Student Violin Blog

Taking a Break REALLY Helps!

2006-10-06T07:16:00.000-05:00

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.

Sometimes You Just Gotta' Take a Break

2006-10-04T20:14:00.000-05:00

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.

Practing on Lesson Day

2006-10-03T08:40:00.000-05:00

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 a new appreciation for scales

2006-10-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

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.

Revitalizing the Blog

2006-08-04T06:11:00.000-05:00

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.

How to Improve Sight Reading

2005-09-19T06:30:00.000-05:00

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.

Fall is Here and Violin Lessons are About to Begin!

2005-09-12T19:53:00.000-05:00

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

Free Online Violin Lessons

2005-09-09T05:51:00.000-05:00

If you have always dreamed of learning how to play the violin, now it has become incredibly easy with free online violin lessons. There are many web sites to choose from, so do a little research before you pick one. Also, as a student, you might like different aspects of different sites and will want to use lessons accordingly. The greatest thing about this is you are able to choose what fits your learning style best.

Also, free online violin lessons allow you to practice as much or as little as you want. There are no timed lessons, so you can fit learning how to play the violin into your schedule. If previously you only had free time late at night and there were no lessons taught during your availability, now you have the opportunity you have always dreamed of.

Also, the online lessons are on no time schedule and you can easily go over the same lesson as many times as you want until you master that skill. The online forum allows you to unabashedly practice any skill you like for as long as you like.

Another great aspect of free online violin lessons is you can move at your own pace. Learning online gives you control of how much and how fast you learn. Also, you can practice all day if you want and then take the next day off.

Finally, one of the best aspects is lessons are free. The cost factor alone prohibits many students from learning how to play the violin because it is a serious time and monetary commitment. While you will still have to buy the necessary instrument and accessories, the lessons are free, which in turn frees up an incredible amount of money.

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

Don't Tie Your Hands: Used Violin Bows Aren't Always Bargains

2005-08-09T08:46:00.000-05:00

Many students consider buying used violin bows to save money, however the truth is that once you have purchased a used bow you will still need to spend a considerable amount of money to make sure it plays properly. This is especially true if the bow is very old.

In order to have a quality bow that functions as it is supposed to, the frog, screw, stick, pad and hair must be in good condition. It is better they be in excellent condition, and if the bow is taken care of it will be.

First, the frog is the part of the bow that holds the hair. When the screw in the frog is tightened, it tightens the hair and makes it taut. Having just a bit of tautness is important for the hair to play the tune correctly. Also, the frog should always be loosened after playing to ensure the hairs stay in good condition. If used bows hairs are not in good condition or have been over taut, they may need to be replaced. Always check for this when considering buying a used bow. It can cost more money than you think.

Also, when considering the purchase of used violin bows, always check to make sure the stick and pad are also in good condition. If they are not, you might consider looking for another used or new bow rather than replacing these items. Regardless, it is important to check all parts of the bow before making a decision on whether or not a used violin bow is of the quality you want.
Used violin bows may be found in the classifieds, online, at music shops and the like. Although it doesn’t happen often, you might buy a used violin bow and find it is a diamond in the rough that simply needs a little tuning.

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

New articles on www.student-violins.com

2005-05-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

I wanted to let you know that I have been pretty busy lately updating www.student-violins.com. The site has a new look, new colors and more articles to help you in your journey with kids violins. Please stop by and take a look, you will find new articles on free online violin lessons and free violin sheet music. I am excited about the number of visitors the site receives each and every day as it is my sincere desire to help parents help their children!

Enjoy the new updates!

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

Suzuki Violin Instruction and Concerts

2005-04-13T13:22:00.000-05:00

Well we are gearing up today for our daughter's concert tonight which brings be to a point that I think is so important for your violin student. That is to make sure they are playing with a group. The Suzuki violin method encourages group participation. There are many reasons for this, but one of the most important is so that your child can aspire to what the more accomplished members of the group are doing.

I often get asked if there are free violin lessons online. Ugh, how can anyone think of that for their child. That's like asking me, where can we find cheap violins for sale. You get what you pay for! That's my answer to those types of questions. As we are getting ready for what I know will be an awesome time tonight, I can't help but be grateful for our violin teacher and the enrichment she has brought to our daughter's life.

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

Buy Violin Accessories

2005-04-07T09:42:00.000-05:00

If you are trying to learn how to tune a violin, you may want to think of purchasing a tuner. There are a few to choose from, this link will give you some good information on choosing a good violin tuner.

Buy Violin Accessories

Violin Study Methods for Beginning Violinists

2005-01-07T17:40:00.000-05:00

Suzuki Study Method or Traditional Violin Study Method

What is the best study method for your student violinist?

This article will provide you with information regarding the two most popular methods of violin study—the Suzuki study method and the traditional study method. I will hare my experience, as a parent — not as a music teacher. My hope is that you will find this information valuable in helping you determine which method of study — Suzuki or traditional— would best fit your needs.

