Lesson Friday 1/18/2008 Lesson 29

Practice List Friday 1/18/2008 Lesson 29
Practice List:

1. MHD both type of sandwich, (play bread / play PB&J) with the space for getting ready fast whispered by parent “MHD” (later just “hot dog”)


2. Royal Violin Set for X count down between 10 – 20 +


3. Bow Rub MHD Sandwiches: Rubba dubba dub dub” in the playground.


4. Clean water sandwiches


5. Note Cards – sing, play, sing


6. Poem for Thursday


7. Amy Beach Mazurka – about Amy Beach for Friday

1. MHD sandwich “Bow Rub” practice. Both sandwiches: play bread, sing PB&J, play bread AND sing bread, play PB&J and, sing bread. Use parent whispered MHD space for getting ready. Each MHD unit should be bowed with bow hair giving the string a good rub (not a light tickle) and bow should stay in the yellow playground tape. “ Rubba dubba dub dub” in the playground. He gave gentle reminders along the way, such as, remember your Posture (as he corrected the violin position) and “Ouch” when she was pressing too hard with a finger on the finger board. Occasionally he will guide her right elbow for the Open Door.


2. Getting Ready Fast practice may move from a parent whispered MHD in between notes to just the “hot dog” when Nora is ready.


3. From last week, not the major emphasis this week, but still important. MHD sandwich practice for variable of each MHD unit having a clear clean sound with “no mud”. Mud = playing on more than one string or lack of clear crisp enunciation and/or rhythm, especially the “HOT DOG”. Practice with and without modeling (A listen, A play). Practice sandwiches leaving the getting ready space whispered in rhythm by parent. Help Nora by giving her a cleanly played model for her first note A of the bread. *Give feedback for each unit “clean” or “mud” and have her redo the unit to make it clean or cleaner.


4. Note Cards – practice these in the see, sing, Nora play the note on her violin and then sing again correcting her pitch. Violin says up for all the note cards.


5. Princess or Royal Violin Sets for warm up. Violin correctly (firmly and decisively placed by parent) on side of neck below the ear, jaw on chin “jaw” rest. Parent should place violin in at an angle with scroll of violin higher than chinrest. Keep extending the count down so that Nora can hold this position. These sets were not specifically mentioned at the lesson, however Nora did very well with her violin sets.


6. Review: choose exercises from previous lessons so that Nora can keep working on specific techniques in isolation. Open door elbow on open strings and Stay in yellow tape bow playground, do not go below bottom of yellow tape, soft finger pops.


7. POEM for Thursday.


8. Amy Beach for Friday, including knowing something about Amy Beach, as well as the piece (Mazurka).

Lesson Tuesday 1/15/2008 Lesson 28

Practice List Tuesday 1/15/2008 Lesson 28

Practice List:

1. Princess Violin Sets for warm up. Violin correctly (firmly and decisively placed by parent) on side of neck below the ear, jaw on chin “jaw” rest. Keep extending the count down so that Nora can hold this position. Avoid Nora’s currently preferred more forward violin position, the “bearded lady” violin set (violin resting in front looking like a long beard coming down from the chin).


2. MHD sandwich practice (play bread, sing PB&J, play bread & sing, play, sing) for variable of each MHD unit having a clear clean sound with “no mud”. Mud = playing on more than one string or lack of clear crisp enunciation and/or rhythm, especially the “HOT DOG”. Practice with and without modeling (A listen, A play). Practice with leaving the getting ready space whispered in rhythm by parent. Nora should hear and feel a clear rhythm in between each unit that she plays. Help Nora by giving her a cleanly played model for her first note A of the bread. *Give feedback for each unit “clean” or “mud” and have her redo the unit to make it clean or cleaner.


3. Review: choose exercises from previous lessons so that Nora can keep working on specific techniques in isolation. Open door elbow on open strings and Stay in yellow tape bow playground, do not go below bottom of yellow tape, soft finger pops.


4. Practice strategy: have Nora reach into bag and pull out what the next practice item will be so that she can feel more a part of the process.


5. Goal to work toward from lesson 24 - practice for 5 minutes without stopping.

Notes:

• Nora began with her poem “Ride a Cock-horse to Banbury Cross”, which she recited with a clear voice and plenty of enthusiasm. On the second recitation, after being reminded by teacher, she was able to look at Mr S for the length of the poem.


