How to Follow Instructions

When colleagues ask me what theory books I use in my studio, my answer is the Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory as my theory course. I begin this book somewhere a little after the time that I begin a student with a reading program. For most students this will be somewhere after the student has shown comfort in the I Can Read Music book by Joanne Martin.

I could choose another theory book, and I have several that I have explored in past years, yet I return to the Alfred's book over and over. The reason is because this particular theory course provides me with the perfect program to teach students how to follow instructions -- an important life skill that lacks a useful and systematic program to learn it.

The beauty of this course is the way that instructions are given to complete the exercises. Many of the instructions include more than one task. Over the years I noticed that students did not understand how to thoroughly dissect and follow a compound list of instructions. The Alfred's instructions are anything but complicated. Even parents trip up on the compound instruction sets.

Let me share the trick that I teach my students (and parents) to learn how to follow instructions completely.

• Circle the verbs. Most students understand what a verb is. After circling the verbs, I point out that the number of circled verbs equals the number of tasks that the student must complete.
• Underline important things to note. For example, perhaps the instruction asks the student to draw quarter notes and another instruction asks the student to draw half notes. I ask the student to underline the words "quarter" or "half" so that the student remembers that there is something to distinguish in each task.
• Check off each completed task as represented by each circled verb.

After following this program, my students now complete ALL of the instructions contained in each assignment and have learned how to follow instructions.

Until next time,

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2018 by Paula E. Bird

The Wheel of Music (Group Classes Can Be Fun!)

We used a new tool at group class -- the color spinning wheel. We called it the "Wheel of Music."

The Wheel of Music

For a few weeks before using the wheel, I had it prominently displayed on a table in the studio, so that the wheel attracted my students' attention.

"What's that?"

"What is it for?"

"How do you use it?"

The wheel generated a lot of buzz among the students, and not just the youngest students. Parents and siblings showed interest in it as well. During this preparatory time leading up to the wheel's initial use in class, I thought of ways to use it. Here are a few activity ideas and my discoveries of what the various colors on the wheel could represent:

• Students could touch the tip of the bow to something in the studio that has the same color as the color that the wheel spin lands on. This was another bow game activity that was very popular with the younger students, although there were some laugh-out-loud moments with the older students as well when I turned around and found two older students locked in a tableau of pointing their bows at something on each other's shirts. One boy stood there as if he were about to commit harikari.

• The students helped me decide what activity to put on the wheel. Occasionally I would alter a suggested activity to add something new and pique their curiosity ("What are we going to do with the 'toy bears'?" In this way I learned quickly which were their favorite activities and games, because they were eager to shout them out to me to put on the wheel. They included things like: water cups, hide the rosin, and even the Twinkle Variations.

• My students came up with nicknames of their own for the Twinkle Variations: "eat boogers" (Variation C), "Pika-ch-u" (Variation B). [What can I say? The studio enjoys the energy of a few younger boys.] I was surprised how much fun the students had with the simple activity of writing things on the wheel before class officially began.

• The colors could represent a kind of activity, and there could be lists of things on a color chart or paper:

• Bow games: Up Like a Rocket, Pass the Cup, Through the Loop

• Concentration and focus activities: water cups, zombie walk, toy bear sticks

• Rhythm activities: awesome rhythm sticks, I Know a Fox With Dirty Socks (affiliate links)

• Twinkle Variations: Twinkle reviews and new challenges (G Major Twinkle, different keys, higher positions, backwards bows, upside down bows)

• Singing activities

• Spinner's choice: I asked students to consider in advance what activity they might choose if the wheel landed on this space, so that the student would be ready to go with a choice of activity

• Special "challenges":

• Stick out your tongue

• Stand on one foot

• Play with eyes closed

• Stand back to back with another student for posture

• Stand with the back of the upper bow arms touching each other for posture

• Play song sections out of order (Scramble Game)

As the students finished each activity on the spinning wheel, we erased the dry erase mark from the wheel. At this point, we had additional options to consider:

• The students could add a new activity to replace the activity they had just completed

• Students could leave the space blank and continue spinning until all activities were finished

• There could be a combination of things added to the wheel, such as student's choice, teacher's choice, and parent's choice

There may be other options to include:

• Students could also play for the other students in order to "earn" the chance to spin the wheel.

