This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on April 14, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

A few weeks ago, I published a blog post titled “Help! My Suzuki Teacher Won’t Let Me Move to the Next Piece.” In it, I detailed why Suzuki teachers may not move students through the repertoire as fast as the students (and their parents) would like. We want our students to be prepared for the challenges in the coming repertoire, and sometimes that means slowing down a little to make sure they’re ready. But sometimes, we Suzuki teachers make mistakes.

Not too long ago, I got a call from a parent, in which she explained that they really enjoyed lessons with me but were growing increasingly frustrated because they had been working on one piece for so long. There had been a lot of upheaval, they had switched from another teacher (who had moved), and soon after they came to my studio I went on maternity leave. All in all, they had been playing Gavotte in D Major (Suzuki Book 3) for a year!

This particular student was dedicated and hardworking. Her performance of the piece was actually quite good. I just had forgotten how long she’d been playing it, and kept perfecting and polishing it with her.

Once I realized what was going on, I was happy to speed things up. I had made a mistake, and I’m so grateful that mother took the time (and mustered the courage) to talk to me about their concerns and frustration. It can be difficult to bring up those awkward conversations, it is much easier to quit without explanation or with a weak excuse.

If  Suzuki teachers, parents, and students are willing to communicate, even when it is awkward or difficult, we can create a much better environment for learning, support, and progress. Is there a conversation with your teacher or a parent in your studio that you have been avoiding? Take a few minutes to decide what you’re going to say, write it down, and give them a call. No matter what happens, it will be less stressful to have things out in the open.

There is no task so exhausting as the one you haven’t started yet. Even if the conversation doesn’t turn out optimally, it’s better than worrying about it and doing nothing.

That’s your homework: Have that conversation you’ve been avoiding. I bet it won’t be as bad as you
think!

Have you had any tough conversations with your Suzuki teacher?  If you are a Suzuki teacher, how about with the parents in your studio? Please share your stories in the comments!

Reader Interactions
Comments

1. Angela says
   April 19, 2016 at 1:29 am
   Hi! I have had several of these kind of conversations lately. Mostly they have let to better understanding of each other:) they are not easy tho 
   • Brecklyn says
     April 19, 2016 at 12:38 pm
     That understanding and perspective can lead to so many good things, and you’re right, it definitely isn’t easy! But it is so worth it!

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on April 8, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

Happy Friday, everyone!  I am so excited for tomorrow.  My students are performing in our very first “Review Recital.”  Everyone has picked their favorite review piece to play, one that they could polish and get ready in only a couple weeks.  They are all very prepared and excited about playing old favorites.  I highly recommend having a review recital in your studio, it’s been so much fun getting ready for ours!

My Five Favorite Violin Teaching Resources This Week…

1. Learning key signatures can be such a struggle for many students, but don’t worry!  This post on Practice Makes It Easy has got you covered with strategies for different learning styles.  Do you have your students memorize key signatures?

2. I enjoyed this post on Red Desert Violin about listening.  Here’s how it begins, “Two main things separate truly professional musicians from dabblers: the way they listen and the way they practice.”  Do our students listen like “dabblers?”

3. If you’ve been reading these posts for a while, then you already know what a podcast junkie I am.  I listen to a LOT of podcasts, I listen in the car, when I am cleaning, when I am getting ready for the day…I have podcasts playing almost all day.  I love to learn and listen to audiobooks, so podcasts are perfect for me!  I was so excited to see the Paula Bird has launched a new podcast on iTunes all about the Suzuki method!  Check it out and subscribe here!

4. When I need a little pick-me-up, Valse-Scherzo Op. 34 by Tchaikovsky will do just the trick!  It’s a delightful piece.  This video of Vadim Repin is a great one to show students to model curved fingers on the left hand staying close to the fingerboard.  It’s also just fantastic violin playing!

5. The last thing I’m loving this week is the Plucky Violin Teacher Book Club.  It’s given me the motivation to do a lot of reading and learning about teaching and business.  I was skeptical about March’s book (How Children Learn by John Holt), I wasn’t as excited about that one as I was about some of the others.  But, wow.  It was amazing.  I loved it.  I think the concepts I learned from the book will change the way I teach, I’m going to strive for a better balance of “deliberate instruction” and exploration.  I wrote a blog post about the book, you can read it here.