• Nora resisted a bit at first, Mr S’s attempts to set her violin correctly on the side of her neck. She brought up clothing issues etc. After a very short interval she did allow the lesson to proceed, and Mr. S told her “thank you for letting me help you”. This seemed to work in terms of securing her joint participation and he was able to teach her quite well for the remainder of the lesson.


• Nora was able to tolerate and hold a good side position Princess violin set for a 20 second count down with Mr S. Mima then did a violin set with the teacher watching and Nora held this one for a bit more than 15 seconds, but in reviewing this lesson, Mima recalls that she counted from number one up rather then the correct count DOWN. On Mima’s violin set, Nora’s head (jaw) needed to lie back a bit more on the chinrest and Mr S encouraged Mima to use her hand to gently guide Nora’s head backward to the correct position.


• Mr S explained to Nora that she must listen for a clean clear sound (on each MHD unit). He said that her playing should be “like clean clear water” with no dirt or mud in it. She thought about what he said, and told him that this sound would be like playing on a water xylophone, and she quickly described how each glass would have a different amount of water in it to give the different “pitches”. He went with her on this description of her understanding of what he was looking for in the way of a clean clear sound. He then asked her to be the teacher (she gets to sit on his chair). He asked her to critique his playing of each MHD unit as clear or muddy. She did several correctly, however on a few, she was not able to answer because, as she readily told him, she was not actually listening to him play. When she did listen she was able to label his samples correctly and she was often able to tell him why they were muddy, eg. mushed rhythm, bow on more than one string. At one point in the lesson he had her reach out to clap the rhythm on his open palm to get a feel for the correct crisp rhythm. He then had her play and he gave her immediate feedback of “clean” or ”mud” for her MHD units. She was able to redo several and got a few very lovely clear notes with this type of careful work with Mr S.


• When Mr S introduced the idea of the Princess Violin Set, Mima made a slight facial grimace, and he quickly told Mima that most girls of Nora’s age are very motivated by the Disney Princesses. Mima replied that the Princess Violin Set would indeed be very motivating to Nora who is very interested in princesses in general, although she is not familiar with the Disney marketed princesses. Later, Nora and Mima told Mr S that Nora is an admirer of Princess Atta, leader of the ants, and a friend of Nora’s mother is writing a story about “Princess Nora”, who loves the color green and not pink (as is the case with Nora).


• Mr S was careful to end Nora’s part of the lesson on an upbeat note (she played a lovely clear open A string MHD) and then she did her thank you bow. He has a very good gauge of how much she can learn pleasantly before balking.


• Mr S and Mima spoke briefly about when a student might be encouraged to “discover” things in the musical realm, and when he would prefer that a song or skill be formally introduced (such as is done in Nora’s Montessori curriculum). He said that he has students “discovering” the notes(by “ear”) to non Suzuki tunes as early as the middle of book one, but he would rather that all the Suzuki songs be introduced in the lesson before Nora attempts to play them by “ear”. Mima noted that Nora has not to date shown any inclination to just play her violin by herself out of the context of the practice partnership. Mr S said to Mima and Nora that Nora is welcome to name any of the pieces that she recognizes from the recording, even if they have not been specifically assigned.


• And on the home front, we are working to get Nora to participate in practice sessions with her violin, regularly and without resistance. This process, where Nora’s ability to play a note and make a good sound on her violin fluctuates significantly from week to week, is a challenge for the whole family. For example, we now need to redo and fix the original violin set, as well as work on more complex tasks such a bowing and fingering. However, Mr S assures Mima that progress on a multifaceted task such as violin playing, is not in a straight line up, or even in a series of upward spikes, but is often in a series of up and down U shapes (he drew a picture in the notebook) with a series of very low troughs between the up arcs. And we all want to keep in mind that practicing what Mr S tells us to do should eventually make these skills easier for Nora to execute. And when these small bits of technique are easier, Nora will be able to discover that she is actually playing a song, something that has not actually happened yet.

Friday 1/11/2008 Violin Lesson 27

Practice List Friday 1/11/2008 Lesson 27

Practice List

1. MHD Twinkle part “Sandwich” Practice with Spaces for Getting Ready on Time with rhythmic focus (2 kinds of part sandwich: playing the bread or playing the PB&J sections of Twinkle Variation) Practice exercise to learn to “play fast slowly”




• Nora quickly prepares her finger and bow for the next note in the space as her parent partner) softly says (whispers)and/or claps a rhythmic “Mississippi Hot Dog” between each note of her part sandwich.


