Teaching Tip: Using “Italian” Vibrato for Speed and Control

I have written several posts previously related to vibrato. Here is another exercise to help a student build up speed and control. I call it “Italian” vibrato because of the lyrics, but the lyrics could just as easily relate to something else. For now, my Italian lyrics are easy for me to remember.

Here are the previous posts I wrote concerning how to teach vibrato:

• Vibrato: An Introduction to the Five Stages of Teaching and Learning It
• What Is Vibrato? -- Preparing for the Big Event
• Vibrato: Pig Nose and Wibble Wobbles

Once a student can perform the vibrato motions, it is time to build up speed, and with the building up of speed the student gains greater control over the vibrato. Some caveats before I begin.

1. Start on the A String. I generally practice vibrato exercises on the A string for several reasons. I think the hand placement and finger usage on the A string are less stressful all around than practicing on the D and G strings, although those can be future exercises. But, for learning how to do this exercise, I anticipate that the student will be spending a great deal of time on this exercise on a daily basis, and therefore I would wish the student to perform the exercise on the least stressful string area. The E string is fraught with difficulties in that it requires extreme vigilance that the left hand remains at the correct height, and I find that students may not be as vigilant about this matter as I am. So, I ask my students to stick to the A string.

2. Begin with the Ring Finger. I ask my students to begin with the ring (third) finger. As I stated in previous posts, for some reason this finger seems to be the “smartest” concerning vibrato movements. Perhaps it is because it has the best potential arch and springiness in the joints and finger shape. The middle or second finger might also be good since it is a strong finger, but sometimes students have difficulty letting the middle finger joints be loose and easy enough for good vibrato motion. The index finger in its “square” position is a tense posture, and generally most students have difficulty doing vibrato with this finger for this reason. The pinkie finger is the weakest finger, so I save this finger for later, sometimes encouraging the student to try vibrating with both the ring and pinkie fingers together. Sometimes this works for me and sometimes not.

3. Perform Vibrato Without Assistance. The student must be able to perform the vibrato motion in first position without any crutches or external aids. If the student must still rest the wrist against the violin shoulder and perform the vibrato movement in fourth position, then the student is not ready to reap the benefits of this exercise. Once the student is able to perform vibrato, even slowly, in first position, then I think it is time to introduce this exercise.

4. Use Two-Tone Vibrato. The vibrato movement should produce the sound of two pitches, or two-tone vibrato as Ed Kreitman (Teaching from the Balance Point) calls it. Therefore, if I vibrate the note D in first position on the A string, my vibrato should alternate between D and the C# that is one-half step below D. One good reason for using the following exercise is to help the student to maintain the full range of vibrato motion between the two tones. Because the exercise starts with the slowest speed, the teacher and student can monitor whether the student is correctly performing the exercise.

5. Watch out for Things that Will Hinder Vibrato. I watch for certain things in addition to listening for the correct vibrato width of two tones:

• Squeezing Violin Hold: I look to see if the student is squeezing the violin neck in any way between the left hand thumb and fingers. If there is any squeezing, it is usually between the base of the index finger and the thumb. I ask the students to “unhook” the hand or index finger.

• Sagging Left Hand: I look to see if the student’s hand maintains the correct height above the fingerboard. Sometimes students attempt to shift their left hand musculature so that more of the hand is underneath the fingerboard rather than to the E string side of it. This left hand placement will cause the student to use more hand muscles rather than finger and skeleton. This placement will also interfere with tone production, causing more of a fuzzy tone as the finger plays with more pad. It will also cause problems later when the student attempts double stops.

Besides, it is easier to vibrate correctly if the hand is at the correct height, which is usually that the base of the left pinkie or the “life line” lines up with the E string level. The fingers will then play more on the “thumb-side corners” of the fingers, which lends more pointedness to the sound because the finger’s skeleton helps to pinpoint the pitch. This can be a problem for students with large left hands, as they can still reach the correct note pitches even though the left hand position is incorrect.

• Improper Thumb Placement: I look to see if the student’s left thumb remains in the correct place. Some students when learning vibrato will try to move their violin neck so that it rests in the shelf at the base of the left thumb. This is more subtle than a student who makes a “pizza hand,” which is what we call it when a student holds the left hand so that the violin neck rests on the palm of the hand or on the thumb “pillow,” which is the fleshy part below the thumb joints. This posture resembles the way a waiter carries a pizza tray in a restaurant. I look carefully to make sure that the student is not making an almost invisible "shelf" at the base of the thumb in order to hold the violin. I want to be sure that the student maintains the proper hand balance during vibrato movements.

