Nora’s 2nd Violin Lesson

A lesson with Mr. S at C's studio Friday Sept 14th 11:45 AM

Nora had another great lesson! Really, her soft bow grip is really wonderful. She was hungry when I picked her up from Montessori preschool so she pretty much had lunch while sitting in her car seat as we drove to Virginia (cheese sticks, 2 small croissants, fruit, and drinkable yogurt).

She carried the little green violin case down the winding wooden staircase at a breakneck speed in her eagerness to get to the lesson. Somehow she was able to navigate the stairway with a bobble here and but were no incidents or mishaps, coming or going!

I think I need to make RULE – NO RUNNING WITH THE VIOLIN!!

We got to the lesson a bit early so after we took off our shoes we entered the teaching room where Mr. S said he would be teaching a beginner lesson. Nora sat in the red “observer” chair and I sat on the floor next to her. A young girl, (4 or 5 years?) was sitting on a small piece of poster board in front of Mr. S. He was singing the song about the violin parts to her and she was giving him her full attention, but not speaking the answers to him. As she and I had practiced, Nora, kept quiet in her observation role, even though she knew the answers the teacher wanted to hear. At one point Mima had to leave the room (to cough, poor Mima had a bad cold) and Nora stayed in the room to observe the lesson on her own!

At the end of the observation, Ms. R came into the room to greet the new student, named L and she chatted outside the door with L's mom, who was a former student of ___’s for several years when she was a small child. L’s grandma was also at the lesson and Mr. S commented that he had two multi-generation Suzuki families studying with him that day! Ms. R reentered the room the greet Nora especially and Mr. S noted that Nora was the student who had observed the group class for two years before beginning lessons this week. Ms. R told both Mima and L’s mom that we absolutely must double park in the student car slots in the driveway to make a total of 4 cars on the steeply sloped driveway. She also told us that for the group class tomorrow, everyone must remove shoes and there would be no coffee, drinks or food allowed in the room (a church).

THE 2nd LESSON

Mr. S started by drawing around Nora’s “red feet” (feet together rest position) and her “green feet” (violin play position). He did this with a great deal of care and Nora stood very still for the whole process. Several times (Mima took a few photos, they seemed to have a similar expressions in 2 pictures, one showed concentration and the other glee!)

He folded the poster board in half so that just the half with her foot chart was showing for the lesson. He said she would use the fully opened cart for group class, and he asked us to draw a place for her bow (closest to her) and her violin a bit farther away on the chart for the group class Saturday morning. He also said that Nora could color in the red and green feet when she had time at home.

Practice quickly and accurately moving feet to the “red” / “rest” closed feet together position versus the “green” or “play” open toe outward position. Mr. S uses both terms and Nora tries NOT to get TRICKED by Mr. S. When Mr. S said to Nora, “I tricked you!” she just continued playing the game with him and tried again! Mr. S said that during lessons with him, Nora will learn to STAY ON the GREEN FEET!

RHYTHMS
Mr. S clapped and played rhythms on the violin, and asked Nora to identify them. She got the first one, “Mississippi Hot Dog” correct, but after that her answers were varied, and she even sometimes said “Mississippi Hot Dog” when it was one of the other 2 rhythms (“Huckleberry Huckleberry”, and “STOP Big Bow STOP Big Bow”). Although it seemed Nora did have an emerging understanding of “Mississippi Hot Dog” it was apparent that this was not consistently easy for her since she sometimes misidentified other rhythms as this first variation.
Nora seems (as discussed by Lisa and Mima) to be having difficulty with two separate aspects of the rhythm naming activity really knowing the actual rhythms 100 % cold being able to concentrate for more than two queries before making mistakes that she might not have made if the question posed was the first in the set.

Mr. S explained that Nora seemed to have less difficulty with left brain activities (such as naming the parts of the violin and recalling what he said last week almost verbatim) and more difficulty with right brain (visual, kinesthetic, music) activities such as the twinkle rhythm variations. He explained that he wanted her to learn the rhythms with her right brain, even if it took her longer to do so. This means, he said that we should NOT point out that “Huckleberry” is in groups of 4, for example. We should avoid using the language and number side of the brain to memorize the rhythms. She must FEEL the rhythms with her “music” right brain.
Mr. S eventually suggested that we consider doing just 2 rhythms for the next lesson, “Mississippi HOT DOG” and one other. (Nora eventually chose “Huckleberry Huckleberry”)

TWINKLE VARIATION RHYTHM PRACTICE LESSON 2
Do first 2 Rhythms at home (Mississippi Hot Dog and Huckleberry)
Do LOTS of visual and kinesthetic ways, repetition needed

STOMPING RHYTHMS & SING
1.STOMPING: BEGIN with Just “HOT” “DOG”
Stay ON Chart
Stomp rhythms WITH ME and SAY IT!
“HOT” “DOG” (AFTER when she gets that add…..)
“Mississippi” (AFTER she gets that try “Huckleberry”

FINGER TRACE RHYTHMS and sing
2. FINGER TRACING on zig zag lines drawn by Mr S on paper in his “WHAT” book to represent rhythms.
a. Nora was told to trace along the line as she sings the rhythm to herself exactly as the rhythm is given by Mr. S or Mima or Mom – he said that Nora should NOT GO TOO FAST!!!
b. Mr. S had her look at the (zig zag scribble line) drawings of the twinkle variations and he played a variation on the violin (Mississippi Hot Dog) and asked her to use the drawings to help her identify to variation. Nora correctly pointed to the first line drawing.
CLAP RHYTHMS and sing
TAP RHYTHMS and sing
ALTERNATE HANDS ON CHEEKS and sing
ON NOSE! And sing
SLAP RHYTHM ON KNEES and sing
*ALWAYS STAY ON GREEN FEET ON CHART WHEN DOING RHYTHMS WITH MR S IN LESSON