• Get fingers and bow ready really fast and be rhythmic – begin playing as soon as the MHD rhythm is clapped or whispered


• Be sure to take a bit more time for the swing – open back – drop D sequence


• Nora can clap MHD while parent plays half sandwich and parent gets ready fast in the “space”. Clapping was more rhythmic than Nora’s speaking MHD. First just clap and work toward rhythmic speaking later.


• We should expect that when first learning this challenging exercise that Nora may not be able to maintain some of her other violin skills such as open elbow and using the bow on the playground


• Video clips show Mr S doing this exercise with Nora


• Mr S says she can also do HB and SBB (at some point in the future).


• When she has completed 15 complete sandwiches (she sings the opposite part) in this “play fast slowly” manner she should tell Mr S and Nora can then press his red “Easy” button to see what it will do!




2. Note Cards are shown to Nora when she has violin: Nora is to sing pitch, play MHD pitch and sing pitch again. Work especially on B versus D. Use a variety of note card games.


3. Song Identification A List and B List




• B list of songs that Nora takes more time or has a hard time identifying. Work on these more.


• Minuet 1 and Gossec’s Govotte were added at the evening group class. Andantino begins with an accent!




4. Goal to work toward from lesson 24 - practice for 5 minutes without stopping.


5. Review: choose exercises from previous lessons so that Nora can keep working on specific techniques in isolation




• Open door elbow on open strings this week


• Stay in yellow tape bow playground, do not go below bottom of yellow tape




6. Violin Set Review from Group Class or Mima

Private Lesson Notes:

1. Nora asked Mr S what pieces in the Suzuki books were written by girls (women). He had a brief and frank discussion with her about the fact that back in that early time women were often discouraged from becoming composers and that this was a bad thing. He said that we could find some special listening pieces composed by women and he suggested Amy Beach in particular. Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn were also mentioned.


2. Using the “What Book” Mr S remembered to ask for Nora’s special listening piece first in this lesson. With some pauses and hesitations and a couple of hints, Nora told him that (Wolfgang) “Amadeus Mozart composed Serenade in G, Eine kleine Nachtmusik performed by the Mainz Orchestra”. Mima needs to remember to give Mr S a copy of our listening piece notes so he can help Nora recall some of the details.


3. She asked him if she could do the bow poem in her lesson (she even told him that she practiced it at home) and he told her that he would do the bow poem exercise in the evening group class. After the question was asked and answered a second time, she accepted this without further difficulty.


4. He asked the Nora remain on her foot chart (not going off of the chart onto the rug) for her entire lesson, and she did this (although a few times she was crouched down curled up on the chart as she listened to a song for identification.


5. She showed improvement on her song identification although she still needs work on her “B” list songs and even Mima mistook Andantino for Allegretto today.


6. Nora improved in her ability to know and sing the music notes on her note cards. He worked on E and F#, repeating these note intervals many times to help her. She also needed particular help with B versus D.


7. Behavior: Cooperation versus Participation. At the point in the lesson where Mr S wanted Nora to play her Twinkle sandwich part with the new “get ready fast in the rhythmic space” technique, Nora balked. (We had a very hard time doing this exercise at home.) She made a nice bow hold, but did not do the first step of soft knees, and in fact, she squinted her eyes, looked out the window and actually locked her knees backward. Mr S spoke softly and worked gently but firmly with her, explaining that she needed to participate with him so that she could learn in this lesson. Nora stayed physically with him on her foot chart, even as she was defying his instructions, and Mima kept quiet, sitting just behind Nora and out of her line of vision. After a few (long) minutes, Mr S expertly brought Nora around, so that she followed his instructions and played for him. After seeing how difficult the original exercise was for her, he asked her to say or clap the “rhythmic MHD space” while he played the notes, preparing each one silently as she clapped the rhythm. She was able to clap a rhythmic MHD. She had difficulty saying/singing/whispering a clean rhythmic MHD. He then had her play the notes (get her notes ready on time) as he whispered and/or clapped the rhythmic MHD space. This took away the burden of her trying to speak the rhythm in the space while she was preparing to play her next note. Although this was not discussed at the lesson, Nora was never able to whisper the rhythm, or any other words in her home practice sessions. At this point, Nora executes a “whisper” only when in close proximity to someone else’s ear, and this activity for Nora appears to be less about speaking softly and more about blowing breath into the other person’s ear. All in all, the clapping worked much better than the whispering! Mr S was careful not to ask more of Nora than she could manage, but he did require her to participate to the extent that she could. After she played two sandwich parts using the “get ready in the rhythmic space” technique, he had her do her note card singing. He was careful to end on an upbeat note and she gave him a sincere and well executed “thank you bow” at the end of her portion of the lesson. Mr S later told Mima that he prefers to use the word “participation” rather than “cooperation” when referring to these situations. Mima understood him to explain that participation indicates the idea of a collaborative effort on the part of the teacher/parent and the student. Cooperation can denote more of a situation where the teacher/parent is an autocrat and the pupil might be relegated to following orders.