• Holes in the Violin Hold: I look to see that there are no holes between the left index finger and the neck of the violin. Although we do not want the student to squeeze the neck, we also do not want the student to overcompensate for squeezing by opening up a hole between the base of the left index finger and the violin neck. In general, we touch the violin in three places with the left hand: thumb, base of the index finger, and finger tip. However, when executing vibrato, we must be sure that there is enough “space” between the base of the index finger and the violin neck that the vibrato motion can occur.

My mother used to give me butterfly kisses at bedtime. She would place her eye close to my cheek and she would flutter her eyelashes. This would create the sensation that a butterfly was kissing my cheek with its wings. I often demonstrate this butterfly kiss sensation with my fingertips on a student’s check or arm to show them how lightly the index finger should be touching the violin. The hand should be free to brush along the violin neck with a space of about the width of an onion skin between the neck and the hand.

• Hyper drive Speed: I watch that the student does not go into hyper drive mode. This term stems from my recollection of a Hans Solo demonstration on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars, episode 4 (which was the original first episode). When Hans Solo banged the frame of the star ship and sent it into hyper drive, the ship went so fast that the ship’s passengers could not see the star system outside the window. When a student reaches this critical speed, I too cannot see or hear the vibrato because it is too fast. Usually the vibrato is also too narrow, which is another reason why it is fast. Or is this the chicken and the egg question? Whichever, speed and narrowness seem to go together. Refer back to my fourth caveat above concerning the two-tone vibrato.

If a student comes to me with hyper drive vibrato, I have to teach the student how to stop it. This is not an easy task. Perhaps I will devote a post to this topic. Let me make one observation, and that is that this affliction seems to hit those students with more phlegmatic tendencies. Perhaps it is because this personality tends to “let” vibrato happen rather than to work to control it. I also find that students in general mistake how fast vibrato should be. I usually ask students to work up to “40 mph vibrato” and then work on “60 mph vibrato” when we are doing vibrato accents or vibrato during martelé bow strokes. I have to show students how fast 40 mph vibrato is. If a student is playing a two-tone vibrato correctly, then generally I find that the vibrato speed is also correct.

• Tight Finger Joints: I look to see that the student is actually loose in the finger knuckle joints. If the student is harboring any tension, I will see it when the student’s finger does not extend and loosen with the vibrato motion. If the student’s finger retains the same shape throughout the vibrato motion, then the student is usually harboring unnecessary and inhibiting tension.

• Unnecessary Tension: I ask permission to touch the student during the student’s execution of vibrato motions. I can often tell in an instant by touching the student whether and where the student might be harboring tension or exerting too much effort. The muscles in the hand and finger should be soft and pliable. If anything feels like a rock, then it is a place that needs to be addressed for loosening undue effort.

Whew! That’s a lot for a teacher to watch out for let alone a student. Now you can understand why students tend to be less vigilant about the process. There are a lot of things to think about in addition to the difficulties of executing vibrato in the first place.

So here is the exercise. Basically we play one note with different rhythms to a metronome tempo of 60 (the speed of a second hand on a clock). I start students off with the slowest level, and we build up from there to the point that the vibrato stops short of hyper drive vibrato or that the student has major difficulty executing the movement. Note in the exercise below that I have written two notes: D and C#. The D note is the main note, and the C# is the vibrato note a half tone below. I do not ask my students to change fingers; instead I ask that the vibrato on the third finger D be done so that a C# is heard. Here is the exercise in its entirety:

Here are the basic words and rhythms I use in the order that I teach them:

"Cheese"

"Pizza"

"Italy"

"Pepperoni"

"Black Olive, Green Olive"

"I Love Pizza, I Love Pizza"

I do not know where I found the words for this exercise. I have used the rhythms for myself without words, but I find that students have an easier time recalling the exercise with these Italian words.

Of course, after practicing the exercise with the ring finger on the A string, we can add the other fingers and strings as well. I find this exercise to be quite useful for students of all ages, particularly any older students or professionals who need to warm up and loosen up joints and muscles.

Let me know about your favorite vibrato speed and control exercises.

Monday Morning Check In: 8 Tips to Manage Stress

I have a lot of tips and links for you today. Last week we discussed stress. Today we will discuss how to manage stress. Notice that I used the word "manage" rather than "beat" or "eliminate." In the past few years, I have come to understand that stress may be inevitable in our lives.