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on April 7, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

How to Get Your Suzuki Violin Students to Accept Criticism…

A few times a week I receive emails from Suzuki parents around the world responding to my question, “What is your biggest practicing struggle with your Suzuki violin students right now?” What do you think their answer is? Almost without exception, the responses are either, “How can I make practicing more fun for more child?” or “How can I get my child to accept criticism from me?”

To answer the first question, I usually suggest a few games and activities for Suzuki violin students but I’m always at a loss with the second. My oldest is only two and has not begun lessons yet, so my only experience is as a teacher and then as a student myself (and watching my Mom practice with my three sisters and brother.)

It suddenly occurred to me while I was reading How Children Learn by John Holt, (The March Plucky Music Teacher Book Club Book,) that maybe we are looking at this the wrong way. Rather than force-feeding correct notes/rhythms/techniques, and constantly correcting children, we need to allow them to discover their mistakes for themselves and self-correct.

This goes against my very being. My natural tendency is to correct, nitpick, and spoon-feed my Suzuki violin students everything. But maybe I am doing them and their parents a disservice. It’s possible students are not accepting meaningful practice input from their parents because they are not MEANT to. The parents’ role may not be that of “bad habit deputy sheriff” while the teacher is away.

Let’s talk about bad habits. I, for one, came out of my bachelor’s and master’s programs with a healthy fear of “bad habits.” I had spent my college career correcting deeply ingrained poor technique and I was DETERMINED that no student of mine would EVER have to do that.

Fear is not a great motivator (I mean, unless you are actually in physical danger), and it certainly does not make you an effective music teacher.

This quote from How Children Learn struck me to the core, “I would have been less tempted to correct this child’s little mistake had I not, like so many adults, been under the spell of the Bad Habit Theory of Learning. This tells us that every time a child makes a mistake, in speaking, reading, or whatever, we must instantly correct it, lest it freeze into a “bad habit,” impossible to correct. The theory is simply untrue. Most of the many things children learn, and that we all learned as children— to walk, talk, read, write, etc.— they learn by trying to do them, making mistakes, and then correcting the mistakes.”

Here are some thoughts from How Children Learn to consider:

I. Children learning to talk do not develop “bad habits.” They continually listen, evaluate, and adjust their own speech to match the speech of those around them.

II. Children learning to walk do not develop “bad habits” either. Over time, using experiments and curiosity they discover the most effective and natural way to walk. They are highly motivated and eager to progress so they can be independent like their parents or siblings.

“Very young children seem to have what could be called an Instinct of Workmanship. We tend not to see it, because they are unskillful and their materials crude. But watch the loving care with which a little child smooths off a sand cake, or pats and shapes a mud pie. They want to make it as well as they can, not to please someone else but to satisfy themselves.”

III. How can we re-ignite a child’s curiosity and motivation? One crucial element of children’s natural learning that is missing from the way we teach violin today is improvisation. Every baby babbles and coos, children make up words and songs, walks around on their hands and knees, takes ridiculously large steps, and dances with abandon.

These activities used to learn and perfect the skills of walking and talking are creativity at its finest. It seems to me that allowing children to explore the instrument in a fun, creative, and safe environment is the key to unlocking their inherent curiosity and drive.

John Holt said, “The work of Carl Orff and others who have used his method of instruction suggests that when children are given many opportunities to improvise, to make up their own chants, rhythms, and tunes, their musical and verbal growth can be very rapid.”

For those of us that are worried about playing with proper technique, without excessive tension, and with healthy posture, I thought this quote was reassuring.

“It is when our muscles, hands, and fingers can improvise with the least conscious control that we are most truly improvising and have the most natural and effortless control of our instruments.”

IV. Children learning to talk and walk are constantly exposed to more experienced walkers and talkers. Constantly. We attempt to replicate this in the Suzuki method by listening to the recordings and attending group lessons. It occurs to me that maybe this just isn’t ENOUGH exposure. We need more opportunities for listening and observing other Suzuki violin students of varying age and ability. How much listening are your students actually doing? How often do they see others play? Especially other children? Parents, do you play for your child? If you do not play the instrument well (or at all), why can you not learn along side him?