• The wheel colors could represent a pick from different prize boxes. The prize boxes could include very simple items, such as craft beads of matching colors.

My favorite idea, which was borne out of a conversation with a young student who made the mistake of saying they sometimes got "bored" at home, was to make a "Boring Chores" wheel at home. The parents and students could list various "boring" chores on the wheel, such as "take out the trash," "dust your room," or "clean a toilet." Then if someone were to say they were "bored," they would have to spin the wheel and do the chore listed on the wheel. This idea led some of my students and parents to come up with all sorts of variations, from performing regular chores to earning special treats.

My students had a great deal of fun with the color spinning wheel in group class. Even my shyest students really got involved in the spinning activities. There was so much excitement and fun, and I noticed that even my most fearful students lost themselves in all the fun.

We use the larger version of the wheel in the studio, but there are smaller versions available as well. If you try this idea, be sure to comment below or email me and tell me your favorite ways to use the wheel. I highly recommend this fun activity and teaching tool!

For more information about the spinning color wheel, click here (affiliate link). The wheel also comes in other sizes. We use the wheel that is linked here.

Many of the activities listed above can be found in my new resource book, The Twinkle Project. I wrote this book as a collection of resources and teaching steps from the beginning stages of learning the violin up to and including the Twinkle Variations. I include many activities to build concentration and focus and explain in depth the many possible ways to learn and later combine the parts of the Twinkle Variations to get the most optimum concentration and focus benefit. For more information about the book, click here. Here are links to the two videos about the book: (Why Did I Write This Book? and What's the Book About?).

The Twinkle Project

I am eager to hear of your teaching ideas with the spinning wheel!

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

 © 2017 by Paula E. Bird

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Smashing Tomatoes (Teaching Tip)

Smashing tomatoes? No we are not going to talk about a crazy rock band, a newfangled way of making tomato sauce, or a technique to dice tomatoes. I share with you a teaching tip that I gleaned from one of my favorite conductors many years ago.

Craig Hella Johnson, the music director of the Conspirare choir, once related an image to the orchestra. Imagine a line of tomatoes, evenly spaced apart, that stretches before you. Now imagine that you are on a pogo stick, and your mission is to land smack dab in the center of each tomato in the line. Off you go.

For me, this tomato and pogo stick image is one of the best ways to describe "vertical" playing. What I mean by vertical playing is that the musician places every single note "vertically" on a music score. In other words, each note is set exactly dead center of the beat or beat subdivision. Of course we can create this same sensation through the use of a metronome set to beat subdivisions, but many young students lack the ability to use the metronome in this manner effectively.

The pogo stick and tomato image works very well for these types of students. I ask them what would happen if they did not hit the tomatoes dead center, and I get such responses as, "I would squirt tomato juice all over myself," or "I would make a mess!"  Yes, exactly so. And then when I ask the students to play the particular passage in question again as if they were on a pogo stick smacking the tomatoes dead center, I hear an entirely different result from my students. I hear very exact rhythmic placement.

I think of this vertical playing as a default position, which means that I strive for this sort of rhythmic precision and perfection in everything that I learn to play. However, I understand that there will be times when I or a conductor wish the illusion to be that I am playing more horizontally, in that I may be leaning forward in my tempo and rhythmic playing and weighting things perhaps a little differently rhythmically to create that horizontal illusion.

However, I find that most students seem to have this innate ability already, and the vertical precision is what is more difficult.

Next time your students play with a little less precision then you wish, give the smashing tomatoes image a try.

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2016 by Paula E. Bird

Hidden Scales

Scales are an important part of a musician's diet. We need to do them every day, and we never quite perfect them. When we are familiar with scales and their finger patterns, we read music easier, we perform musical passages more adroitly, and we can memorize structure easier.