When I consider how I might eliminate activities that cause undue stress in my life, my list appears ridiculous, because so many things that I do have the unpleasant potential to turn into unbearable stress. The flip side of looking to eliminate stressful activities is that many of these activities are things that I also enjoy doing. With every activity in my life that I enjoy comes the possibility of not enjoying it. Too much of a good thing, perhaps?

Here is an example. I love to teach. However, I do not love to teach in certain environments:

• when students are unprepared
• when parents seem to spend more energy making or looking for excuses not to ensure that the child is prepared for lessons
• when parents cancel lessons because other activities have a higher priority (and do not think ahead to reschedule)
• when parents frequently expect me to make schedule adjustments to accommodate the parents’ inability to schedule
• when parents come late to lessons or group class (one parent brought the child to class one hour late, after I had already dismissed that child’s class level)
• when parents come early to lessons (more than five minutes) and interrupt my break/lunch/phone/dinner time
• when parents do not bring their child to lessons or group classes and I have to spend time in lessons making up the material the child would have learned in class

Teaching is a wonderful profession, but because it is a service profession, there are many opportunities for stress to pile up and lead to burnout.

So what about playing in the symphony or other music ensembles? I love to play my violin and piano and enjoy playing in large ensembles and the quartet. However, even these activities can lead to unbearable stress as the groups near a performance date. Other members of the group may be experiencing stress of various kinds at the same moment, and how we each handle our individual stress loads may adversely impact the others around us. I get very irritable when I experience too much stress. Others may become petulant, defensive, and unpleasant to work with.

Here are my 8 personal tips for combating stress. These are not hard and fast rules. Instead I use these items as a guideline to keep me sane during insane times. I may not always follow my own tips, but the fact that I have a list at all of helpful tips is a good step toward managing stress when it rears its ugly head.

#1 - White Space Day: Aim for one day per week that has nothing on the calendar. My husband calls this “white space.” Others may call it a “Sabbath.” The purpose of white space is to allow yourself one day per week to enjoy the fruits of whatever you do on the other six days of the week.

#2 - Plan Ahead: If you maintain a calendar (and you should, at least as a courtesy to others), make a plan to look at it once a week in order to plan ahead. For me, I tend to look at the calendar on Sunday or Monday. I look at the coming week and sometimes the week afterwards. Getting a general feel for what is to come gives me a greater sense of control over the crazy stuff when it hits. For example, this week I have three evenings free. The remaining evenings will involve a long drive to another city. By looking ahead at my schedule in this way, I am aware of the time that I have available for:

• doing laundry
• making meals (where is that crock pot?)
• cleaning the house
• running errands
• scheduling makeup lessons

I maintain a small dry erase board in my bathroom, and while I brush my teeth before bed (2 minutes with electric toothbrush), I set out my clothes for the next day and write out the times that I need to wake up, feed the animals, get in the shower, and leave. The next morning, I follow my plan.

#3 - Alone Time: I need some time by myself when all is quiet around me and no one or no thing is competing for my attention. Usually I get a brief amount of time in the morning, when I write some “morning pages” and drink my coffee. The dogs have been taken care of and are snoozing nearby. I also find some time right before bedtime. My family has already gone to sleep, and the atmosphere is quiet again. I use this time for additional writing or for reading. Others may take bubble baths or do yoga. There are some individuals who need social time rather than alone time. Just do the reverse of what is discussed here. Make time to spend with friends.

#4 - Exercise: Physical exercise releases endorphins. It keeps the body functioning and is good for your overall health. I have read suggestions that we do a minimum of 30 minutes' aerobic exercise at least three times a week, but I think it is better if we do something every single day. Get a dog (I have three puppies to give away if you want a miniature long haired black and tan dachshund born March 23, 2012) and walk it every day. Find a buddy, an activity, a gym, and a routine that you can follow and make this important lifestyle change. Even during my most stressful life events, my exercise time has helped me to sleep better and to release a lot of ill-stored negative energy. My exercise time has also revealed some creative solutions to problems that would have consumed valuable time in the rest of my life. Exercise feels good and is good for you.

#5 - Nutrition: If I eat right, I feel better. If I take a few minutes at the beginning of the week and at the beginning or end of a day to plan ahead (see my calendar tip above), then I can plan appropriate meals. Because I teach all day and often have rehearsals at night, I need to have my meals planned and available to be eaten “on the go.” I have a list of usual suspects that I can grab quickly and go about my day. I eat a good breakfast too, which really helps to get my day off to a good start.