“A child has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing. Why can’t we make more use of this great drive for understanding and competence?”

Our most powerful tool may be the parent learning alongside their child.

V. Perhaps the most important aspect of the child’s learning process is how the adults around him react to his efforts. As your child is learning to walk or talk, do you correct them? Or do you excitedly applaud every effort? Do you adore every little lisp or halfway made up word? Do you even adopt some into your own vocabulary? (Bruce and I still call pillows “bundos” even though Milo hasn’t said that in over a year.)
Do you fawn over video recordings of first halting steps inevitably followed by a hilarious fall onto a diapered behind? Maybe this is the way we need to approach correcting our Suzuki violin students. Unfeigned enthusiasm and excitement over each minuscule improvement or effort.
VI. The very real obstacle of performance anxiety may be seeded during these early years. As we constantly correct and adjust and “help” our students, we may really be teaching them that playing music is a scary thing. Fraught with minefields, playing the violin (or whatever instrument) is an activity that must be approached with caution.

“It looks very much as if children catch most of their fears from their elders.”

The Suzuki Method is all about teaching children in the way the naturally learn. The Mother-tongue method. It would make sense that as Suzuki teachers and parents, we would allow our Suzuki violin students to develop and improve the same way they do when they are learning to walk and talk. That is, naturally, without pushing, prodding, and criticism.

“The idea that we must work hundreds of hours to make a good habit, but can make a bad one in a few seconds, is nonsense. And the point of this to us as teachers is that we don’t always have to be in such a big hurry to correct children’s mistakes. We can afford to give them time to notice and correct them themselves. And the more they do this, the better they will become at doing it, and the less they will need and depend on us to do it for them. The less they have to depend on us, the faster they can teach themselves.”

As of now, I’m throwing away my “bad habit sheriff” badge, it’s time for a regime change.  I don’t think I’ll be able to be totally laissez-faire, I am the teacher after all!  But I do think that I will be striving for more balance between letting my students explore the instrument in a fun, improvisatory way and more structured, deliberate instruction.

​Have you been under the “Bad Habit Theory of Learning?” In what ways, do you want to change your teaching (or home practicing) style to allow your students to learn naturally?

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on April 1, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

Violin teaching tips, tricks, and resources…

Happy Friday! So… good news and bad news.  Bad news first:  I cut off the top of my left thumb chopping bell peppers last weekend.  Good news: I am so excited today because my sister is in town…..Okay okay, April fool’s.  I didn’t cut off the top of my left thumb.  But I almost did!  Not bad enough for stitches, but bad enough that it bled a whole bunch and I passed out.  (I have a thing about blood.  Good thing my husband is an ICU nurse.  Don’t fret, I’m totally fine.)

Sorry.  I couldn’t resist.  It is April Fool’s after all.  Moving right along…

Here are some of the violin teaching resources I found on the web this week.

1. Third-position study sheet
I love this third-position study sheet created by Heather Figi, of Music for Young Violinists. It is just excellent, and I have a few students that I know it will work wonders for! You can download it for free here.

2.  22 Creative Ways to “Play it Again”; Turning Piano Teaching Repetition On It’s Head
While some of these ideas don’t work with violin, a lot of them do.  I’m always asking for more repetitions, so I am planning on using these this week!

3. Suzuki Violin Pre-Twinkle Packet
I don’t think I would use everything in here, but there are lots of cute pre-twinkle songs and illustrations that would be fun with new beginners.

4. Why Your Child Can’t Skip Music Practice Tonight
This infographic is a great one to share with your students and their parents!  You can even download it for free to print and hang as a poster in your studio.

5. How Children Learn by John Holt
I wasn’t particularly excited about the March book club pick, and I got started on it a little late because of our big move, but wow.  This book is amazing.  So many of the ideas and philosophies go hand in hand with Suzuki’s philosophies.  It’s also spurred some critical thoughts about how I teach, and how I correct my students’ mistakes.  I think I’ve been entirely too worried about “bad habits.”  A lot to think about.  Even though March is over, I highly recommend you read this book.  If you’ve already read it, maybe read it again!  It’s that good.

​Happy Friday, my friends!

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on March 28, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

This post is the second in a series. 