I have long puzzled over why students struggle with certain passages in the Bach's book 1 Minuets, or even other pieces in the repertoire, such as Bach's Bourree or Martini's Gavotte in Book 3 or Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor in book 4. Then one day it hit me that students struggled with learning and memorization in these pieces because they tripped over the hidden scales.

Let me take a classic example in Bach's Bourrée from book 3, the last song in the book. In measures 5 and 6, students take a while to figure out the notes here until I dissect them. Here is the passage:

Bach's Bourrée (Violin Book 3)

 Here is what I teach them. First, I show them how to play these two notes:

Bourrée 2-note snippet

This is not difficult for the students at this point, because we encountered and worked over this spot in the grace notes of Gossec's Gavotte at the end of book 1. We play this little passage of two-note combinations a few times until the student is "easy" with it.

Then I ask the students to play these two notes (during the rests) while I play these other notes in between:

Bourrée's Hidden Scale

When we do the two parts together, we get the original passage. My next step is to teach the student to play the hidden scale passage that I played, and we then switch parts.

After the student is able to play this last step, then the student seems to have no problems putting both snippets together and playing the passage as written. This same hidden scale passage appears later on the A and D strings as well.

There are many instances of hidden scales throughout the Suzuki repertoire, and if the teacher and student were to spend a few moments studying it, these passages would be easier to remember and memorize. Here are a few more examples.

Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor, Movement I (Violin Book 4)

In Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor, first movement, there is a great example of a hidden scale on the second page:

Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor (Violin Book 4)

When we dissect this passage to find the hidden scale, we find this:

Vivaldi Concerto's Hidden Scale

There are many more hidden scale examples in this concerto, and finding all of them may help a student lock in the notes in the student's memory.

Martini Gavotte (Violin Book 3)

In Martini's Gavotte in the beginning of violin book 3, we find this passage right before the last recapitulation of the theme:

Martini Gavotte (Violin Book 3)

When we dissect this passage to find the hidden scales, we find all of these scales:

1st scale

2nd scale

3rd scale

4th scale

Here is the entire hidden scale passage:

Martini's Hidden Scales

There are many such scale passages throughout the repertoire, and these hidden scales make a great quest for students to find throughout the music. This assignment could also be the subject of specific review requests ("find the hidden scales in this review song").

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2016 by Paula E. Bird

Monday Morning Check In: The Hidden Teaching Points

The Hidden Teaching Points: the Road to a Deeper Teaching Relationship

Written by Paula E. Bird, ©2014

I would like to warn my readers that one cannot search the Internet to learn how to teach a piece in the Suzuki repertoire and then just follow the suggested model. Teaching is about so much more than just a list of teaching points. The teaching points and historical background of the pieces are merely the starting point in a teaching relationship with a student; these are the entrance passes to a deeper understanding of the student and a more comprehensive understanding of the wealth of learning points contained in the Suzuki repertoire (and in other literature as well).

I have taught the Vivaldi concertos many, many times over my 38 years of teaching. I have grappled with the difficult teaching points contained in the pieces as well as with the outside influences that affect how well a student will learn and at what pace (listening program, review program, practice routine and schedule, motivation, etc.). What happens though when all of the aforementioned ingredients are in place and the student still does not "get it"? What do you do then? In my opinion, this is the point when the real teaching begins. These are what I call the hidden teaching points, and there is no rule  or guide book to show a teacher the way, other than experience in some cases, teacher training in other cases, and perhaps a mentoring relationship with other teachers. Still, there are those puzzling moments in our teaching experience that baffle us. Here is one example of such an experience.

I have a lovely high school student who has studied with me since elementary school. She is currently learning the third movement of the Vivaldi A Minor Concerto. She is also a pianist, and I believe piano was her first instrument. She is also a singer and participates regularly in choir activities. As a high school student, you can imagine the many activities that compete for this student's attention, but still she manages to do a creditable job of maintaining a regular practice schedule. I frequently remind her to do listening, but other than that, she is a good student. She comes to lessons prepared with her scale and etude books as well as her Suzuki repertoire assignments.

