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.

Violin Olympics

Violin Group Lessons on February 22 were a lot of fun.  In the Twinkle Group we earned gold medals for best bow hold (Olivia A) best bow game (Mason) best Twinkle variation (Olivia G) best Fiddle song (Ethan) best Lightly Row (Sabrina) and even more Twinkle events!  We played "London Bridge is Falling Down" and Chantelle got the gold medal for getting under the bridge the most times without getting caught!!

In the Book 1-2 group we had a great time playing the Olympic Theme by ear and even the first phrase of our national anthem,. The Star Spangled Banner.  We practiced some pieces from Book 1 such as "O Come Little Children", "May Song:" and "Long Long Ago".  We reviewed our Song Words to Book 1 pieces and we played a lot of Book 2 such as "Musette" and "Hunters Chorus".  Everyone earned a gold medal for an excellent violin technique such as keeping the bow on the highway, good dynamics "piano" and "forte" with crescendos, or good Giddy Up bows on Hunters Chorus.

Miss Ruth earns a gold medal for good teaching early on a Saturday morning!

In the Book 3-5 Group we played The Star Spangled Banner in a beautiful duet version.  We also sight read national anthems from the countries which received many medals at the 2014 Winter Olympics such as Canada, Austria, Germany and Russia.

Some of our music from Advanced Group and Books 3-5

In the Advanced Group we got a lot accomplished on well known work called Canon by Johann Pachelbel, a German composer from the Baroque era or pre-1700's.  We studied and marked the fingerings and bowings.  We noticed that the three violin parts are exactly the same except for a few bars of music at the end.  Each part enters exactly two measures behind the one before it.  The Advanced Ensemble will give a wonderful performance of this piece on the Spring Recital.

Erik, Victoria, Shalese and Whitney at the Advanced Ensemble

  

Wonderful Opportunity

Group Lessons are extremely important!

Here are some great reasons for coming to Violin Group this Saturday January 25:

• Socialize with other students in the studio. Make new friends!
• Learn to play in tune and in rhythm with other violinists.
• Learn to follow the leader in a group.
• Learn music theory.  
• Get better at major and minor scales and arpeggios.
• Practice notereading and sightreading.
• Review pieces.  Get ready for the Graduation Concert February 4th at Juan Diego High School!
• Perfect violin techniques such as special bowings, shifting and vibrato.
• Practice ear training.  
• Prepare for ensemble concerts and solo performances.
• Learn to be supportive of others.
• Learn to play with confidence in front of others.
• Learn to be respectful and cooperative.
• Get motivated by watching and listening to other students.
• Play games and have fun!
• Eat treats!

Miss Ruth loves teaching Group Lessons and loves it when everyone comes!  See you Saturday morning!

Last Summer Groups

Today's group lessons were fun and challenging.  In the Book 2-3 Group we played Tonalization in several rhythms.  We worked on the back motion of the left 1st finger to make B flat and F natural.  Then we played a lot of familiar songs by ear, in the key of F major or B flat, requiring us to use the special low 1. It was really fun to play with a wonderful accompanist, Mia's dad, Dr. Sakonju.  He accompanied us on the piano playing Hunter's Chorus, Witches' Dance and Two Grenadiers from Suzuki Violin Bk 2.  We also played a fun Israeli folksong called Tzena.

In the Book 1 Group we played a LOT of games.  Some highlights were "Pass the Bow", where we stand in a circle playing a Twinkle variation, then stop and give our violin bow to the person in front of us when Miss Ruth claps loudly.  The trick is to pick up right where we left off when she clapped! Maeve and Eli played "Minuet Snippets" where jumped in playing when they recognized the Bach Minuet from Suzuki Bk 1 that Miss Ruth was playing.  They earned points for jumping in the quickest and getting the most correct notes. Colby's younger brother Ethan watched our group lesson because he just started lessons with Miss Ruth. He joined in when we played "Slap Hands", "Hide the Rosin" and "London Bridges."

The Book 6 Group is now The Advanced Ensemble.  Everyone has a Blue Folder with a variety of duets and trios.  We will polish chosen pieces at our rehearsals and perform them at recitals.  We had a very successful practice on the Bach Double Violin Concerto, 1st movement.  We rehearsed carefully on the Pachelbel Canon with 3 violin parts, and the Ave Maria with a simple yet rich harmony part.

Enjoy this beautiful recording of the Canon!

Pachelbel Canon London Symphony

Group Lesson Activities

The first two groups today were duet lessons!  Emma and Sarv attended for the Book 2-3 level.  Thanks to Sarv's dad for bringing our glazed donuts, traditional treats for group days. We practiced Tonalization with different rhythms and in harmony, did sight reading and Suzuki review and played the Memory Game.  Sophie and Jade played together in the Book 1 group.  Here you see them note reading.

The advanced group played 3 octave scales and a shifting etude to warm up.  Then we focused on reading and feeling rhythms.  We clapped and counted the rhythms from the book Winning Rhythms by Edward Ayola.  Then we did quite a bit of sight reading from different pieces and found a beautiful blended sound.  Here are excerpts from Waltz by Brahms and Hallelujah arranged by William Starr.

Great Groups

Group Lessons today were awesome.  In Books 2-4 level we practiced writing on music manuscript paper.  We got good at drawing treble clefs, time signatures and whole notes.  In the the Book 4 group we wrote out all the notes to Twinkle Theme in D major.  We also learned our key signatures and reviewed the order of the sharps and the flats.  We played Seitz and Vivaldi concertos in the Book 4 group and a duet by Beethoven.  In the Book 1 group we played the Snippets game and reviewed several pieces.  We also played London Bridge.  We tried to get under the bridge before Miss Ruth played the wrong note and the bridge dropped!.  Book 2 kids played Hide the Rosin and got really good at playing "piano" and "forte."  In the Book 6 group we played our 3 octave scales around the circle of 5ths.  We also reviewed relative minor keys and played Bach A minor and Vivaldi A minor.  Then we read some of the Canon by Pachelbel as well as the Redwing fiddle duet and the Martini Gavotte duet.  We even played the Memory Game and everyone got music matches.  Thanks for your participation!!  
See you soon.