Guest Post by Sarah Fassman

Sarah Fassmann is a mom of two, cellist, a piano teacher, an early childhood music teacher, and a new Suzuki violin parent. She loves hiking, canoeing, singing, and playing the piano without any children crying.

Active Music Making With Your Baby: Part II…

Even very small children can enjoy and appreciate music-making. They are noisy creatures! And they love doing it with a loved one even more. In Part I, I gave suggestions for having an interactive musical experience with your baby or young toddler through singing together.

In this segment, I hope to give you some inspiration on actively making music on other instruments and helping your young child appreciate other musicians. Being actively involved in your young child’s musical discovery can help them improve their social and communication development—and their musical ears, of course!

Here are seven fun and interactive musical activities for young children to get you started!

1. Babies and young toddlers love making noise with toys and instruments. Don’t give a child under six months too many noisy toys, as the baby may be overstimulated. Your child will especially love making music with you.

They love drums and rattles, triangles and jingle bells, pots and pans. Make music together while singing songs and provide safe, age-appropriate musical toys for them. Just because a toy lights up and makes music, doesn’t mean it benefits your child. A simple musical instrument toy will ignite creativity in your child.

2. Play the piano together. Hold your young child on your lap. Demonstrate how to gently play the piano. Remind them calmly that we don’t use toys, feet, or pounding hands. Point out the white keys and the black keys. Explore high and low sounds. Make long and short notes together. Pretty soon, your child will be climbing up onto the piano bench on their own to “practice”!

3. Show your child your instrument and teach them how to treat it respectfully. My children both encounter my cello about once a month (I usually practice cello at night). They love to hear me play the cello! Once they brought little chairs over and listened to me play for almost five minutes. It was adorable! When children see you making music, they want to make music.

A note about practicing. It is almost impossible to find uninterrupted time to practice yourself when you have little children. Granted, I am not a professional musician (and if you are, you might consider hiring a sitter to watch your children or make some other arrangement for them), but I do try to practice the piano daily and the cello three times a week.

If you practice during the day, find the time that they are the happiest to play on their own, and practice then. My children are fine playing on their own after they eat breakfast. I can usually get 20-30 minutes of piano practice in each morning.

I’ve also been surprised at what they can sleep through at night (this probably wouldn’t work in an apartment). Pull out your instrument after they go to bed—they probably will sleep through it! I usually practice my cello 30-45 minutes after they go to bed, and haven’t had any problems with them waking up.

Other, Less Active Musical Experiences
Listening to music is a wonderful thing to do with your child, even if it isn’t actively participating in it. To make it more active, talk about the music, move to the music, and attend live music events.

4. Point out different instruments, interesting musical concepts (simply, of course), or the way the music makes you feel. Hum a melody line or tap a rhythm. You can also ask your child what they hear when they start to speak.

“Wow, I just loved what the cellos did there! It made me feel a little sad (make a sad face), but it was just so beautiful. Can you hear the cellos? (hum the part)”

“Hey, I think we heard this same melody at the start of the song! (hum the line)”

5. Have a few songs to interpret together. An obvious and very fun choice is “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” by Edvard Grieg. Even if your child cannot walk yet, you can run around with them in your arms and they will love it.

6.Attend festivals in your area. There is usually music all over at a festival. It’s a great way to introduce your child to different musical genres and instruments. Be sure to drop a few coins in the hat of every musician you stop to listen to!

7. Look at your local symphony or city’s arts department and check out their children’s events. There may be concerts in the park, ballets for children, or instrument petting zoos that you can enjoy as a family.

Active participation in music takes effort, but it should be fun! You don’t have to do everything every single day. But being consistent with the music, being excited about making music with your baby and toddlers, and showing them the joy that comes from music will bring about benefits beyond a musical ear. Your child will grow socially, improve their communication, and learn more about their world. And I think you will probably have fun, too.

​Have you tried any of these techniques with your children?  What other musical activities do you share with your family?  We’d love to read your ideas in the comments!

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on March 25, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

Today is a big day!  It’s my baby’s first birthday.  Which also means, it’s basically the anniversary of my first fledgling thoughts of this website.  I cannot believe my baby boy is already a year old.  He even started taking his first steps a few days ago.  He’s hysterically funny, smart, and affectionate.  Not to mention, wild and energetic as can be!