She can play the first movement of the Vivaldi concerto rather well, and she is well on the road to learning the third movement, her current working piece. As I watch her play her lesson for me, despite my student's many years of violin and piano study, she still struggles with the simplest execution of fingering and sometimes even with her bow hold. This has baffled me for a very long time. I have watched her, analyzed her from every possible direction for tension physically and mentally, and I have not been able to pinpoint what the difficulty is exactly. Yet, there it is before my eyes. She actually looks and sounds as if she is physically struggling to play. I remind her to "make it sound easy," and the sound does improve, but the visual aspect still shows her struggling.

I also began to notice that she was struggling to reach her pinkie finger to the appropriate pitch. Her violin is the correct size, and so is her hand for the instrument. Still the shape of her hand shifts to accommodate a pinkie "reach." We have diligently worked on shaping the hand to give support to the pinkie, but still the problem exists.

Here is where I think the real teaching begins. I find it so tempting to continue along this current path. After all, the student will not be a music major beyond high school, I believe. If she does opt for this pathway, it is more likely that she would choose the piano or vocal area. I could continue to have her play lessons for me in a similar fashion until she graduates high school and no longer is in my charge.

I, however, find these sorts of puzzle pieces fascinating. I frequently ask myself, "Why is that happening? Why does this student not get this? Why does this student have trouble with this?" Once I figure out the answer to those types of questions, I begin to understand even deeper what the learning challenges of the piece are or what learning challenges the student has.

I asked myself in earnest these questions. I even asked my student to demonstrate her piano playing as well so I could see if there was a relationship between the way she approached both instruments. I did not see the answer at first, but after much puzzling through this, I think that I have finally found the explanation. The answer to easing the problem has not yet definitely presented itself.

My student never lets her left hand knuckles relax into an elongated state. This explains why vibrato has always been difficult for her with her ring finger. Whereas most of us have a slightly extended shape to our ring finger, which allows the ring finger to be the perfect finger to learn and perform vibrato, my student has a completely square shape. This also explains why my student has difficulty reaching her pinkie pitches. She works to maintain her squared finger shape at all times, and this shortens her reach to the pinkie notes. My student's vibrato has always been stiff and awkward, and this squared finger issue would explain the stiff vibrato as well.

Yay! I finally figured out the problem. But did I? All I would have to do is get her to relax her knuckle grip. That is where we began, until I ran into the real problem, and this problem was not readily apparent. My student has an extreme case of double-jointedness. Her fingers can collapse at the slightest touch. No amount of changing her hand shape to the instrument seems to affect this problem in a positive way. Well, that was a surprise to me as well.

What about the piano? When I asked my student to demonstrate her piano playing again, I saw that she was doing the same thing, and I would bet that her piano teacher has not seen this either. My student was altering her hand shape ever so slightly so that she could land her fingers in a way that allowed for squared knuckles.

Now I have to credit my student to coming up with a solution to playing both instruments that allowed her to accommodate her double-jointed proclivity. What a shame though that she had to do this. It has taken me a very long time to figure out what the issue was, and the problem has insinuated itself very delicately over the years into my student's playing. As a teacher, if I had just stuck to the teaching points and usual teaching plan that I read on the Internet or in a book, I would never have discovered this issue with my student.

So my question to you this week is: "What is your teaching philosophy?" Are you the kind of teacher who just teaches the piece, or are you the teacher who approaches the whole student and looks for ways to reconcile the student's learning experience to the rest of the student's world? Or are you a combination of both? This is an important question to consider and spend time reflecting on, because your answer will be the key that opens up the hidden teaching points that will enrich your teaching experience and deepen your relationship with your students.

Thumbs Up!

That pesky thumb! Which way should it go? Well, which thumb are we talking about? Because, both thumbs have different roles and different "attitudes," if you will. Let us take a closer look at the role of both thumbs.

Power Grip

The thumb is the "first" finger on each hand. In piano vocabulary, the thumb is indicated by the fingering number 1. Not so for violin or viola. We do not use the thumb to play our notes, so we begin our fingering designations with the index finger instead. (Not so for cello, bass, guitar, or banjo, which do use the thumb).