2nd Lesson Singing notes
Mr. S played open A on the violin and asked her “what’s this?” and Nora said “I really don’t know”. He asked her sing the “A” and she did it beautifully! He played open E string and asked her “what is this?” she correctly said “E” and then she named all the strings E A D G (he did not respond to this additional information)

** A and E LISTENING Practice – don’t let Mr. S trick you!
He told her to stay on the GREEN FEET of the Chart
He played open A and open E variously and asked her “what is this?”
Nora stayed generally on the chart area with her fingers in her mouth and hair some of the time as she sometimes tried to answer

NAMING VIOLIN PARTS (not part of daily home practice)
Toward the end of the lesson, Mr. S reviewed the parts of the violin with Nora and she answered correctly and quickly each time for each detail. She gave him back verbatim his comment from the first lesson that seemed to intrigue her about using the pegs only if the violin is very out of tune. He nodded quietly. When they did “chin rest” she noted that hers was black while his was brown and she made a similar contrast statement in terms of bigger (his) and smaller (hers), Mr. S did not comment or react to these additions. Nora added an additional part (the “perfling” (spelling?)) and Mr. S did smile and comment that he did not recall telling her about that (line around the outer edge on the face of the violin) although he said she was perfectly correct.

BOW HOLD


Mr. S helped her to find her bow hold by asking her to rest/ soft hang her right fingers on his left index finger, inserting the bow and helping her to find her bent thumb position touching the silver and the hair. He then helped her turn the bow tip up and pointed to the bow tip and counted 5-4-3-2-1. He asked her how old she was (“three and three quarters” she replied) and then he asked her how many times she thought she could make her bow hold 3 times or 4 times and she choose 4! He did 4 bow holds with her – and the one point that she needed reminding on was to LOOK at the TIP of her BOW at the end of the exercise. Her actual bow hold was super!

END OF LESSON REST POSITION AND BOW
1. RED Rest Feet
2. Mr. S placed the violin under her right arm with the arm behind the bridge.
3. He asked her to crook her right pointer finger and he hung the bow there by the frog and asked her to gently use her thumb to close the circle as the bow hung tip straight down.
4. end of lesson bow and she spontaneously said “Thank you for teaching me Mr. S”

End of Lesson discussion Mr. S and Mima
Mr. S said he did not need to write in the WHAT book this time.
He said to continue rhythm variation practice as we discussed
When I told him that Nora was doing her 3rd practice of the day with her mother and me, he said that was fine, and he also added said very definitely that the person attending the lesson (me) must be present at ALL of Nora’s practices AND the group class. He said he would see me Saturday.

Toward the beginning of the lesson, after Nora had some difficulty with the twinkle rhythms, and before he went into his right brain/left brain discussion, he asked if I had read Suzuki’s book, “Nurtured by Love”. I said yes, but that I had read the book 30 years ago! He talked about how when a child learns her first word the parents celebrate that moment, and do not ask when she will learn the next word. I think that he was at first concerned that we (parents and grandparent of Nora) would want to move on to new material in this second lesson on the 2 lesson a week schedule. I made no such request and had no such expectation, and I agreed with all that he was doing, including cutting Nora back to 2 of the 3 original rhythms to help her gain mastery of the rhythms.

Later when Lisa and I discussed the 2 lesson a week plan, Lisa said that she chose two lessons a week specifically so that Mima did not feel tempted to move Nora ahead of Mr. S’s instructions. Mima, on the other hand, wanted 2 lessons a week so that Nora and Lisa and Mima would have more direct input from Mr S, so that any questions or confusions or difficulties could be handled as quickly as possible.

At the very end of the lesson, Mr. S said that it was a pleasure to teach two students (Lindsay and Nora) where the families have experience with the Suzuki method. He mentioned that it took him 4 to 5 years to complete book 1 as a child. I said that I had one daughter who learned the twinkle variations in 2 weeks (Nora’s Aunt Valerie, on the violin) and one who took 2 years (Nora’s mother, Lisa on the cello). And I told him that by age 16 years, both girls were competent skilled musicians. He seemed especially pleased to hear this story! And, I think he understood that her parents and I were not at all inclined to rush Nora’s learning process faster than he was going to take her.

Additional Comments on the Journey
Nora left her second lesson in a great mood, and again said that she loved her violin lesson and she wished she could have one every day! She was also thrilled to climb back UP the outdoor staircases! She comported herself perfectly and did not press her face on the picture window as did another student.

We went to our favorite eatery at the end of the street and she picked out a chocolate brownie and ate the entire desert before we got to Celemyjonti Park.
Once at the park, she was eager to get to the playground equipment and she played happily for over an hour, until a light rain began and we decided to drive home.

During the car rides she seems happy to listen to the Suzuki tape and talk with me, (sometimes she holds her travel blanket). On both trips she asked to be home “right now!!” just after we were passed her Montessori school (when the car begins to hit stop lights rather than the open highway). I have been going to the violin lesson via the Clemyjonti Park as this route is on bigger roads, has fewer turns and fewer stop lights.

Nora found a purple sticky note pad and began “writing”. She produced about 20 pages each with an indecipherable scribble and ONE single purple square note had written on it quite legibly:

ViO
Lin

She just left this note with all the others and Mima discovered it when she cleared the table for dinner!