#6 - Breathing: Breathing is also good. It helps to relax tense muscles. I think we do not breathe deeply enough in general. When we experience stress, we generally tighten up muscles. When we take the time to practice deep breathing, we can relax knotted shoulders, tense  neck muscles, and a constricted diaphragm. Breathing will loosen all of that up. Breathing will also change your "angry" state, if you are feeling irritable due to stress. There are several good yoga breathing techniques that are useful to learn (Yoga Breathing Techniques, Breathing Techniques for Beginners, or Long Deep Breathing Techniques).

#7 - Writing: I believe that writing will go farther than anything else to combat stress. Even if it is just 10 minutes a day spent writing in a journal, I believe that we will sort out problems, create solutions, and anchor memories better with writing than with any other technique. There are wonderful books available to help us learn about journaling. Many of them are in Kindle Format, which makes it easy for me to carry my library with me wherever I go. Here is a list of my current favorites, and all are available in my Teach Suzuki Resource Store:

• Life’s Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest by Christina Baldwin
• Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth by Kathleen Adams, M.A.
• Writing Down Your Soul by Janet Conner
• Write it Down, Make it Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser
• Put Your Heart on Paper: Staying Connected in a Loose Ends World by Henriette Anne Klauser
• Journalution by Sandy Grason
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• With Pen in Hand: the Healing Power of Writing by Henriette Anne Klauser

#8 - Reading: Reading can be good for entertainment, but reading can also provide us with knowledge. Knowledge helps us to grow. Knowledge helps us to be prepared better for difficulties. I have a source list of books and materials that I regularly refer to in order to keep feeding my mind with information that I can use to strengthen my character, shore up my professional craft, and teach me how to improve all areas of my life. I am a big fan of John Maxwell and his numerous books about character and leadership development. I also read other websites and blogs, and I will make up a list for you of my favorite sites to visit. I have several Maxwell books and another book by Dr. Kevin Leman (Stopping Stress Before it Stops You: A Game Plan for Every Mom) in my Teach Suzuki Resource Store.

Along with my above suggestions, here are my top five websites that you may find useful on your journey to combat stress.

#1 - Helpguide and the Lifestyle Management Toolkit

Helpguide.org is a non-profit organization designed to provide ad-free tools for making better choices that concern your mental health, your lifestyle, your family, and aging well. The site is dedicated to Morgan Leslie Segal by her parents, Robert Segal, MA., and Jeanne Segal, Ph.D. Morgan committed suicide in 1996, and her parents believe that their daughter’s tragedy could have been prevented if their daughter had access to better information regarding antidepressants. The site collaborates with Harvard Health Publications, the consumer health publishing division of Harvard Medical School. Please visit the site’s managing stress toolkit and consider making a donation to keep the site ad-free.

#2 - The Mayo Clinic

The Mayo Clinic staff have put together a series of articles about stress and relaxation techniques. Visit this site to gather more information and ideas about ways to combat stress in your life.

#3 - WebMD

WebMD is a site that seeks to provide better information for better health. Part of its site is dedicated to stress management health with numerous articles about stress, its causes, and how to avoid it.

#4 - About.com

About.com is part of the New York Times Company and provides information about a variety of topics. One topic is stress management. The site provides articles related to managing stress overload, how stress affects your health, the causes of stress, how nutrition can help you manage stress, and stress effects.

#5 - Anti-Aging Hacks

The main purpose of this site is to combat aging by providing information to help you live longer and “stay young forever.” This link takes you to an article that provides 5 ways to combat stress, many of which are already included in my list above.

Please be sure to leave me a comment about your favorite methods to manage stress. Hang in there this week!

Quick Practicing Focus: Tin Man Day!

I declare that today is Tin Man Day!

Remember the Tin Man from the movie "The Wizard of Oz"? When Dorothy first discovers the Tin Man, he is standing out in the elements and completely rusted over. None of his joints move. Dorothy and her companion, the brainless Scarecrow, are about to desert the rust bucket and continue on their journey, but they hear a faint sound come from the lips of the man. They hurry to oil the Tin Man's joints and free him from his rusted state, and so enters another character in the great fable of Oz.

I have often recreated the Tin Man character in my studio when I am faced with frozen, immoveable joints and hinges. In fact, this is something that I regularly watch for in my students. Any joint in the body has the potential to become rusted to a standstill. My job is to find those points and to get the joints loosened up again. We do not use an oil can, but we have fun rubbing some special lotion on the area. Somehow the visual representation of putting lubrication on the affected joint helps students to loosen up the rusty hinge.