The thumb is a powerful finger because it is so different from the other fingers on the hand. For example:

• the thumb has two joints rather than the three joints that the other fingers have (I am counting the joint at the base of the finger as one of the joints).

Precision Grip

• The thumb stands in opposition to the other fingers of the hand and moves in a direction that is counter to the other fingers. This counter-direction ability allows the thumb to form two kinds of grip: a power grip and a precision grip.
• The power grip is when the palm muscles squeeze to clamp down or hold something, like a hammer or other tool or a jar lid, and the thumb provides counter pressure.
• The precision grip is when the fingertips press against the thumb to provide a more "precise" grip, such as holding a writing utensil.

Precision Bow Hold

Many students confuse the use of these two thumb abilities when making a bow hold or "holding" a violin. For example, I have many adults and younger students who attempt to hold the bow with a precision grip, using the fingertips to hug the bow stick, rather than letting the bow hold rest within the hand.

Power Bow Hold (note the squeezed thumb)

There are even some younger students who still want to "grasp" the bow with the power grip -- remnants perhaps of the Palmer grasp (which is the grip that babies make when they hold onto someone's finger with their entire hand). By the way, whenever I meet someone's baby for the first time, I initiate the opportunity for the baby to grasp my finger. Then I immediately shape the fingers a little bit to form the perfect bow hold. Voilá, I cry, this baby has the perfect bow hold for studying the violin. Let's get him into lessons soon!

Precision Violin Hold

The left thumb is a problem too. Some students try to hold the violin with a precision grip, using the tip of the thumb on one side and hanging the left hand lower on the E string side so that the fingertips provide opposing pressure to each other, or the students leave a "hole" at the base of the index finger along the neck of the violin, which causes major intonation difficulties.

Pizza Hand

There are also those students who attempt to use the power grip to hold the instrument, squeezing the hand muscles (especially the "thumb pillow" at the base of the thumb) to form a "pizza hand" (so-called because when the thumb is used in this way, the wrist bends backwards to resemble the way a waiter carries a pizza tray).

Both of these thumb uses are incorrect when playing the violin. I do not see so much of these uses and problems in piano teaching, where students generally attempt to play everything with flat fingers (like pressing levers), so I will focus the rest of this thumb discussion as to how it relates to string playing.

Left Thumb

The purpose of the left thumb is to provide counter-weight. Notice that I did not use the word "pressure." I think of the left thumb as the balancing tool that tightrope walkers carry. The purpose of the balancing tool is to aide the balance of the tightrope walker. The purpose of the left thumb is to balance the feel of the left hand. It is not part of a gripping sensation. The left thumb merely rests softly and comfortably on the opposing side of the violin neck and provides a sense of balance to the hand.

Hitchhiker "Banana" Thumb

This means that the thumb is soft, relaxed, and inactive other than to form a balance. I have a tiny hand myself, so my use of the thumb is rather low under the violin neck in general. However, with my students, since they are playing instruments that have been correctly sized for them, I do not expect their thumbs to be as low under the neck as mine often is. The left thumb resembles more of the banana shape, or the hitchhiker's thumb.

Mustache Man

No Smothering Moustache Man!

I have begun using "mustache man" in my teaching to help my young charges understand how to hold the left thumb against the violin neck. I draw two eyes, a nose, and a mustache on the student's left thumb. Then we position the thumb alongside the violin next, across from and a slight bit behind the index finger (toward the scroll side). The eyes are visible. I tell the student that it is okay to smother the mustache but not okay to cover up the nose. If I have drawn the mustache and nose in the correct places, then the student will form the correct violin hold.

Inward Bent Thumb

Instrument Too Big? (note outward elbow)

When the student attempts to bend the thumb inward against the violin neck, I find that the student tries to form a counterpressure against the other side where the left hand fingers reside. I usually find that the student is holding the left hand too low on the E string side, or the instrument is improperly placed on the student's shoulder (too far in front of the student or too low on the shoulder). In some cases, as when I teach at summer camps or institutes, occasionally I find this same posture issue because a student has been incorrectly saddled with an instrument that is too big for the student.

