Suzuki Jingle Bell Strings

Hello Everyone!  Yes although we look forward to the warm and cozy Thanksgiving Holiday in two weeks, the Christmas season is quite here.  We are preparing for our Holiday concerts on December 19th at 10:30am at the Salt Lake City Public Library Auditorium downtown, and on December 21st at 4pm at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in the mezzanine.  Today Olivia Gonzales' school outfit was perfect to add on a Christmas vest.  Here is Olivia modeling the girls outfit for the Suzuki Jingle Bell Strings Concerts:

Black skirt with black tights and black shoes, white blouse and red vest.

The boys outfit is identical except black trousers of course.  Boys may wear a bow tie or regular tie; that is optional.  The rental cost for the red vest is $20.  If you grow out of the one you have, we trade it in for a larger size.  When you leave the studio just return the vest that you have.  Everyone should try on their red vests ASAP.  If it doesn't fit, I may have to order a new one for you. There is a shortage of medium size vests.  Kari Child, Sophie's mom is a wonderful seamstress and has agreed to make new vests this year.  However the orders need to be in by next week at the latest.
PLEASE TRY ON YOUR RED VEST!  
The Christmas books are ready.  The cost for a new book is $5.  Please bring your Christmas book every week to lessons and to every group lesson in November and December.

Here is a picture of our Suzuki Jingle Bell Strings

from 2006!!!

Halloween Fun

Saturday October 24 we had our Violin Group Lessons for this month.  The theme of course was Halloween, and several violinists showed off great costumes!  The best game of the day was Violin Jeopardy. Miss Ruth reads a piece title or a description of a piece.  Everyone stands poised with their violin bow on the E string ready to play a fast tremolo (that is their bell!) when they want to answer correctly.  After a correct answer the student then plays the piece with the group and wins candy corn and pennies for points. The Jeopardy categories were Book 1 pieces for 3 points, Halloween Songs for 4 points and Christmas Carols for 3 points.  We often have many more categories to choose from when we play Jeopardy but on this day we were focused on Halloween musical tricks and Christmas Carols since the holidays are just around the corner.  Here is a picture of Miss Ruth in her award winning Galadriel costume for her family party.

 However this past Saturday she was simply a nice witch with a black hat.

Turning Suzuki pieces into Halloween Songs was fun.  We played Twinkle Twinkle Little Witch by making our first fingers low on the A and the E strings.  We played Go Tell the Goblin by playing B flat on the A string and F natural on the E string in Go Tell Aunt Rhody.  It made a spooky impression!  It's fun to play tremolo bowing on Song of the Wind and turn it into Song of the Spooks. We turned May Song into October Song by playing low 1's and low 2's throughout the piece.  Everybody knew exactly which piece to play when Miss Ruth said, "A piece about Dancing Scary Old Ladies...."  Witches' Dance by Paganini of course!  Here are a few of the great people who came to Halloween group in their costumes: 

                    L to R: Jane, Grant, Sophie, Abby and Maeve

                  Masquerade, Queen Maleficent and Professor Trelawny

                  The short and the long of it, we all play a mean fiddle!!

The Book 3-5 Group swelled to 12 people counting Miss Ruth.  In this group we practiced our Telemann Concerto for 4 Violins that is one of our featured numbers at the Christmas Concerts.  Please enjoy listening to the audio files of this fun piece! 

Telemann 1st mvt. Telemann 2nd mvt.

Suzuki Jingle Bells Strings

Did you know that you are a member of the Godfrey Studio awesome holiday performing group, Suzuki Jingle Bell Strings?  Every Christmas season we prepare for our December concerts by learning and reviewing the repertoire beginning in October, sometimes sooner if there is a cool new advanced piece to memorize.  It's okay if you don't participate maybe because you are going out of town, or you are a young beginner, or you simply can't add the commitment to your schedule.  But it sure is fun, practicing the pieces at group lessons and playing two concerts for all of our family and friends and many other people.

I have given you all a Christmas book ($5) and this you will have it forever until it wears out!!  In the meantime every year you will learn a few new pieces from the program until eventually you are playing every single piece!!  When we do music on the concert that you don't know, you can either stand in rest position or I will have you exit the stage until that part of the program is over and it is time for the next song that you know.  The dress for the concert is black trousers black socks and black shoes for the boys with a white shirt and long tie or bow tie, red vest; black skirt black tights and black shoes for the girls with a white 3/4 sleeve blouse for the girls and red vest.  Remind me that you need a red vest and I will fit you with one ($20).  This you will keep and wear every year for the concert until you grow out of it or graduate. When you need a larger size just bring it back and we will exchange it.  If I don't have your size our wonderful Kari Child will be making extra vests for us so we will all be looking good!!  Try on your Christmas vest now so to make sure it fits for this year.

The mystery performer is our Jingle Bell player.  Who will it be?  Every year I invite a young person not in the Godfrey Studio to play the jingle bells with us on several of our fun pieces.  Soon we will know!!  The final Jingle Bell Strings rehearsal is December 14 from 10am to 12noon at my ward building.  I will give you directions that week.  The Jingle Bell Strings concerts are on December 21 at 11am at the downtown library auditorium and at 2:30pm at the Parklane Senior Apartments on 1st South and 6th East.  I will have invitations so that you can invite all of your family and friends to the Library which seats 200 people.  Let's fill it up with all of the people we love to play for!!  Happy Holidays!!