Practice List
- Identification: NEW: AlleGR’etto, AN’dantino, Perpetual Motion. (Twinkle Variations, esp. Washington & Twinkle Slow) Lightly Row, Song of the Wind, Aunt Rhody, O’ Come Little Children, May Song, Long Long Ago, Allegro)
- Pitch Training: A, E, F# C# NEW: Add D and B, singing, hand signs and movements (and last add note cards if we feel she is ready)
- Violin sets for count of 10 seconds and work to more
- Shoulder bowing of Twinkle Variations while singing along “Listen Please” “Your Turn” (may hold left arm across chest/waist to prevent twist)
- Playing dessert (A E F# E, left side of hand leads left arm “swing”, and simultaneous body balance shift knees forward) KEY: at this point her 3rd finger should be in position to drop down on A string NEW variables: use whole yellow tape playground up to the new stopper band and make a nice sound. KEY: F# pop off is just 1st finger moving off, not fingers and hand opening away from fingerboard.
- Keep green feet, head back on chin rest, bow on one lane of road, soft left knee, no twisting
- Do 5 times a day: Left hand “Swing” includes the body balance shift with simultaneous knees forward, 1st finger “Open Back”, “Drop D” 3rd finger drops on A string and “ Tap D” : tap 3rd finger lightly a few times on A. Do as separate practice exercise. Use “knees forward” not “bend” as cue.
- Playing MHD, HB, SBB, Wash, My name on E string KEY: work for increased number of consecutive repetitions, playground amount of bow & listen for tone
- Playing MHD on E string and A string with string crossing: “set E” “reach A” and A “drop E” KEY: 5 consecutive repetitions with eyes down on road and head back (keeping violin up) “listen please” “your turn”
- “Fix it” or “Move on” Game: Object is to get all “Move Ons” as she plays dessert A E F# E (again not mentioned; we can work up to this challenge over time)
- Listening Piece Story for Friday
- Poem for Tuesday *still needs eye contact as primary objective
- Sing and clap variation rhythm (first part of twinkle “the bread”) while keeping total eye contact Bread = A E F# E D C# B A
- Bow sets with “bumpy thumb” then tip up
- Finger tapping thumb to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th finger
- Turn head to follow hand (not body and eyes should not move)
- Getting violin into rest position and thank you bow with words “thank you for teaching me Mr S”
- Vocabulary: Dynamics
Notes:
1) Nora stayed sitting/standing on her foot chart (directed by Mr S) as she named the songs and twinkle variations that Mr S played on her violin. After what appeared to be a warm up period where she was slow to answer and unsure, she then seemed to begin listening in earnest and her answers became faster and more reliable. He explained to her that she would get his direction to stand after she correctly named a song, but it was several songs past this point when she began answering with more confidence. There was no direction from Mr S nor was there an obvious difference in the procedure, it just appeared that about half way through this activity, Nora started fully participating! She answered most queries by listening and she did not actually watch/look at Mr S play the variations (though one would think that this could have helped her (?). At one point, after listening to “O Come Little Children” all the way through to the end and not saying the name, she sort of said to herself (looking down and not actually at Mr S) well, that has to be “O Come Little Children” because it is the only one with the ‘up bow, you can hear the up bow”. Mr S has not told her about the “up bow” but she certainly could have heard about it in group class observation, or even from Mima who is trying to remember the names of these songs by any manner available to her! Nora identified “Lightly Row” by sort of singing/humming it to herself as he played it, and this is often her way of figuring out this particular song. She listened to “Song of the Wind twice before saying the name. The first time he played “Allegro” she guessed that it was “May Song” and then “Song of the Wind”, before getting it correct. When he played it for her toward the end of this session she got it immediately. She incorrectly labeled “Washington” as “Huckleberry” and we do need to continue to review this one especially. He played “Perpetual Motion” and she named it correctly immediately after he gave to give her a hint that it was her new one. Then at the very end of this activity, as he said out loud that he thought perhaps he had missed one, Nora immediately, without hesitation, said that it was “Stop Big Bow”; and she was right! He added NEW: AlleGR’etto, and AN’dantino and said that it would help us to tell these two somewhat similar pieces apart if we pronounce them with different syllables accented. He also noted for us that AlleGR’etto starts on the open D string note, and AN’dantino begins with F# (on the D string …..made by, Mima noticed, placing the 2nd finger down on the D string).
2) At the end of the lesson we reminded him that Nora had a special listening piece and she did a great job (nice clear voice and not too fast) of telling him that Johannes Brahms composed Hungarian Dance Number 1 in G minor played by (she had a pause here) ……………. Itzhak (said with quite a bit of enthusiasm as she found this name particularly interesting) Perlman on the violin. I have no idea about her eye contact as he did not mention it, and my seat is directly behind her so that her focus is on Mr S and not me. But eye contact will be important for her poem on Tuesday.