I recently encountered an older high school student at a summer camp who had a major left hand issue. This student attempted to play with only his fingertips. He held his left hand away from the violin neck, leaving a large hole between the base of his index finger and the side of the violin fingerboard. There was not much that I could do in this case, because the student had a teacher and the purpose of the camp was to learn the orchestra music. I observed though how difficult it was for the student to find the correct intonation when he played, because he was fingering "in the dark." In other words, he did not have all three reference points (thumb, base of index finger, and fingertip). Similar to the triangulation used to pinpoint someone's location, we have difficulty finding our pitch location on the fingerboard if we do not use all three of our reference points.

Right Thumb

The right thumb serves a different purpose with the right hand than the left thumb does with the left hand. Instead of acting as a balance point for the other side of the hand, the right thumb serves to provide all of the support below the bow frog for the right hand above. How the thumb is placed against the bow stick will determine the type of weight that the hand and arm muscles provide and the direction that the weight will go.

As I wrote earlier, many students attempt to play with the fingertips. When we form the bow hold, these students attempt to grasp the bow stick with the first knuckles of the fingers, forming a grip similar to the precision grip we use to hold a pencil. These students are trying to control how the bow moves in a micro-management style, if you will. This kind of thumb use will result in a lighter tone and a wispy draw of the bow across the strings. The student may feel more secure when he uses the bow in this manner, but the type of sound produced will not reflect a good tone. These students tend to straighten out the thumb or allow little or no bend to it. Instead of using the tiptoe of the thumb, these students are using the backside of the thumb tip, like a precision grip between the finger pads.

Other students may understand the need for using the tiptoe of the thumb -- the uppermost tip end of the thumb -- but misunderstand how to place the thumb tip on the bow and at what angle. This placement is extremely important, because how the thumb is placed will determine which other muscles groups are in play, which in turn will affect the type of sound, volume, and tone that the student will produce with the bow movement.

90 Degree Thumb

If the student places the tip of the bent thumb against the underside of the frog (I am talking about the beginner introduction to the thumb, with the thumb placed under the frog) and places the thumb at a 90 degree angle to the frog and bow stick, then the student will lean on the index finger side of the bow stick, the pinkie will straighten up, and the shoulder and arm may rise up because the student's bow grip will activate the "inside" muscles of the arm. The tone may be wispy because of the too high elbow and shoulder, or the tone may be too heavy and scratchy from the added weight of the hand and arm muscles leaning on the bow stick from the top.

Other students may deactivate the thumb and shift the hand weight to the pinkie or back side of the hand. This type of bow grip will prevent proper arm, hand, and finger movement. I have on occasion come across a student who allowed the bow hold to shift direction from index finger to pinkie finger as the student drew the bow across the strings, resembling the way that the balls of a Newton's Cradle pass the kinetic energy from one side to the other. This shifting right hand motion affected the student's finger motion and ability to used advanced bowing techniques.

The proper placement of the right thumb is at a 45 degree angle to the frog. The thumb should be bent at its first joint to allow for maximum flexibility and to provide strength to the weight created by the resting of the hand and arm on the bow stick. Notice that I used the word "resting." I am very careful to avoid words like "press" or "push down." Instead I use words like "rest," "sit," and "cradle." If my words imply any sort of action, I want my words to encourage action that releases or lets go of any action or activity. The arm weight is naturally heavy. There is no need to add to the force of gravity by pushing down on anything. Simply allowing the arm and hand to rest on the stick in a relaxed fashion will be enough to draw out the richest, fullest tone. But that's another article for another day. Today we focused on the thumb.

Quick Practice Tip: Study Cards

Written by Paula E. Bird ©2013
Recently, a few of my parents and students got excited about making their own set of study cards. I provided the small cards and connecting rings, and the students made up their own batches of cards. Here is an example of how one mom put together study cards for her two book 1 students:

Here are the Twinkle Variations. I am a big fan of the Twinkles as a regular part of the practice program because Twinkles cement the foundation of the student's technique. Many technical problems can be cleaned up miraculously merely by playing two Twinkle variations per day, whether the student were in book 1 or book 6.