The Plucky Violin Teacher blog has also grown in ways I never imagined and I’ve learned so much.  We have a thriving book club, and a growing readership.  In fact, I set up email list and then didn’t know how to check and see if anyone had subscribed, when I finally figured it out I already had 100 subscribers for about a month.  Haha.  Oops.  Now there are over 500 subscribers to the Plucky Violin Teacher blog, and almost 200 Suzuki parent subscribers.

I love our little community.  I’m so grateful to you for reading and commenting and sharing.  Teaching private music lessons can be somewhat isolating, unless you are teaching in a school you may see your colleagues only rarely.  The internet has made collaboration and community possible for us, and I am so grateful.

To show my gratitude for you guys, I wanted to showcase some of my favorite comments from you!  You all have so much amazing insight and knowledge, and I am grateful for the opportunity I have to learn from you!  It was hard to limit myself to just five comments, because there were so many great violin teaching tips to share.  So here goes, in no particular order, my five favorite comments from Plucky Violin Teacher Readers.

1. Last week in my favorite things round-up, I shared one of my goals to incorporate more fiddle music in my studio and asked for suggestions, and Amy Robinson shared her tips.  Here’s what she says,

“Years ago I stepped outside of my classical comfort zone and did a bunch of fiddle training and workshops. I use a lot of tunes and collections that were passed on through that. For beginners that want to start with fiddling, I like the Scottish Fiddle Tutor book. The collections of tunes by Ceolas are nice and clear to look at. I have a whack of tunes that I find are good starter tunes for students. We do a lot of listening. When they understand the structure of tunes and full sets, they can listen with purpose and use the repetition to learn tunes and interpretation by ear as well. Fiddling made me a much more social musician! The classic tune collections are O’Neills for Irish and the Skye Collection for Scottish. Scott Skinner wrote fiddle music that is more technical- can be more interesting for those of us with a more technical background!”

2.  Alan Duncan shared this incredible comment on my post about our essential question as music teachers.

“The “why” question seems so simple; but it’s not. Thanks for writing about this.
The idea of learning music to achieve some other goal has always bothered me slightly – the idea that music is only a vehicle to get into a well-regarded university, etc. (Although Suzuki himself openly admitted that for him music was a way of building character in children. If children turned out to be good players – then it was a great side-effect!)

For us, answer to the “why” question is much more aesthetic. To experience music is like uncovering another sense that you didn’t know you had. And it’s much more enjoyable and rewarding to experience actively than passively. We need spectators, fans and listeners; but making music yourself is on another level entirely. How could you *not* want that for your children? In some ways, answering this question may be harder for parents who are musicians because it’s so engrained that it’s hard to tease out what exactly is the reason to make music.
You touch on something important, too – the idea that by tuning in to what really turns children onto playing their instruments we can keep them engaged and in love with music. Just being sensitive to where they seem energized helps a lot. There’s a pretty clear roadmap laid out by Suzuki; but there are lots of fun, meandering paths on the side.”

3. Cynthia Faisst shared this comment on my post, “Why You Shouldn’t Quit Teaching Violin To Get a Real Job.”

“It’s easy to forget that Suzuki Sensei lived through a war and saw the devastating effects that it had on children in person. Thankfully, that experience inspired him to persevere. I sense that seeing a world full of refugees, many of which are children would have taken him back to those memories. But I also think he would have delighted in the research that provides confirmation for many of his observations about music and children.

Western Kenkusei often speculated on what the secret was for his long and vibrant life. Instead of growing sad and feeble with old age he outlived tribulation and shared the hope and joy of his in sites with the next generation.

It should fill us all with an obligation to carry on his spirit.”

4. In response to my blog post, “How to Build Your Music Studio Community,” Kristin Hall says,

“Thank for sharing such great, well thought out ideas. I just discovered your site this past week and am loving it! One idea that I did in my studio to help motivate students to practice and create more of a sense of community was a video challenge. I would video one student saying something like “Hi John, this is George and I challenge you to play Perpetual Motion blindfolded!” I would text or email the clip to Johns mother. When John has mastered it, I would video him doing it and send that clip back to George. We would focus on a single book in this studio challenge and if it is a new piece for the kid I would limit the challenge to a section that I thought was doable. If it is a review piece, we want the challenge to be a little crazy like – play it blindfolded, standing on one foot, while taking your shoes off and on, while balancing a stuffed animal on your head, etc. (not all at same time, tho). Kids really enjoyed it!”

