Some patterns may seem trickier than others, and this sensation may vary from passage to passage.

When a student has struggled through the entire exercise of applying the magic patterns, I ask them to play the passage as originally written. The students always acknowledge how much easier the passage feels after being massaged by the magic patterns: "It's magical," they say. And it is.

I then take two brand new rubber bands and show them to the student. We compare the color and the length of both bands; they are the same. I set one band aside and take the other. I stretch out the second rubber band eleven times, which is the number of magic patterns the student completed. After completing my stretching exercise, we compare the two rubber bands again. The stretched rubber band has a different color and is much longer than the first rubber band.

"One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." -- Oliver Wendall Holmes

I explain to the student that when we made the passage harder by applying varied rhythms and increasing the complexity, we stretched the student's mind. When the student returned to the passage as originally written, the student found it to be much simpler and easier to play.

I seldom have to repeat my magic pattern exercise. Once through a difficult passage and the passage then becomes "mine." Occasionally in extremely difficult repertoire, I may have to apply other patterns. If the passage is separate bows, I add slurs and mix up separate and slurred bowing. If the passage is slurred, I play without slurs or spiccato. The goal is to find ways to play the passage differently and to make it even more difficult.

To increase speed, I practice with the patterns, include larger thinking pauses, and speed up the moving notes as quickly as I can.

I use similar patterns for passages in 6/8 or other multiples of threes.

Happy practicing!

Book 5: What's the point?

I received a great comment that asked me about book 5, and I thought I would share my thoughts about how I use book 5.

I remember hearing once that several teachers were opting to skip portions of book 5, because the students could "learn G Minor in other repertoire." I myself have experienced difficulty with students in the past and getting these students through the "slump" of book 5.

There may be several possible reasons why book 5 is so difficult. Although I have heard that many Japanese families strive to complete all ten Suzuki violin books by the time a student enters junior high, in my personal experience, most of my Suzuki students seem to hit book 5 about the time that they are in middle school. I wish that all my students would be out of book 5 by the time they turn 13, but alas, that has not been the case.

Why 13? Once upon a time, my educator husband showed me an article that talked about a child's development and the phenomenon of the odd-numbered years. (Occasionally a student will hit one of these developmental periods in an "even" year, but the signs are still the same.)  From what I recall of that article, it discussed the child's brain synapses pulling apart about every two years as the child's body underwent several physical developmental changes. As a teacher, I would have to turn up my "patience" quotient as I worked with such a student. A student going through one of these developmental phases would appear a little goofy and unfocused. Ages 9 and 13, in general, were the most difficult periods. The student would appear to be using just the right hemisphere of the brain and relying on physical motion rather than using logic or reasoning.

When a student hit Vivaldi's Concerto in G Minor at the age of 13, things seemed to progress at an excruciatingly slow pace because of the student's seeming inability to enter into a productive, rational discussion about the piece, the skills to be developed, and evaluation about effective practice techniques. I would get pretty discouraged during these periods. These types of lessons used up a lot of my teaching energy with little return from the student to be expected. I think the parents of such a student suffered even more than I did, as they watched their formerly bright child behave as if aliens had abducted the child's mind during the night. Learning book 5 seemed to take a very long time when a student was in the middle of one of these developmental phases.

Perhaps other teachers have experienced this same "slump" by the time a student would begin learning the Concerto in G Minor. I understand the desire to skip this piece and to approach the G Minor issue in another fashion, but I believe there are definite benefits to Dr. Suzuki's book 5 structure.

Generally, I view book 5 as the middle book of the "intermediate" portion of the 10 Suzuki violin books. I use the book to teach several basic things for a student's development:

• how to see intervals "across" the strings and the violin fingerboard
• what reasons to choose particular fingerings
• how to play off-the-string, i.e., spiccato, collé, and flying staccato
• how to cement the proper left hand position for upper positions and the G minor key

Intervals Across the Fingerboard

Book 4 pretty much wraps up a student's education about intervalic relationships between the fingers on the same string. The Bach double at the end of book 4 explores all finger patterns and combinations. Book 5 then leads the student into learning how to view intervals across the violin strings and fingerboard. For example, in first position, a minor second is played by putting one finger next to or very close to an adjacent finger. Minor sixths feel like half steps as well, since generally one finger is adjacent to another, albeit on another string. However, students do not quite "see" that interval when reading music.

Starting with the first song in book 5, Dr. Suzuki presents material that includes passage work that involves intervals across the string. Measures 8-16 and 40-48 are good examples of such passage work. The first movement of Vivaldi's Concerto in G minor has several obvious examples of string crossings and intervals: measures 41-43, 85-90, 119-126, and 167-169. The third movement has several such places as well: 101-106 and 172-186.

One of the best ways to introduce this concept of seeing intervals across the fingerboard is to approach these passages as an exercise in double stops. Certainly I point out to the student how easy it can be to determine whether a particular interval is like a half or whole step by showing the student how to see the interval of a fifth across the violin fingerboard and in the music and then building the interval upwards from the fifth.