8. More Behavior: When Mr S was teaching and talking with Mima, Nora was jumping on the couch and moving the couch cushions out of place. Both Mima and Mr S told Nora that this was not acceptable behavior, and after a defiant half minute, she stopped. After the lesson, we got into the car and both decided to drive straight home today. It was raining outside and there was an early evening violin group class in the evening. We spent a pleasant afternoon playing a variety of 4 year old games and activities.

Further Explanations:

• Story Format: for SP, Special Listening Piece Recitation on Friday. “_______ composed ___ _________, and it was conducted or performed by __________ , on the ________ (violin) or with the __________ Orchestra”


• Poem recitation Tuesday, look at Mr S.

Group Class:
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

• ID songs from beginning and also when played starting in middle, or just first notes


• Dynamics: pianissimo - piano - metso piano - metso forte – forte - fortissimo


• Tell at what dynamic a song has just been played by the teacher.


• Bow Poem *looking at leader, eye contact, tip up and not rushed


• Bow Poem with Dynamics


• MHD HB SBB Twinkles wait for proper cue before playing example: “ E listen” “E play” “E monkey” (don’t play!)

Notes Jan 11th Group Class 5:30 PM:

1. Clapping rhythms – must wait for the instructions “ready clap” or “ready knees” in the Do what I say and not what I do Game.




• Several children had trouble with this, but after one instance where Nora was the only one clapping alone incorrectly, she was visibly upset and even tearing up, but she stood on her foot chart and calmed herself down so that she was able to enthusiastically participate in the rest of the class.


• Mr S then changed the “game” and he would clap a rhythm and then say “wait …. wait …. wait …. ready clap” at which point the children were supposed to clap the rhythm that he had clapped.


• After many repetitions, Mr S found that some children had more difficulty than others when asked to “wait” while remembering what rhythm he had clapped.


• Nora was able to clap a rhythm after the “wait” period, and this exercise was particularly suited to her, since she had had difficulty with clapping before the “ready clap” cue. In this game “ready crocodile” does not work!


• Some children had difficulty with recalling the rhythm after the “wait” , others had soft, inaudible or less rhythmic clapping. One student had a crisp clean clapping rhythm.




2. Children were asked to name a song for Mr S to play while they walked and stopped walking when the music started and stopped. Nora answered first with “MHD” and Mr S played some very fancy versions of this familiar tune, as the kids really followed him well in this game.


3. He did the bow poem exercise and all children volunteered to lead. Nora has been so very eager to lead this poem, and she even has asked to practice it at home. Nora again did not get chosen to lead the poem (2 chances), but she was able to overcome her disappointment and participate in the exercise, even answering his question about what was an important aspect of the bow poem, “keeping the tip pointing UP. Many of the children had significant difficulty with this; and although Nora’s tip was up for almost all of the poem, even her tip was not straight up for the very last line.


4. Waiting in line and not being first. Nora tolerated not being first in line to get her violin tuned. Even with his admonition for the children to take their time getting their very best nice soft bow holds, Nora was first in line with her bow hold which was really quite well formed.


5. Having fun but not fooling around with the violin. Nora was able to resist some typical childish wildness with the violins in the early part of the class, and with just a bit of encouragement, she remained on her foot chart waiting for the class to begin. She continued to pay attention to the teacher and to look toward the leader much more consistently than ever before (for nearly the entire class session).


6. Violin Set Review




• Nora’s shoulders should remain square, facing front, not twist


• Parent can hold ring finger and pinky of right hand above the violin rib so that these fingers can guide Nora’s left shoulder


• Take care to place violin button more to side not front of Nora’s neck and don’t let her move it more to the front


• Be much more firm and decisive when placing the violin on the side of Nora’s neck


• General comment about clothing: Turtle Neck shirts are second worst to wear for violin sets, and the worst shirts are those with large collars and especially collars with buttons on the tabs. Nora was OK with her round neck dress opening.