New Songs are the cards that the students are currently working on. These cards represent the most recent four songs that the students have learned or are learning. As the students polish each new song, we will eventually add new songs to this batch and transfer the polished songs to the review list.

These are the review cards, and I thought this parent had a creative idea to call this batch "Oldies but Goodies." Everyone has a different approach to review, but for this family, a systematic review program works well. The parent makes notes on the backs of the cards about teaching points and practice goals.

I purchased the rings and small cards at a teacher supply store, but these items are also available at some office supply stores and university bookstores.

Happy Practicing!

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.

Twinkles Week

The first lessons of a new month occur next week as we head into October. So I hearby declare that next week is Twinkles Week.

I ask all of my students to review Twinkles with me. I have reminded them that we will do this during their lessons this past week. For some of my young students, that is what we are working on anyway, but for my older students, this will involve a revisit down Twinkle Lane.

I listen for all sorts of things in my students' sound and playing depending on the level of maturity and advancement. For example, I would expect much more sophisticated use of the bow in a book 6 student than a book 1 student.

Here is an article I wrote previously about the types of things that I look for when playing Twinkles: Twinkle Points.

Other possible challenges for more advanced students could include using vibrato, playing in higher positions, transposing the song into different keys, starting up bow, playing spiccato or sautillé.

For younger students who can already play the Twinkle Variations straight through, I look to see that the main teaching points are still in place. If a book 1 student is getting near to book 2, then I watch that the student is beginning to incorporate more bow usage. If the student can play each of the Twinkle Variations individually but not as a whole, then I work to see if we can play through the first two or three variations without a break. Eventually my first mini-goal will be to play through variations A-C without stopping, but this may take a few lessons before the student has built up the stamina necessary to do this. Once the student has passed the variations A-C hurdle, I generally find that the student can then play through all the Twinkle Variations without problems.

Also for my book 1 violin students, I teach them how to play the variations along with the piano accompaniment. This is difficult for some students and takes a few lessons to master.

Let me know about some of your favorite ways to practice, review, or use the Twinkle Variations.

Quick Teaching Tip: Appreciate Your Partners!

I am a choleric personality style. If you want to understand what this means, check out my previous articles about this topic:

Who's Got Personality?

Personality, part 1

Personality, part 2

If you understand the choleric personality, you will know that we do not need much praise and encouragement. We do just fine by ourselves. I have learned, however, that my personality style needs differ than those of other personality styles. For example, a sanguine style needs appreciation and attention! The melancholic is self-sacrificing, but a little appreciation goes a long way. The phlegmatic will accept appreciation if offered but not if it involves work.

Since I personally do not need much attention and appreciation, I am lax as a teacher when it comes to expressing appropriate praise and acknowledgment for accomplishment. Not towards my students, but to my parent partners. I know that I need to improve this area. So here is what I propose.

Once a month I will go through my parent list, and I will write an email to that parent and express my appreciation. I will have to be careful to limit myself to appreciation, because I know my tendency towards improvement. I want my words to encourage and not discourage my parent partners. This process may take more time than just a week. I hope to go through my list every week, send emails to parents now and then, and hopefully send something to each parent in my studio at least once a month. As lessons occur, my opportunities to share my enthusiasm will present themselves. I can tailor my comments to fit the things that happen in lessons.

One of my studio parents has a plan to have her children write one letter a week, usually on a Monday. Following this plan, i think I will try and devote my Mondays to thinking about writing an email to my studio parents, a few at a time per week, maybe doing it on Mondays as the new week starts.

As Suzuki teachers, we are in a partnership with our studio parents and students. We should think of ways to encourage each other in our respective roles. I think that expressing appreciation for the work that we do will go a long way toward strengthening our partnership. Sometimes our partners are fellow students, professional colleagues, or the parents who entrust their children to us teachers. Let us rise up and live up to the responsibility that parents give us teachers!

Let us work together! Send a note or word of encouragement to your partners on this musical journey!

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?