So today we look for any rusty hinges or joints in the body: neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers, hips, knees, ankles, and feet. Get that bottle of lotion out and start lubricating the stiff spots! Make up a game to do this, or use the Tin Man story, as I do.

Happy Tin Man Day!

Quick Practice Tip: The Power of the Stopped Bow

Over the years of teaching the Suzuki method, I have come to appreciate the power of the stopped bow. The Twinkle Variations that Dr. Suzuki put together are brilliant in terms of what the pieces teach the student about impulse control and the proper use of kinesthetic energy. The more I teach, the more I discover or uncover all the gems that Dr. Suzuki has included in the Suzuki repertoire. Nothing is more powerful to me than the lessons learned concerning the stopped bow.

I teach many students who play other violin music, such as fiddling or mariachi. I frequently encounter students who literally cannot stop their bow. The bow dribbles from one note to the next without ever clearly defining the end of one note and the beginning of the next note. Wait! Who am I kidding? The bow is not dribbling, it is moving 100 m.p.h.! This constant movement issue results in several problems:

• Messy bows and unclear articulation
• Rushing tempo or a tempo that pushes the “toe-side” of the beat rather than the “heel-side” (the energy is forward directed rather than “sitting in the saddle”)
• Inability to play staccato well
• Tight joints, especially the right elbow
• Squeezed back muscle, especially below the right shoulder
• Poor tone production: either a pressed sound because the student is squeezing the notes or a wispy sound because the student is so tight in the right elbow and back muscles, that the bow can put little weight into the sound
• Poor practice habits: inappropriate practice tempos and a failure to consider the actual sound made

Sometimes it may take me a few years to teach a student with the stopped bow problem how to get a good stopped bow staccato. If only I could take these students back to square one and the Twinkle Variations! The Twinkles are the foundation of all the necessary stopped bow combinations that the student will encounter in the later Suzuki repertoire.

Here are some beneficial uses of the stopped bow:

• It gives the student an opportunity to consider whether the bow will make a good contact point with the string in order to produce the next note.
• It gives the student a chance to place the bow properly on the appropriate string level (or string levels in the case of a double stop chord).
• It allows the student to consider how his or her body should pivot the bow quietly from one string level to the next without lifting the bow off the string.
• It allows the student an opportunity to “check in” with muscles and joints to unlock any unnecessary tension.
• It allows the student to “ping” the beginning of the next note to start the vibration of the next note, which helps the student to generate good, strong tone.
• Most of all, it allows the student to actually consider what sound the student makes when playing.

I also work with the student to uncover any unnecessary tension in the bow arm, right shoulder, or back. If I am working with a high energy level student, then this issue alone will take a long time to address. I may have to spend a considerable amount of time addressing posture issues, including how the student directs his or her physical energy in a playing stance.

If I work with an advanced student, I might ask them to play Perpetual Motion so that we can work on these issues, but anything will do, even a basic scale. My goal will be to get the student to slow down and actually stop playing after one note so that the student can prepare the next note. In some cases, I need to actually address the student's playing stance in order to encourage a more successful outcome.

I used several terms above that might require further explanation. When I talked about the "toe-side" and "heel-side" of the beat, I referred to the front side versus the back side of the beat. If you lean forward on your toes, you will feel the inevitable pull forward. Did you know that we walk by falling forward and then catching ourselves? This is how the front-side of the beat works. We fall forward when we play, so that the tempo surges forward and speeds up. When we put our weight in our heels, we add the sensation of grounding to our playing.

For anyone who is familiar with horses, the concept of toe-side and heel-side energy dissemination makes sense. Horses are very sensitive creatures. If you want to start moving, all you have to do is think about it. You bring your energy level "up" and "forward" and the horse starts moving. How much energy you send forward will direct how fast the horse will comply. When you want to slow the creature down to a stop, you turn your energy "off," let your breath out, and settle back into the saddle. The horse stops.

Students can relate to "toe-side" and "heel-side" as descriptions of playing stances. We experiment with both so that students understand how each stance feels. Then we practice "sitting back in the saddle" so that students learn the physical sensations of relaxing and grounding. The students learn how to shift their weight to the heels of their feet and to tilt their pelvises under so that the torso weight shifts backwards (they tuck their "kitty cat tails" under and between their legs). For good measure, I might suggest that they also practice letting all the air out of their lungs. Being the high energy person that I am, I often practice breathing out my air in a slow whoosh. I find that I can calm my energy level down to a stop when I practice this technique.