3) Mom talked to Nora over the last 3 days about following directions and cooperating with her teacher Mr S at her lesson and today Nora did a fine job of both. Mima had just the faintest concern when Nora stayed seated and hesitated before following his first direction to stand on her green feet so that they could do pitch singing. After that Nora was very compliant for the entire lesson. While we are on the subject of behavior and distractions, her hair, in 3 bands done by mom, worked great and it remained a non-issue at the lesson. The scoop neck T-shirt seemed fine as well, but, the too long sleeves found their way into her mouth on several occasions during the pitch singing exercise, and the shirt was changed before group class in the evening. She had taken all the bands out by that late hour so Mima redid 2 bands and the hair was OK in the group class as well.
4) Mr S played pitches on her violin and Nora was asked to sing what she heard. He commented that the hand signing seemed to really help her with her pitch learning. Nora correctly did A E F# and then she sang an A when it should have been an E. She then did one C# OK and confused another with F#. She is getting more comfortable with these notes/pitches and he added D and B. We are to do these as singing and hand signs before we add the note cards.
5) He then did the 3rd finger tapping with Nora and at one point she was using her 2nd finger to do the tapping and it took her quite a while to change to the 3rd finger. This was a genuinely difficult task and she seemed to be giving it all her effort. He also asked her to make sure that the finger tapped right on her red tape. This exercise begins with the swing (includes the knees forward) movement.
6) Last they did the F# Dessert Exercise that will be the beginning of MHD twinkle, though Nora has not realized this yet, and that is fine. Nora seems to be concentrating so hard for this and you can hear her hum/grunt along with her playing. He reminded us that when her 1st finger F# comes off the string her hand should remain in place and not open away from the fingerboard.
7) Still Important: The swing should bring the hand forward so that the 3rd finger just drops down to touch on the A string (her knuckle should not collapse downward. For the Tapping, he showed how he touches the back of Nora’s hand lightly under the base of the third finger knuckle joint to help cue that the movement comes from the tendons in the hand and not just the distal joints of the 3rd finger. The touch on the string is so light that it may not depress the string enough to actually make a note that would sound. …. Until Tue lesson when he said he would give us the rest of this sequence.
8) He demonstrated for Nora what he will be teaching us in the Tuesday lesson. After the E, Left hand “Swing”, “open back” “drop D” and then she will “Reach Bow” moving the bow from the E string to the A string, before actually playing MHD for the new note D cue is “play”.
9) There will be no Friday lessons for the next two weeks so he is giving us plenty to keep us busy. He said that he has found that sometimes children can process and learn 3 new things at once more easily than they can master just one new thing.
10) Nora told Mima that she did not get a chance to “write in her notebook” at the end of the lesson, and so we went back into the studio as quiet observers of the beginning of the next lesson. Nora sat quietly on the “red observer chair” and wrote in her notebook, stopping to give her full attention to the lesson when the 9-year-old girl played “May Song” beautifully with perfect intonation and a lovely bow arm. The violinist’s objective on this piece seemed to be that she was supposed to go to the frog of the bow on 100% of the opportunities. She accomplished this on her 2nd try and Nora watched very attentively for the entire “performance”. The girl stated her listening piece (a fairly complex recitation that included an orchestra and a conductor in addition to the violin soloist, Nadja Solerno Sonnenberg). She also gave a recitation of the first half of a long poem. We are indeed fortunate that Nora is able to just concentrate on one or the other for her twice-weekly lessons.
11) When Nora returned from group class this evening, it was quite late, and it was even later when we finished dinner. Imagine our surprise when she announced that she wanted to practice right then and there with her mommy. And so they did! And it seemed that something was different in this, a very rare self initiated practice. Instead of just cooperating with what the adult was telling her to do, it seemed like Nora was trying to understand and learn what she needed to do in order to play the violin. Her concentration seemed different, more acute, and she made that new soft humming sound as she struggled to get her mind and body to perform all the small and large sequences that go into playing this instrument.
