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.

Monkey Song and A Scale

Dear Parents:  Following are the links to the demos of the important Pre-Twinkle steps that you are doing or soon will do with your Pre-Twinkler.  Please let me know if you have any questions! The pieces should be taught and practiced at home in this order: Flower Song (see preceding blog entry) Monkey Song, Ed Song (in preceding blog entry) and finally the A Scale.  Happy Practicing!

How to Help Your Child At His Lesson

• Attend lessons regularly and teach your child to be quiet and respectful if there is a lesson in progress when you arrive.  That way s/he will learn that there is something important going on!
• Please turn off your cell phones but if you absolutely need to use it, please step quietly out of the lesson room.
• When you practice at home, use the same routine and sequence of events that you observe at the lesson. Use the same language and practice the same exercises that I use.  Be creative as well.  If you find a phrase or a Game that helps in daily practice, share it with me!
• Often a child will appear forgetful at his lesson, or do poorly in exercises or pieces that s/he did well at home. Do not become alarmed or interfere too much when s/he is trying to pay attention to the teacher. S/he may not be too familiar with me. By helping too much, the closeness between teacher and student may be delayed.  Be careful with excessive enthusiasm as it may also distract from the teacher-child interaction and concentration.
• Sometimes I will invite the parent to participate so pay close attention to the lesson!
• Don't worry about your child making mistakes, because the lesson is a learning process.
• Good practice is always the cure for not-so-good lessons.  Ask me for more guidance in practicing  if you need it!
• Utilize my Worksheets and write down the important points as I present them.  Study the notes before practice times.  If you do this, your student will make steady progress and will soon be ready for the next step in his learning.
• Younger brothers and sisters are always welcome to come, to listen, and to learn.  However, if they steal away your attention from the child in the lesson, or distract the child himself, other arrangements should be made.
• Show interest in other students but avoid making comparisons between your child and others.  Each one of us is awesome!  Each one of us is unique with a personal environment specific to our needs.
• We have a very supportive family in the Godfrey Studio.  Thank you for your commitment and support at home and in the lessons!  Thank you for your desire to keep LEARNING!!

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!

Excellence and Fun From the Start!

Isn't it great to play the violin or the viola?  When we first start with the Suzuki method it is SO exciting.  To hear the sound of beautiful violin or viola tone, see the teacher demonstrate and after learning many essential pre-twinkle skills to finally replicate the magic--please Mom can I do it again?  That is the moment we want to have over and over, progressing with each repetition, motivated by each small success.  I love putting myself in the child's shoes and experiencing this with each new beginner.  Difficult as it may be at home to find the perfect time of day to practice and re-create this bubble in yours and your child's life, whenever you do, it is like adding another day of sunshine or rain or good earth to the growing seedling.  While working hard on the essential skills such as posture, bow hold, sound of bow on open string, or doing a whole pre-twinkle song perfectly many times,  remember to take a break and play a bow game, or do the marble test, or some cross crawl brain gym (such as marching while crossing hands to opposite legs).  Or, just stop and run around the room!  Remind yourselves how many skills you are learning, and learn to identify them to your child and praise them for success whenever you notice it.  Recently I perused a list of skills learned in Twinkle, and Book 1.  31 Twinkle skills and 44 Book 1 skills, quite amazing!  Remind me to give you a copy of this list for your reference.  Below are the first several Pre-Twinkle Violin and Viola skills:

1. Rest Position
2. Bow
3. Holding Steps
4. Stance: endurance+focus
5. Sidedness
6. Finger numbers
7. Bow hold
8. Up+Down
9. Arm circles
10. Rhythms: clap, tap, soap
11. Bow on violin
12. Quick finger placement

There are many more!  Please enjoy these photos of our newest Twinklers and their Great Starts!!

Olivia's best bow hold

Aubrey's perfect posture

Chantelle has a beautiful bunny!

Isabella starts her Twinkles

The Marble Test is great for Ethan's posture!

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.

Amazing Institute

The Intermountain Suzuki String Institute was fantastic this year.  As a teacher I am so inspired to rub shoulders with great teachers from all over the world.  Getting to know them and exchange ideas as we work hard with the wonderful students all week helps me to see how music truly is changing the world---in many states and countries far from our own!  Ramona Stirling, ISSI director continues to realize her vision of bringing many diverse individuals together with enormous collective talent and abilities to enrich our experience in Utah.   I especially enjoyed talking with the teachers from Belgium and Singapore and the families from Argentina.  For the 35th anniversary of ISSI we learned a work written for us by Michael McLean called "ISSI Gettin' Down"  which was performed twice by all 800 students and teachers on the final concert!  Wow!  It started with a soulful hymn melody and developed cool funky themes and jazzy tunes throughout, ending with the beautiful crescendo of the hymn tune.  Really wonderful!
Here are some pictures of me with my classes at Institute.....

The Practice Store

The Practice Store is fully stocked for the summer!  Practice every day and earn one practice dollar at your lesson for each week that you are diligent.  Lots of fun summer toys and games, stuffed animals, books and videos to choose from.