5 Things I’m Loving This Week–October 16, 2015

This blog post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on October 16, 2015 so links and resources may not be current.

So, I have only taught one lesson this week. Out of twenty. I know! I’ve had a terrible cold, and while I hate canceling lessons, I wanted to set an example for my students. (The message being: Don’t come to lessons with a terrible, hacking cough.)

Even though I didn’t teach any lessons, we did still have our recital, which was a huge success! I wasn’t going to cancel a recital come hell or high-water. Everyone played a duet with me from the Sassmannshaus Violin Recital Albums and it was so much fun. The pieces were fairly short so the recital ended in less than 45 minutes! That’s my kind of recital. Short and sweet.

So here goes—Five Things I’m Loving This Week…

1. This is one of my favorite pieces that my students played last night. This little piece (Capriccio Polka) is very fun and introduces some simple double stops (thirds with open strings, octaves, and one sixth in D major.)


2. One of my little students transferred from another teacher and has some pretty serious bowing issues. He’d already begun Two Grenadiers but it is pretty rough. I wrote this little piece for him so that he would feel more like he’s progressing, while still putting on the breaks so he can perfect some of the techniques in Two Grenadiers. While I don’t love my piece necessarily, it’s nothing special, I do love how excited he was for a new piece.  It’s called “The Sad Little Ghost,” so it’s perfect for Halloween.  You can have a copy to use if you want!
Send me a copy!

3. I loved this practice idea from Practice Makes It Easy. I used to do this when I was small with some of my stuffed animals. A practice buddy can be just the thing to motivate a little violinist!

4. Did you see this post on Claire Allen’s blog? She shared some of the words her students had written to go with their Suzuki pieces? So cute and hilarious. I’m definitely going to make my students make up their own words from now on!

5. John Berger shared an article about How to Teach Good Intonation. This is something I struggle with every day. Sometimes my students do really well, and other times, not so much!

​Thanks so much for spending this time with me, I really appreciate it. If you are interested in joining our music teaching book club, you still can! It looks like it is going to be great!

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