5.  In McKenzie’s post, “How I’m Starting My Music Studio From Scratch,” she explained she was moving to Arizona and having to start her studio all over.  I was struck by the kindness and compassion of teachers in the Suzuki community who immediately reached out via email and Facebook.  Terra left this comment,

“It’s so great hearing from a fellow violin teacher who had the same issues/problems I do. I will be moving in 6 months (more school…like a B.M. And M.M. aren’t enough…) and I am so excited to start from scratch in building my studio. Please let me know how I can keep up with your journey!
Also, as luck would have it, I did my undergrad at ASU right in Tempe. I taught some lessons in Mesa, and know some of the local orchestra directors and music shops! Let me know if you’re interested, and I can put you all in contact. I’m sure they will be thrilled to have you!
Good luck, and keep me posted!!”

​The crazy thing is these comments are just the tip of the iceberg!  It was so hard to pick just five amazing comments.  There were so many other lovely comments I could share.  You all are so amazing, and thank you so much for being a part of this thriving community of music teachers.  Stay Plucky, my Friends.

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on March 24, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

Active Music-Making with Your Baby Part I: Interaction Through Song
By Sarah Fassmann

Sarah Fassmann is a mom of two, cellist, a piano teacher, an early childhood music teacher, and a new Suzuki violin parent. She loves hiking, canoeing, singing, and playing the piano without any children crying.

If you have a young baby or toddler, you may try to give them a musical boost throughout their day through singing songs, playing music, attending a music class, or watching musical shows. Great! Music benefits children in many ways, especially if they get to interact with you, their parent. They learn about communicating with people, they learn how fun music-making is, and they develop musical ears. I love making music with my three-year-old daughter and my eighteen-month-old son every day! It is always a fun part of our day.

Blogger Lois Svard described a 2012 study about six-month-old babies and their parents in a baby music class. One group of babies and parents interacted with each other through an active music class, where together they learned lullabies and nursery rhymes, sang movement and action songs, and played with percussion instruments. The second group of babies attended a passive music class with their parents where they played interactive games while listening to background music.

The researchers found that the babies who were active participants in the musical experience had a higher acquisition of Western-tonality than the passive music listeners. In addition, the babies in the active group showed increased signs of early communication and social responses. Basically, the active musical classes helped babies increase their musical understanding and encouraged their communication and social development.

Today I am going to share some ideas to provide similar experiences with your children, focusing in on children from birth to about twenty-four months.

Interaction through SongListening to music is not enough to help your children receive the social and communication benefits that comes from interacting through song. Interactive singing should happen throughout the day, spontaneously or planned.

If you don’t think you are a very good singer, stop thinking that! Your child doesn’t care. Hearing your voice will not ruin their musical ears. If anything, they will learn that everyone can find joy through singing.

Make songs a part of your daily schedule. In our home, we sing a good morning song, during diaper changes, a religious song before breakfast, when we clean up, when we get into the car, when the kids get out of the bath, while brushing their teeth, and a lullaby before bed. You can sing a song that already exists and matches the theme of your activity, or you can change the words to a favorite song (my sister’s diaper-changing song is a Jack Johnson song, “It’s always more fun to have a nice clean bum…”)

Have a set “music time” with your children. My favorite time is after naptime, before Dad gets home—the witching hour. I roll out a colorful afghan, have a list of songs and rhymes (to give me ideas, and I add to it regularly), and a few percussion instruments nearby but out-of-sight. Remember that children love singing the same songs over and over.

My favorite website for songs and musical activities is Let’s Play Kids’ Music. Look in the archives for songs for babies or toddlers, nursery rhyme songs, seasonal songs, and so on. One of the most valuable tabs on the website is “Activities by Type,” where you will find songs that work well with rhythm and percussion, movement, literacy development, classical music, and a song directory.