The most recent student that I worked with to learn how to play a stopped bow (it took us four semesters to master this skill at the university level), had to learn how to curb his energy level and his expression of energy while playing. In other words, he had to learn how to turn things "on" and "off." My long time readers know how much a fan I am of the "Dog Whisperer" show with Cesar Milan. I learned a lot about using energy properly from watching this show on the National Geographic channel. I have a dog pack of six adult dogs and one youngster. Currently I also have three puppies about 5 weeks old. Anyone who has that many dogs will know what I mean about how one uses one's physical energy. I can rile up or calm down my pack of sweethearts in two seconds just by how I turn my energy level "up" or "down." I have even taught this skill to several of my students in order to teach them how to improve their posture or to learn leadership skills. But this is another blog post for the future.

For now, look to yourself and your students. Observe how you and your students are doing with their stopped bows and staccatos. If you find problems, consider whether you or your students are too energetic in your playing and then work out a step-by-step program to "slow" things down.

This blog post began as a quick practice tip and quickly became a long discussion about the physical manifestation of energy while playing. No, I am not an alien. I really do think about these things -- a lot. I apologize that the "quick" practice tip was anything but quick. This week, think about the power of a stopped bow and check whether you are providing yourself and your students with the opportunities to create good stopped bows. If you or one of your students has difficulty in this area, consider whether the student is physically standing and playing in a way that would discourage or encourage a good stopped bow.

Happy practicing!

Teaching Tip: Be Observant!

One of the best tips that I can offer a teacher or parent about how to be more effective as a teacher or parent is to be observant and pay attention to your student or child. When you watch carefully, you will figure out a great deal about what is going on in the head of that student or child. You will also gain valuable clues as to issues that negatively impact the student’s or child’s learning.

I was always fascinated with the stories of Dr. Suzuki’s listening to graduation recordings sent in by students. How, I wondered, could he be able to offer comments about the student’s posture or character issues just by listening to a recording? Now that I have taught for so many years myself, I can now understand how Dr. Suzuki accomplished this feat. I discern many things about a student, not only by watching the student, but also by listening, and using my sense of touch.

Most of the people in the world are visual learners, which means that they take in what happens around them through visual stimuli using their eyes. Try the following experiment: activate your “super ears” by closing your eyes and really listening hard without simultaneous visual stimulation.

How does your student or child sound when they walk into the room? A high school student of mine loves to wear a particular pair of cowboy boots. I can tell how she feels about herself and the upcoming lesson just by the way she clicks her feet when she walks into the room.

Can you hear that the student’s right elbow is too high or that there is tension in the student’s shoulder? The wispy tone is a dead giveaway. A high elbow usually means an over-pronated bow hold too. The index finger may be drooped over the stick and the pinkie may be straight and stiff, and the thumb may be showing signs of pushing through the underside of the frog and turning into a banana rather than being bent and strong and resting against the frog.

Can you hear the clunky bow change at the frog or the crunchy bow changes in general no matter what part of the bow? Check the bow hold again. Is the student relaxed? Is the student hanging out in the lower half of the bow most of the time?

Hear that slippery bow sound at the beginnings of notes? You can bet that the student’s bow is crooked or off the contact point in general. Or maybe the student is getting that squishy, soft sul tasto sound, where the bow is slipping over the fingerboard. Again, check the bow hold and see whether the student is completely opening up the right elbow when traveling the bow to the tip. Many students get a little bit sloppy and floppy once they develop “finger motion” with the right hand fingers, and the bow hold tends to suffer. Also, once students start reading music, they tend to focus on the music more and listen to the sound they produce less overall. I encourage my reading students to memorize their music repertoire as quickly as they can so that we can refocus on good posture, good articulation, and good sound. 

Now open your eyes and really observe your student or child. Are they looking at the music, if reading music is your purpose? I can tell by watching whether a student is really reading the music or whether they are playing by ear (or memory) and “appearing” to look at the music. Watch the student’s eyes. Are they focused or glazing over? Do they follow along with the music or does the student lose his or her place occasionally?

