Student Violin Blog

If you read my last post, you'll know that we skipped practice on that day because my daughter was just soooo frustrated. Yesterday I just let her play anything she wanted for 45 minutes and the change was amazing. Today we will have to get back to the scales, technique and all that, but I'm really happy with where we are right now. I have to keep remembering that everyone needs a break or a chance just to do something different.

I also think alot of the frustration is coming from lack of focus. We haven't had a lesson in over two weeks because my daughter had the chicken pox (and YES, she did have the vaccination for it and got them anyway!) In the past when, for one reason or another, we've got more than two weeks without a lesson, there is always this lack of focus. So that could be part of it as well.

Have a great day!

Leah is a Mom and proud creator of www.students-violins.com, a site aimed at helping and encouraging parents of violin students.

Today's practice time just started out on a bad note, pardon the pun. My daughter was frustrated and so I just let it go...I don't usually do that, but I've learned that forcing practice when there is total frustration does more harm than good. So we'll see how tomorrow goes :-) Have a great day.

Leah is a Mom and proud creator of www.students-violins.com, a site aimed at helping and encouraging parents of violin students.

I've discovered that short practice time of "lesson day" has many advantages. Because my daughter's lessons are one hour, I don't want her to practice too long, but she just touches up on a few things, runs through the scale quickly and the reviews any songs she's working on. We've found this really takes the kinks out of lesson time.

This has a lot of advantages, the most obvious being that the lesson goes better. There is nothing worse than sitting there in the lesson and listening to your child struggle with a piece they were doing perfectly well at home! It's heartbreaking!

So you may want to do the same thing...remember, it shouldn't take a long time, just few minutes of brush up.

Leah is a Mom and proud creator of www.students-violins.com, a site aimed at helping and encouraging parents of violin students.

I have never realized before how helpful scales can be, but I am quickly learning. We practice so many things with scales. Here is a list of what we look for with scales.
1. Using the full bow, no cheating and using only a portion of the bow, it must be used from tip to frog.
2. Nice loose wrist and fingers
3. No squeaks on the bow change (a bow change is when going from up bow to down bow, or down bow to up bow.
4. Intonnation
5. Keep in the bow in the "middle of the road" (between the finger board and the bridge).

Since we have started doing all these things, the technique around here has really improved! So give the dreaded scales a try. If your teacher is not yet using scales, you can talk the them about it or just try doing short ladders and implementing the sames "rules" with the ladders. Remember....make it fun!!!! AND have fun with your child!!!

Leah is a Mom and proud creator of www.students-violins.com, a site aimed at helping and encouraging parents of violin students.

Well, well, well, it's been going on 11 months since I've posted here. YES, we still play violin at our house!!! The last year of violin has been very interesting, we've all learned alot, not only about playing the violin, but about practice time, technique, different teacher styles....it seems like we've learned more this past year than all the other years put together. I'd like to share what we've learned with you as I think it is invaluable. I have to get my thoughts together and decide how to post this! I'll be back.

Leah is a Mom and proud creator of www.student-violins.com, a site aimed at helping and encouraging parents of violin students.

Just a reminder on how you can improve your child's sight reading capability on the violin. Practice simple duets with them. If you have a piano, this is very easy to do. You play the harmony and have your child practice the melody, then switch. This simple exercise will catapult their sight reading to the next level.

Leah is a Mom and proud creator of www.student-violins.com, a site aimed at helping and encouraging parents of violin students.

Well, we are pretty excited around here because our daughter will begin her 5th year of Suzuki violin lessons with her outstanding teacher. Hope you all have a great start to the year!

Leah