Children won’t sit still while singing, so mix things up with actions, jumping, percussion instruments, swaying, clapping, and sitting quietly. I am always amazed at how quickly my 18-month-old son picks up the gross motor skills we include in the songs.

To easily incorporate movement, you can emphasize the beat of the song by marching, clapping, patsching (clapping on your lap), bouncing, tapping from shoulder to shoulder to knee to knee, swinging arms, rocking from side to side, or shaking hands. Make a note on your song list so that you can do the same action next time you sing the song.

Make simple percussion instruments. Egg shakers are made with plastic Easter eggs, rice or beans (explore the sounds of both!), and washi tape. A dowel cut into pieces makes rhythm sticks. And our favorite, ribbon wands made from ribbon scraps hot glued to a popsicle stick. Using these props makes any song more fun and helps your child learn about finding and keeping a beat.

Don’t forget to give your child your full attention while singing. If you are singing a song while doing the dishes—it isn’t an interactive musical experience! Your child may learn the song, but they won’t learn social and communication skills. Make eye contact, smile, hold hands, do actions!

Sign up for a music class if you have the resources and desire to. This may help if you have a hard time committing to music time if it isn’t a scheduled event. There are music classes for all ages of children. Sing the songs with your baby throughout the week. You will probably learn fun
music games to play with your baby!

Interaction through song is probably the most important thing you will do to help your baby or toddler gain those social and communication skills through music. It is fully active. Sing together every single day!

​How do you (or plan to) incorporate active music making with your baby?  Please share with me in the comments!

This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on March 18, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

This week was the week of our big move, and we are finally getting settled in our new place (which happens to be my parents’ basement.)  I am so excited to be here, though I am sad to leave my beautiful studio in my old house.  We’ll be back in a couple years after Bruce finishes his Doctorate in Nursing Practice, so we’re renting our house in the meantime.  For now, I have a little corner in our family room where I will be teaching.  The little kids love to get into my teaching stuff and play with the finger puppets and other random teaching items.

That’s what is happening in my neck of the woods.  But how about the world wide web of violin teaching?

1. I enjoyed this article from The Strad about how bickering over methods and backbiting among teachers really serves to undermine the value of music as a whole.  Collaboration and kindness is king.  I love to incorporate aspects of many methods and philosophies in my teaching, as most teachers do.

2. Saint Patrick’s day had me listening to Irish fiddle tunes all day.  It was so fun. Tell me you can’t listen to this and keep a smile off your face!   I’d love to incorporate more fiddling into my studio, what books/resources do you use to teach fiddling?

3.  In my guest post on the LoveNotes School of Music blog last week, I shared some thoughts about how children develop “grit”  in their music studies, and why it is so important.  This article on The Music Parents’ Guide is spot on!  It’s titled, “Three Ways Music Instruction in Schools Teaches Grit (and Why Children Need It So Badly Now.)”  I think this one is a must-share with your studio parents.

4.  This is one of my favorite violin videos because it combines so many of my favorite things: Prokofiev, Anne Akiko Meyers, and crazy kiddos.  For you mamas out there, keep practicing even if it is hard.

5. Looking for Easter-themed practice charts? Check out these from The Practice Shoppe, and they are free!

I hope these violin teaching resources were helpful, and I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

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1. Amy Robinson says
   March 24, 2016 at 3:38 am
   Years ago I stepped outside of my classical comfort zone and did a bunch of fiddle training and workshops. I use a lot of tunes and collections that were passed on through that. For beginners that want to start with fiddling, I like the Scottish Fiddle Tutor book. The collections of tunes by Ceolas are nice and clear to look at. I have a whack of tunes that I find are good starter tunes for students. We do a lot of listening. When they understand the structure of tunes and full sets, they can listen with purpose and use the repetition to learn tunes and interpretation by ear as well. Fiddling made me a much more social musician! The classic tune collections are O’Neills for Irish and the Skye Collection for Scottish. Scott Skinner wrote fiddle music that is more technical- can be more interesting for those of us with a more technical background!

This post was orginally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on March 17, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

Guest Post by Alison Porter.

If you’re a new Suzuki parent like me, you might have found that practicing daily with your 3-yr-old can be a challenge somedays. Okay most days. So I’ve put together a handy list of some of the best tricks I’ve got up my sleeve for practicing violin with a 3-yr-old. Like a boss.