Further Explanations:
12) Steps in “dessert” A E F# E. Mima should give clear and rhythmic requests/instructions to Nora (some instructions use a variety of words meaning the same thing (“my turn” “your turn” has several variations)
- “Green Feet”
- “Soft Knees”
- “Soft Bow Hand”
- “TURN HEAD”
- “DROP HEAD”
- (Mima can swing Nora’s left arm to make sure it is soft and relaxed)
- “Thumb Pillow”
- “Tickle Spot”
- “Set E”
- “Reach A”
- “my turn”
- “your turn”)
- drop E
- “my turn” “your turn”)
- touch F#
- “”my turn” – “your turn”
- “pop off”
- “my turn”– “your turn”
- “swing”
13) Do 5 times a day Swing (far enough so that the 3rd finger can just drop down to touch the A string with no additional movement), “Open Back” 1st finger movement opening hand backward and 3rd finger dropping on A string NEW : tap 3rd finger on red tape on A string but not hard, just lightly touch. Pressure may not be enough to depress string and that is OK. :
• Only left hand, no bow needed
• “Open Back” : the first finger reaches back and a little down, left hand fingers fan open led by 1st finger movement back and down
• drop 3rd finger “D” to lightly touch the red tape on the A string (no squeeze)
14) “Fix it” or “Move on” Game. The object is to get all “Move Ons” (not done in lesson and still quite new for us)
a) Two Variables for the game at this point
• Head back (Nora fixed her own head spontaneously a few times in today’s lesson)
• No twisting shoulders and trunk
b) After each MHD (on the dessert, or another playing practice exercise) the parent tells Nora
• “Fix it” and she needs to check and change her own head and twisted shoulders
• “Move On” means her head was back in proper place and she was not twisted left, so parent “goes on” to the give “listen please” for the next note of the dessert or exercise
15) New Story Format: for Listening Piece Recitation worked well: “Johannes Brahms composed Hungarian Dance Number 1 in G Minor, and it was performed by Itzhak Perlman on the violin.”
16) Dessert: F# on the E string (“set E”, “reach to A” “Drop to E” “touch F#”, “pop off” “swing”)
a) A E F# E
b) On last E
• left side of hand leads (arm and elbow) (“swing”) slightly and body changes balance point so that knees come slightly forward
• Decrease tension, balance point is important
c) KEY: Listen for tone
17) For weekly Poem recitation Tuesday, look at (look into eyes) of Mr S or person to whom you are speaking / presenting. This makes it a special gift from you to your listener. You should feel like you are saying it just for Mr S. Learn new poem for Tuesday.
18) Weekly Music listening presentation (piece, composer, musician * and working up to accompanist or orchestra) Friday (see new format above)
Group Class
- Standing in line, waiting, hand violin crossed, thank you
- Notes A E F# D C# B (see below)
- DYNAMICS
- Bow Poem with tip up, good following and rhythm
- Follow directions quickly: touch ____
- Notes: hand motions and body positions review
- Crossed arm violin hand off and “thank you”
- Getting violin into rest position and thank you bow with words “thank you for teaching me Mr S”
- Moving and stopping quickly as music plays
- ID Violin parts
- Pizzicato versus Arco
- Harmonic, Double Stop, Triple Stop, Quadruple Stop
- Say ____ exactly when he points to you
- Song identification (stand up/sit down, raise hand)
- Game to find hidden bow using dynamics as Mr S plays twinkle variation louder as the children get closer to the hidden bow and softer as they get farther away.
Group Class Information:
Note, Hand Position, Movement
A , bottom of chin , sit down
E, top head, hairline, stand up
F#, above head, jump
D, forehead/eyebrow, touch shoulder
C#, nose, touch waist
B, lips, touch toes
19) During group class this evening, Nora was the caboose on a 3-person “train” (children behind each other holding onto the shoulders of the child ahead). The class of 3 moved around the room to find the hidden violin bow led by Mr S playing twinkle variations with dynamics. Nora did not like being the caboose of this train, but the “engine” was 5 years old and understood much better how to follow the clues of the dynamics to find the hidden bow. When Mr S hid Nora’s bow and the engine was the one to find and touch her bow first, Nora was visibly upset and near tears. Amazingly, she took few deep breaths, pulled herself together and got back on her green feet for the next activity. We did hear on the car ride home how unfair she felt that this had been. Never the less, it was good for her to be able to join back in the group activity, even after suffering what she felt was a trauma to her sensibilities.
20) In the 5:30 evening group class, L and Nora (the only members present who had violins with them played some of their twinkle rhythms on the E string and A string following Mr S playing the “Listen Please” model on his own full sized violin. This was the very first time in class (private or group) that Nora played a rhythm on her violin without first having Mr S or a parent model it by moving her bow on her violin just before she did the “your turn” phase of this exercise. Nora had a bit of difficulty waiting for Mr S to play or complete the “Listen Please” portion of this new drill, and sometimes she started playing her part when he was still modeling. Nora did several of the sequences nicely on her own, though Mima kept her hands pretty close to the action. Sometimes Nora’s bow direction was confused (up for down) and sometimes she started bowing a rhythm different from the one that was modeled. Generally she and L kept together well for a first try at this task. An observer noted that L did this activity more independently, without the very close parent supervision and support that was given to Nora. Mima will have to monitor the situation to make sure that she is giving Nora enough freedom to learn in these types of situations. It is not easy for a parent/grandparent to judge how much help to provide, especially in a new activity. At one point L did loose control of her violin, and it fell to the floor (it was fine and suffered no damage).
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