7. Song ID (stand up/sit down), Nora participated well, strong on many of the songs and less sure for songs such as “Aunt Rhody”. None of the children could name the 2 songs he eventually gave as “Mystery Songs”, Minuet 1 and Gossec’s Gavotte. Nora did come up with these names completely on her own, when our car was about 2 blocks away from the church where the class was held! In class, she looked like she thought she knew what they were, and she even said out loud that he had not taught one of the songs (Gossec’s Gavotte) to them. On further consideration, Nora may be having particular trouble with this “we did not learn it yet” aspect of the class. She has a solid understanding of the Montessori guideline that says that the children may only participate in activities which have been formally presented by the teacher. Thus Nora seems to be visibly confused by these Suzuki questions that probe the literature hitherto unassigned and unstudied, even though the songs are on her volume 1 recording. Clearly we have a bit of “homework” to do with Nora in terms of explaining differences in teaching philosophies.


8. From previous group class Nora will need to learn the same “listen and wait” rhythmic routine. E listen, E play (and do not play if the instruction is “E monkey”)

Lesson Tuesday 1/8/2008 Lesson 26

Practice List Tuesday 1/8/2008 Lesson 26

Practice List
1. MHD Twinkle “Sandwich” Practice (2 kinds of sandwich alternating singing and playing for bread and PB&J sections of Twinkle)
a. Practice exercise to learn to “play fast slowly”
i. Nora (helped by her parent partner) softly says (whispers) a rhythmic “Mississippi Hot Dog” between each note of her sandwich as she quickly prepares her finger and bow for the next note.
ii. Get fingers and bow ready really fast and be rhythmic
iii. When she has completed 15 sandwiches in this “play fast slowly” manner she should tell Mr S and Nora can then press his red “Easy” button to see what it will do!
iv. Be sure to take a bit more time for the swing – open back – drop D sequence
v. Mr S says she can also do HB and SBB

2. Note Cards are shown to Nora when she has violin: Nora is to sing pitch, play MHD pitch and sing pitch again

3. Song Identification
a. Make an A list of songs that Nora can identify every time (such as Allegro).
b. B list of songs that Nora takes more time or has a hard time identifying. Work on these more.
c. Song names in the cup can be one method for this. Do the harder ones more often.

4. Eye contact for presentations of poem and listening piece
5. Goal to work toward from lesson 24 - practice for 5 minutes without stopping.
6. Review: choose exercises from previous lessons as warranted
Notes:
1) Nora stayed close to Mr S (he calls this staying in the teaching bubble) for the entire lesson. In fact she crept very close to him and seemed to nearly hang on him at times in her apparent eagerness to see him again. Hair and clothing were not problems and she followed directions quite well.
2) He described that Nora should be singing the song in her brain while she is playing rather than thinking of thoughts and words that she wants to say.
3) Nora chose to do a Stop Big Bow and a Huckleberry sandwich for Mr S, but when she did her singing parts she sang Mississippi Hot Dog! He then asked her to do MHD sandwiches for him. We told Mr S that Nora has practiced MHD sandwiches for the last several weeks and Mima said that this was still a challenge.
4) Mr S started the lesson with song ID. Nora easily named Lightly Row, Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Long Long Ago, Allegro and Allegretto. She at first thought Song of the Wind was Perpetual Motion, but corrected herself on the second guess. She took extra time to get Andantino and May Song, but did get them. She had significant difficulty with Perpetual Motion and when he said it had the doubles she guessed that it was Etude. He said that we should work harder (review more times) our “B” list songs, the songs she misses more often.
5) Nora gave her poem “One Two Buckle My Shoe” and looked right into Mr S’s eyes on the second recitation.
6) He told Nora and Mima about the Playing Fast Slowly concept and even asked Nora to tell him what she learned in the lesson. She was able to tell him that she needed to “move her finger fast” and “get ready fast” (the bow too!). He told Mima that as Nora got more advanced she would learn to do this “getting ready fast slowly” exercise on MHD twinkle saying just the “Hot Dog” and lastly by saying just the “Dog” as she prepares her next note.
Further Explanations:
7) Story Format: for Listening Piece Recitation on Friday: “Peter Tchaikovsky composed The Nutcracker Suite, and it was conducted Michael Tilson Thomas with the Philharmonia Orchestra”
8) Poem recitation Tuesday, look at Mr S.