I have a really intelligent parent who has this disconcerting habit of slipping into a fixated stare at me in the middle of an instruction or conversation. I cannot tell if she is really listening to me or pretending to. The next time I experience this stare, I plan to stop talking or doing anything even if I am in mid-sentence. I cannot think of any other way to test my theory out. If she is really paying attention and just has that funny “look” in general when she is concentrating on a conversation or activity, then she will respond instantly to my stopping in the middle of my sentence or activity and ask me why I stopped. If she does not respond to my interrupted speech, my suspicion will be confirmed (at least at that moment in time), and I will need to think of a way to address this issue.

Students are a bit trickier to discover when they are not paying attention. I see it as a lack of focus in the eyes. I also stop talking in these cases and consider whether talking is feeding the child’s tendency to “wander off” mentally. I usually draw the child’s focus back onto the activity or conversation by engaging them in conversation with a question about the activity. My questions begin with “what” or “how” in order to solicit actual responses of more than one or two words. (Note: I am not discussing specialized cases of learning issues here, such as ADD or ADHD).

With eyes closed again, feel the energy in the air as your student enters the studio. I can tell when a parent or child have had a fight in the car on the way to a lesson or when a student has had a hard day at school just by the quality of energy (or lack of it) when they enter the room. I sometimes hear that there was a fight because the student’s “hello” is glum and fuming, while the parent’s voice is overly cheerful and upbeat. I have even been able to tell which child is the parent’s favorite or easiest to raise in a family of more than one child just by listening to the parent’s tone of voice when they address each child. Parents beware of this! If I can hear a difference in the tone of voice, you can be sure that the children can too.

This week, be observant about your student or child. You may learn something new.

How to Determine What Size Violin for your Child

The beauty of learning to play the violin is that the instrument comes in many different sizes. There is practically a size for every child! Granted, the 1/64 size violin is probably more suited to being bronzed and hung from the rear view mirror of a car like a child's first baby shoes. For a very small or very young child who is taking his or her first violin lessons, this tiny violin is a treasured possession to the child and a frequent reminder to the child's parent of the treasured gift that music lessons will give to the parent and the child.

How does a teacher or parent size the child to determine which violin size will best suit the child?

I recommend that parents seek the advice of the child's teacher first and foremost before making any purchase or rental decision. The teacher may have a preferred method of sizing the child, as I do, and the teacher would therefore appreciate that the parent seeks direction from the teacher. There are many different ways to determine a child's violin size, and I have seen some tools on the market that are designed to help the sizing process. I do not use these tools, and I do not use special fingerboard tapes that have the finger spots already marked on them. My reason is very simple. All violins sizes vary.

Just because a violin bears a label that it is a ¼-size violin does not mean that the violin would fit the typical ¼-size violin student adequately. There are variations within the general size labels. There are "bigger" and "smaller" ¼-size violins. A child may do very well with a smaller ¼-size but have a great deal of difficulty playing well with a larger ¼-size violin. For this reason, I ask my parents to follow my "system" of sizing the child. I demonstrate my instrument sizing method to the parent in the studio during the child's lesson or at a group class when there are many violin sizes available to try. If the parent goes to the violin shop and I cannot be there (which is usually the case since we live in a rural area about an hour's drive from the violin shops), I know that I have been careful to instruct the parent in my preferred method of sizing the child. I have also made sure that the violin shop understands exactly how I wish my students to be measured for a violin sizing.

When I place the violin under the child's chin and stretch out the child's violin arm as far straight out as it will go, I would like the center of the violin's scroll to reach the child's wrist. If the violin is a little bit too big, then I opt for a smaller size. The child should not have to "grow into" a violin size. That "grow into" philosophy might work well for clothing sizes, but it does not work for violin sizing. If a child is asked to play for a time on an instrument that is too big, the child will develop some very bad posture habits, such as turning the violin elbow outward instead of under the violin, or tilting the head to the right as if to see "around" the violin. I have one such student now who had been playing on a violin that was too large for over a year. Now that he has come to me, and time has dutifully passed, we are still working two years later on correcting the incorrect posture alignment problems that arose during the "too large" phase.

After checking that the violin and arm length are a good fit, I then hold the violin flat across the student's upper chest and take a look at how the instrument fits with the shoulders. Ideally the instrument should appear as if it "fits" between the shoulders rather than looking as if the instrument dwarfs the child. Some children are from sturdier, stockier family designs, like rugby or defensive football linemen in the making. In these cases, sometimes a smaller instrument would be easier for the child to maneuver his or her muscles around. Measuring the violin across the shoulders would reveal this possibility if it exists.