The following is a brief outline of both study methods.

Suzuki violin method overview:

• Suzuki is very much a parental “hands-on” method of violin study. Parents must attend individual lessons so they will be able to help their child with practicing at home. This provides an invaluable tool for the child as well as a great chance for interaction in a fun and exciting journey for parent and child. The advantage of parental involvement cannot be emphasized enough.
• Formal education may start as early as two or three. It is also effective for students of any age.
• Emphasis is in watching and listening. Music is memorized by ear through repeatedly play recordings in the home. Listening to the recordings helps the student to internalize the details of the music such as dynamics, pitch and tone.
• Formal reading of music is not taught until basic skills have been mastered technically.
• In addition to individual lessons, group lessons are required with Suzuki. The purpose of working in a group is to give younger students the opportunity to observe others who are playing at a higher level. This is not a competitive arena and as a parent, you should be observing the group class. This is meant to be a positive and encouraging atmosphere.

Traditional violin method overview:
• Parental involvement usually not encouraged.
• Formal education usually begins between the ages of six and ten. Many traditional violin teachers are unwilling to take on a student younger than six.
• Beginning students do not listen to recordings of the pieces before they start to learn them. This is to develop sight reading skills.
• Individual lessons are all that is required. There are no group lessons and little to no interaction with peers.

Our daughter’s teacher is primarily an advocate of the Suzuki method. We have enjoyed the Suzuki method for the following reasons:
Parental involvement — we strongly believe this has been a key element in our daughter’s success and also her enjoyment of the violin. We are in a position where I am able to commit to the practice times so this has worked out well for us.
Group lessons — this has been an encouragement and inspiration for our daughter. Because of group lessons, she has been able to play in trios at the last two Christmas concerts. The older children are kind and the atmosphere in warm and inviting.
Most importantly is the teacher. We have a wonderful teacher who is willing and able to work with our daughter on every level. This past year, the teacher felt our daughter needed to develop her sight reading skills to prepare for the next level of Suzuki. So, we took a break from Suzuki and did traditional for several months. You have got to find a teacher who knows when to challenge your child and also when to step back. I cannot stress this enough, you have to have a good teacher.

In closing, you are strongly encouraged to do whatever it takes to make this a fun, enjoyable experience for your child. If you start with one teacher and find they are not meeting the needs of your child, then don’t wait too long to switch. After all, a poor experience at a young age can turn a child off to music lessons for a long time, possible forever.

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

How Humidity Will Affect Your Student Violin

2005-01-01T15:20:00.000-05:00

Most new student violin owners are totally unaware of how humidity can affect the violin. Violins, being made from wood, will absorb moisture and expand as well as contract when they are dry. Extreme changes in environment may cause damage to the violin. An example of an extreme change would be moving from Vermont to Hawaii. This would be going from a fairly dry climate to a climate very high in humidity. Violins that undergo such an extreme change in environment can crack, sealed edges may come loose.

Student violins, or any violin should ideally be kept in a moderate environment of about 60–70°F with 50 percent humidity. Dry climates may cause the tone to become hard, edgy, and dry. Excess humidity causes instruments to sound dull, thick, and unresponsive.

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

Student Violin and Improving the Pitch

2004-12-20T07:01:00.000-05:00

A fun way to improve your child's pitch on the violin is to play duets with them. You can do this on the piano and your child will love to play with you. It is truly amazing how much this will help them to keep in tune. It will develop another area of their playing and you will both enjoy it as well.

Remember you must be playing on a piano that is in tune or it will not be helpful to your child at all.

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

Student Violin—Developing Site Reading Skills

2004-12-10T06:42:00.000-05:00

Our daughter has always excelled at playing the student violin by ear. From the first year of violin lessons she has known how to tune a violin because her ear is so good. However, because she had such a good ear, her site reading skills were behind. This became a major frustration for her.

To help her elevate her site reading skills we started her on a duet book. Because I play the piano, this turned out to be a great time together. It is amazing how her site reading has improved. To effectively implement this method you must be sure to not give in and play the tune before the student tries it. Any student who has a good ear only needs to hear the tune once and they've pretty much got it. This, of course, defeats the whole purpose if you are trying to develop their site reading skills.

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

Student Violin—Violin fingering information

2004-12-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

How to Remember Those Violin Fingering Ladders

I wanted to give you a tip on helping your child to learn their violin fingering. Our daughter's teacher uses ladders. There are three ladders:
1. the natural ladder—plays natural notes
2. the flat ladder—plays the flat notes
3. the sharp ladder—plays the sharp notes

Each ladder has two fingers that are buddies. We have always had a hard time trying to remember who the buddies are. Here is what we came up with:

We say these in a fun, lively way,
1. NATURALLY, 1, 2 is all you gotta' do. (for the NATURAL ladder)
2. A FLAT 3 & 4 is where it's at. (for the flat ladder)
3. 2 & 3 sharp tarps cover a harp.