1. Fart Jokes. Put them in wherever you can to keep the mood light. Make up new words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star that involve stinky toots. I recently learned the ASL sign for “fart” just to up my game in this department. My daughter thinks it’s hilarious.

2. Gummie Bears. Line them up in full view, give them silly names and/or character voices. They can ask for a practice task to be done and when the child has completed it the gummy bear leaps to its death…into your child’s mouth.

3. Wine. For you, not the child. Helps with the aforementioned character voices. Not recommended for early morning practice sessions.

4. Pawn off the practice session. Have an extended family member visiting? Babysitter coming over? Bingo! Your work is done. Sit back, relaaaax, you got this.

5. Bribery. For you, not the child. Every time you facilitate a successful practice session without losing patience, put a sticker on your calendar. Once you get to 100 stickers you get a treat!

6. Puppets. My daughter talks to puppets like they are real people even though she can plainly see that I’m talking. She will patiently teach a puppet all her violin skills, sometimes more than once. I cannot believe that she doesn’t know I’m tricking her into practicing. What a dummy.

7. Haiku Poetry. Read this before a practice session to get you into a fuzzy, philosophical frame of mind so that you won’t get flustered by your child’s short attention span and lack of respect for time as we know it. This works especially well when paired with wine.

8. Hire a maid and order take-out often. The practicalities of life can make you even more easily distracted than your young violinist. You are a violin parent now – FOCUS.

9. “Forget” how to count. Tell your child they are doing 4 repetitions then capitalize on their bad math and the fact that they are busy trying to make sounds out of instrument that is extremely hard to learn and…. voila, they’ve done way more than 4 reps without an argument.

10. Always end practice on a high note. After a glass of wine or two, you might be tempted to let that farting puppet with the questionable Russian accent start to run off at the mouth. This trajectory, if left unchecked, could go sideways fast, ending with you either sobbing or spilling gory details about how your high-school music teacher thwarted your chance at musical stardom. Put down the puppet and walk away slowly. If the violin is still in one piece and your child is still smiling, then everybody wins. And you my friend, get a sticker.

Alison is the director of Lovenotes School of Music, an early-childhood music school that believes that everyone is born musical. She is also a professional musician, and a proud mama of a budding 3-yr-old violinist.  For more helpful information about practicing with your preschooler, check out her blog.
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This post was originally published on the Plucky Violin Teacher Blog on March 11, 2016 so links and resources may not be current.

This week, I wrote my first-ever guest post. I would love for you to check it out. It’s called, “The Top Seven Things Your Suzuki Teacher Wishes You Knew,” it’s published over on the Lovenotes Suzuki Parent Blog. Check it out, and let me know what you think about it in the comments there. I’d really appreciate it.

I’m still down with this cold, and I haven’t taught all week. (I know. It’s awful.) I’m hoping I’ll be back up and running today, but we’ll see. In the mean time, I wanted to share with you these five violin teaching tips, tricks, and resources I found on the web this week.

1. Do you have students that complain about continuing to do repetitions after they have played a passage correctly? There’s actually science behind why you need to do many correct repetitions once you’ve “mastered” something! Check it out on this post on the Bulletproof Musician.

2. I really hate standing up and talking at the beginning of studio recitals. I hate it so much. I never know what to say, and I feel so awkward and tongue-tied. That’s why I loved this post from Teach Piano Today about how to give the perfect recital speech. At least now I know what to say, even though I still feel awkward!

3. Would you believe I’m rethinking my policy about make-up lessons? I know. It’s shocking, I even have a rant about make-up lessons here. What has me considering a new position? These blog posts from GrowYourMusicStudio.com:
Never Get Hassled About Make-Up Lessons Again (Part I)
How to Permanently Solve Your Make Up Lesson Problem (Part II)
I would love to know what you think, should I change my policy??

4. I’ve been wanting to incorporate improvisation and composition into my studio, I don’t know how I’m going to do it yet, but this Ted Talk has me even more fired up to figure it out!

5. I loved this blog post, Music Practice, A Teacher’s Tips for Success, by Sue Hunt. This one is a must-share with your studio.

Thanks for your comments, I especially want to know what you think about the make-up policy change!