How to Choose Appropriate Fingerings

With the second piece of book 5, the second movement of Vivaldi's Concerto in G Minor, I begin discussing the appropriate reasons to choose particular fingerings. The subject of choosing fingerings is a particularly dense subject and probably a subject best left to one or two (maybe even three) blog posts of its own. However, briefly, I will just say that I introduce the student to five basic reasons for choosing a fingering, and we discuss various fingerings within the piece and how they relate to those five basic reasons. There are many other reasons to choose particular fingerings, but I focus on five reasons in this piece:

• shifting over the closest distance (preferably a half step if possible)
• avoiding a shift on a slur, unless the portamento sound is desired
• maintaining the same string/tone color or avoiding string crossings
• maintaining a fingering pattern
• providing a stronger finger for vibrato (or avoiding an open string)

I do not always use the fingerings as suggested in the revised book 5 Suzuki book. The revised edition provides several choices in some places, and I use these suggestions as starting points for discussions about fingering choices.

I would like to remind you that I set up the discussion of fingering choices beginning in book 1. In my earlier posts I frequently mentioned songs in which I asked my students to learn a particular fingering sequence in order to build up a fingering habit that would be comfortable throughout book 2, 3, 4, and now 5. So book 5 is basically the continuation of a fingering discussion that I have silently had with my student since book 1. I now use book 5 to have an open discussion about fingering with my student.

I have also provided my student several places in the Suzuki books where I have given my student a chance to pick a particular fingering over another in some places due to personal preference. For example, I have a very small hand, and I find it very useful to use my "lazy pinkie" or flat 4th finger to play some fingering passages rather than stretching my 3rd finger. I have suggested both fingerings to students in book 2 and have accepted the student's personal preference for one fingering or another.

Off the String Bowing Skills

As preparation for the off-the-string bowing opportunities presented in book 5, I incorporate off-the-string playing in review of earlier books. We might do this in group class or just as a general review assignment, when I introduce spiccato. For example, book 4 and the Seitz concertos all include several places where the student can begin practicing off the string in the lower half of the bow. In addition, I also focus on places where the student can use the collé bowing, such as the first Seitz concerto in book 4, the Long Long Ago variation in book 2, Minuet in G trio, Martini's Gavotte, Becker's Gavotte, and any earlier repertoire piece that used the "up-up" bowing, such as Minuet 2 in book 1. This bowing practice incorporated within earlier repertoire then culminates in the first piece of Bach's Gavotte and the later Country Dance in book 5. These bowing skills do not become perfect in most cases at the time the student learns these pieces but later during group class activities or as the student progresses into later Suzuki or other "outside" repertoire.

When the student gets to German Dance in book 5, I wait until the student has learned the notes before teaching the airborne bowing (remember Dr. Suzuki's suggestion: "Finger, Bow, Go!"). Then we play the two-note slur and single note up bow of measure one as a lifting, in-the-air bowing. It may take the student a few lessons to master this skill. Note that this bowing pattern leads to the faster, mixed spiccato and slur bowing of Veracini's Gigue.


Left Hand and Upper Positions


I mentioned before that I have a tiny hand. When I first learned Vivaldi's Concerto in G Minor, I noticed a persistent ache in my left hand. Since I have been playing for 47 years, I thought it was strange. As I analyzed the situation, I happened to be considering left hand issues in general, and I noted that my usual left hand attitude seemed a little low in relation to the fingerboard for the kind of finger passage work that I needed to accomplish in the G Minor concerto. I tried raising my left hand a little bit higher (steeper) so that my left pinkie was curved more rather than straight, and I found that the problem disappeared. The intonation and the tone quality also improved, as I was using more of my finger skeleton than I was using my finger pads. (Yes, there is a place for finger pad playing too). I also use Kreutzer's 5th etude (the one in Eb) to help my university students make that same discovery.

Dr. Suzuki's inclusion of the G minor key of Vivaldi's Concerto in G minor provides the teacher with several opportunities to monitor the student's left hand position. If you'll recall from earlier posts, I've pointed out several other places in which Dr. Suzuki included repertoire that provided opportunities to correct falling left hand positions: Minuet 2 and the problem of "pocket fingers,", Two Grenadiers, Gavotte from "Mignon, Seitz 3, Vivaldi's A Minor concerto movement 3, and so forth. Now he has included more such opportunities in book 5. In addition, Dr. Suzuki has included repertoire that requires the student to learn the higher 4th and 5th positions, which I have found to be places that the student may lapse into a falling left hand position.

This blog post was intended as a general introduction to some basic issues that I focus on in book 5. Needless to say, each repertoire piece included in book 5 has its own list of detailed issues to be considered, and each student brings his or her own list of possible issues to each new repertoire piece.

The learning process is never cut and dried. The process of learning, and of teaching, continually expands. As I journey alongside each of my students in book 5, I gain additional insight into Dr. Suzuki's brilliant repertoire structure. Each student teaches me something new about the book 5 repertoire, and I then pass it along to the next student. As I pass along this basic information to you now, I will also be adding to my current understanding of the book within the next semester, as I have several young students embarking on the book 5 journey. I hope to share more thoughts about book 5 in the coming year.

I hope you will leave me more comments about particular issues in book 5 repertoire, or any other Suzuki repertoire.