It is amazing how this has helped our daughter remember her violin fingering chart and has alleviated alot of frustration.

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

Restringing Violin

2004-10-20T13:53:00.000-05:00

This article will give you, the parent of a beginner violin student, some
knowledge about violin strings. You really don't need to know a lot about
this, but it always helps to have some knowledge regarding your childs
violin.

It seems that we have gone through every string problem there could be. Here's a story about one of them. The first time our daughter moved up to the next size, we joyfully skipped to the rental store fully anticipating the incredibly rich sound the large violin would produce. Of course, our daughter was too shy to really give the violin a good workout at the shop, but no problem, let's buzz home and see how this baby sounds!! Hmmmmm, seems it needs tuning. O.K., not a problem, we know how to do that. Tune, play for 2 minutes. Hmmmmm, seems it's flat again. What's going on here

Well, the shop was kind enough to think of restringing this particular rental violin before renting it out again. (That does not always happen). New strings, we learned, have to spend about one week stretching and going flat before they settle down

The violin teachers I know discourage parents from restringing their children violins. Honestly, I wouldn't even attempt it. We take the violin back to the rental shop for restringing.

So to recap
1. Restringing a violin will require one week for the strings to stop going flat constantly

2. Become aware of when to change strings on a violin

3. Decent strings affect the tone of the instrument.

Free violin sheet music

2004-09-17T07:07:00.000-05:00

I have been researching free violin sheet music. Go here, www.student-violins.com, and click on my partners, there is a site with free violin sheet music. I will keep you posted as I add more reference sites.

Leah

Encouraging Your Budding Violinist to Practice

2004-09-09T05:49:00.000-05:00

Encouraging Your Budding Violinist to Practice
9:00 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm, — Practice Time, What’s the Big Deal?

If you find yourself immersed in violin tuning, violin fingering charts and perhaps Suzuki music you may find the following helpful.

This short article is the first in a series aimed at shedding some light on this mystery of encouraging your child to enjoy, maybe even look forward to violin practice time.

If you can relate to any of the following statements, please don’t tell the rest of us!

1. My child is so motivated to practice her violin, she will go to bed early in order to awake and be ready for practice at 6:00 am.

2. My son quit the soccer team because it was cutting into his violin practice time.
3. I often spend many hours online searching for free violin sheet music just to satisfy my daughter’s unquenchable thirst for new music. She loves the challenge!

4. We cancelled our family trip to Hawaii because our son just couldn’t bear the fact that he would miss two violin lessons. He’s just s-o-o-o motivated and we don’t want to break that spirit in him.

5. Violin tuning has become a fun family event, we all love to get involved.

6. My daughter is learning about fractions by memorizing the different violin sizes, 1/16, 1/10, ¼, who know fractions could be so much fun?!

For the rest (probably 99.99%) of us, let me assure you, there is hope! Chances are, we may never be able to claim any one of the four statements above, but there are positive, fun methods of encouraging your child to practice without pain to them or you.

Time of day. Three little words that pack a huge punch when it comes to creating an effective practice time. Two things you need to consider are:
1. Your child’s age
2. Observe what time of day they have the highest level of concentration.

My daughter began studying the violin at age five. At that time we practiced in the morning, for no particular reason other than it was a convenient time. Occasionally, practice time would get pushed back to the afternoon hours, no big deal …. or so I thought. Those afternoon practices never went well, but sometimes I don’t catch on too quickly. In fact, the somewhat unfavorable afternoon practices were not what clued me in to the fact that my child was not an “afternoon person.” It was her writing practice that finally got through to me. Five minutes worth of writing practice in the morning became 20 to 30 minutes of agony in the afternoon. Aha! The light bulb had been turned on, “Maybe,” I said to myself, “just maybe she is a morning person!”

With this fresh information tickling my brain, a commitment was made to keep violin practice time to mornings only. I even went so far as to skip the practice if time ran away from us in the morning. Better to skip it, then to put her through the frustration. As my daughter gets older I’ve noticed a definite improvement in her ability to maintain a solid concentration level in the afternoon hours.

Now, your child may not be a morning person. Perhaps their energy level is highest in the early afternoon hours or early evening hours. What is important is that your are aware of the time of day their concentration level is best. For younger children this time is usually in the morning, but that is not always true. Not sure when they are at their best? Well, just observe them reading or writing or doing something that requires them to focus. Try different activities at different times of they day. You will definitely notice a difference in their ability to complete the task. The same thing that may take them five minutes to complete when they are at their best, will become a task of frustration when they are at their lowest energy level of the day.

Remember to have fun with your child, after all this business of being involved with your child’s music practice is supposed to be a wonderful and precious experience!

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