Other Problems

Tall Students. A very, very tall student may pose an additional sizing problem because the student’s neck may be rather long. In this case, the student may have to scrunch the shoulder up and squeeze the chin down to get a good "fit" in the violin hold. This is quite uncomfortable for the student and may lead to neck and other muscle problems down the road. The first remedy this student might try is to use a taller shoulder rest. The problem is that by building up underneath the violin to fill in the empty space, we are also raising the height level of the violin. A violin that is too high in relation to the rest of the body will also cause muscle problems and unwanted muscle tension.

The better solution is to find a way to build up the violin to the normal specification underneath and then to provide the student with a way to fill up the empty space from the top of the instrument. We might try a higher chin rest, or in the case of one student I knew years ago, use something under the chin rest to raise the chin rest height in relation to the instrument.

Short or Stocky Students.

Irregular Finger Length. Occasionally I run into a student whose fingers seem to be irregular in length. For instance the pinkie finger may be a tad shorter in length with regard to the other fingers or one of the other fingers is longer than is typical. There is not much that a teacher can do to accommodate the unusual sizing in these cases except to encourage the student to find an instrument size that works best for the student.

Inconsistent Growth. A growing student will not grow evenly all around. The student may gain a quarter inch on one side and an eighth inch on the other. The student’s neck may lengthen, but the student’s body may stay the same. I like to use the wedge sponges as shoulder rests to accommodate growing students. The sponges come in six sizes, and I can easily switch from one size to another in a lesson. If a student's violin hold tends to tip the violin “upward,” I try a larger size sponge. Sometimes a small child may be playing on a size 6 wedge sponge (the largest size!) while playing on a ¼-size violin. When a student moves up to the next larger size, we might try a smaller sponge to accommodate the increased instrument width between the shoulder and the chin.

My sizing method may not be the same as your method. I recognize that there are many ways to do this. This is my preferred method. Keep in mind that there may be other factors that will impact a sizing decision, such as the child’s body size overall, the child's hand size, irregular finger length, and inconsistent growth. My key points are these:

• Develop a sizing method for your studio that produces the type of results that work for you.
• Make sure that your instrument provider or dealer understands your method of sizing your students. In other words, make sure that you and your shop owner are “on the same page” when it comes to sizing your students.
• Make sure the parent takes the child to the violin shop in order to be there for the proper sizing process.
• Do not allow your students to choose instruments that are too big. Students will not “grow into” the correct size without other unnecessary posture problems that may be difficult to correct later.
• Follow your teacher’s advice about sizing!

Please feel free to share your particular method for determining what size instrument a student needs.

Quick Practice Tip: Inside Out Muscles

Life is stressful, but violin playing and making music should not be. We should enjoy the beauty of creating music and expressing emotion without having to suffer the ill effects of a glitch in our posture or muscle use. To help us be more aware of the dangers of stress due to improper muscle usage, let me suggest that we pay attention to inside and outside muscles.

Have you ever seen a muscle "pose down" in a weight-lifting competition? This is the portion of the body building competition when the competitors strike various poses and tense their muscles in order to produce the optimum tensed muscle for the presentation. Notice that I said the competitors "tense" their muscles. If you watch such an exhibition, you will note that the contestants tend to pull their poses "inward" in order to add the tension necessary to stimulate the muscle formation for the pose.

Try this experiment. Form fists in both your hands. Now, facing both fists toward each other in front of your body, pull your elbows outward to the side. Hunch forward a little in your shoulders and squeeze your arms and the backs of your shoulders, while you try to tighten and lift your pectoral (chest) muscles. Notice how your muscles form. Notice also how much stress and tension you created by turning on the "inside" muscles of your arms.

Now turn on the "outside" muscles of your arms. Notice how the tension completely lifts and dissipates, leaving your arms light and feeling like they can float away. This is the release of tension.

Now pick up your instrument and bow. Set the bow on the A string (if you play violin). Feel the tension of the inside muscles in your right bow arm. Now alter your bow hold or position so that you can turn on the outside muscles instead. For most violinists, turning on the outside muscles involves weight distribution in the right hand toward the pinkie side of the bow hold, which will release the tension in the right arm and ultimately the right shoulder.

Aaaaah! Doesn't that feel great? Let's just sit with that feeling for a bit. Keep your bow on the A string, and move your right arm up and down a few times to make sure that your right shoulder is loose. Tip your bow hold silently from the G string level over to the E string level and feel the looseness in your right fingers.

Remember: inside muscles were designed to create tension, and outside muscles release it. Learn to recognize when you are using inside or outside muscles, and look for opportunities to release unnecessary tension.