 Piano trio at music summer school: Erin on left | Erin's summer workshop experience this year focused on piano at our local music summer school. She did participate in the beginner orchestra on violin, but unfortunately there just wasn't a realistic option for a Suzuki violin institute for her this year. Nonetheless, she's continued to barrel ahead in her learning. |
She finished the Book 3 repertoire up in mid-July and is now ready to start polishing the second piece in Book 4. Her note-learning continues to come readily, and her posture is generally reasonable. Her vibrato has gained stability in the past few weeks and is occuring freely throughout her repertoire. Last year at this time she was working on The Two Grenadiers in mid-Book 2 and now she's easily mastering Book 4 repertoire, with decent vibrato, much-improved posture, good shifting facility and reasonable sight-reading skills. So it feels to me like she's finally reaping the rewards of her early start, rich environment and diligent work.
September 20, 2001
Erin took her violin to the local agricultural fair ("Buskers Welcome" said the posters) and played her review repertoire for about 25 minutes whilst standing beside her open violin case. Technical clarity: B+. Cuteness factor: A+. Proceeds: $70!
December 2, 2001
Things just keep rolling along for Erin. She's got a nice, stable vibrato now and is shifting easily. She's wrapped up her first polishing of the three Seitz Concerto movements in Book 4, and has made short work of note-learning for the Vivaldi a minor 1st movement which she is playing confidently now while preparing to start the 3rd. Six months ago I would have predicted her forward progress would slow at the early-Book-4 level. Now I'm sure it will slow by the late-Book-4 level, but I've been wrong so far and I'm prepared to be wrong again.
I'm struck lately by how the perfectionism and volatility of the past is so much smaller a problem now. She is still prone to melt-downs, but they come at really understandable times. For instance, after four metronome runs through the last page of the Vivaldi 1st movement, she develops a recurrent stumble while trying the arpeggio sixteenths in the 3rd movement with the metronome for the first time. Big deal: I'd probably have a meltdown in the same situation myself! Maturity is giving her more resources to tackle bigger things.
In early November she attended a large regional youth orchestra weekend workshop, a thrilling success in a number of ways. This was her first serious orchestral experience, and she was able to pick from a smorgasbord of repertoire choices, including some very challenging pieces. The "Tutti" orchestra comprised 147 players, from age 7 (Erin) to senior high-schoolers and some adult students and teacher-ringers as well. The final concert, after two days of intensive rehearsing, was in a brand-new performing arts theatre, so it really was a fine introduction to "big-time orchestral playing".
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In case you have trouble picking Erin out of the crowd, you get a little help. |
The left hand posture problems continue to be a thing of the past. The big push over the past 6 months has been to get her to take responsibility for musical details like dynamics and phrasing. She can play exceedingly musically, and mimicks musical details extremely well, but has shown little interest in actually internalizing them and making use of them without reminders and prods. Probably this will come with maturity as well, but her grandmother-teacher and I continue to try to push the envelope a little by asking her (over and over and over, of course) to please, for example, remember the contrast in dynamics at the end of the fourth section.
We'll be celebrating Christmas in our characteristic low-key way. Erin will be involved in three concerts. In one of them she'll be playing arrangements of a couple of Christmas tunes in a violin-cello-harp trio with a local cellist friend (also age 7) and his mom. These "community connections" are, I think, really important. She'll also be joining the inter-generational local community orchestra after Christmas. She's been attending rehearsals since infancy, so this venue sort of feels like "home" to her. I think the other orchestra members are looking forward to it as much as she is.
March 10, 2002
All I can say is it's lucky we're homeschooling. Music is taking up a lot of time, especially as Erin's piano abilities have begun to catch up to her violin abilities. We now spend over 2 hours a day practising the two instruments, and that doesn't include the time and energy devoted to lessons (and piano is now requiring an all-day out-of-town excursion), theory classes, group classes and orchestra rehearsals.
After a couple of weeks of really conflict-ridden practising, we seem to be back in the swing of things. Although Erin goes through regular spurts when she is extremely difficult to work with during practising, she's always adamant that she doesn't want to quit studying either instrument. So we keep trying to find ways to work together productively, even when it the task seems insurmountable. Recently we've been dealing with the loss of structure of weekly lessons, as Erin's grandma-violin-teacher is abroad for several weeks. We've started a regular practising challenge. She's trying for 64 days in a row. My own students were all asked to choose a goal, either 16, 36, 64 or 100 days in a row, and Erin has joined in with a 64-day challenge. She's already 40 days into a piano-100-day-self-challenge, so adding violin isn't such a big deal.
So here we are again, out the other side of the recent dark tunnel and we both feel happy about how things are going. We've done the "spade work" on the Bach Double 2nd violin part and are gradually putting the 1st and 2nd violin parts together. Almost half the piece is fitting together securely now. Our practising routine now includes some three-octave scales and arpeggios, a shifting exercise or two, some brief vibrato-development exercises, work on the Bach Double as a duet, polishing work on at least one other Book 4 piece, work on the two "new" pieces at the start of Book 5, playing through a review piece from each of the earlier books and a couple of fiddle tunes (Tam Lynn's Reel is a current favourite), and a few minutes spent on orchestra music. No wonder it seems to take a while!
We're toying with the idea of a summer Suzuki institute, but not certain. Because Erin's everyday life revolves around music, musical friends and musical events, rather than school, institutes aren't quite as much the unique immersion experience that they are for some children. I'm anticipating that Noah, her younger brother, won't be emotionally ready to be enrolled as a student this summer, and I'm not exactly relishing the thought of single-parenting my way through an intense institute week, with the needs of two younger siblings being to some extent set aside. We may opt again for last summer's solution: piano enrollment at our local (traditional) music summer school, with orchestral participation on violin as an extra hour. That way Noah and Sophie can spend a certain amount of time at home with their dad, playing and having their needs met more adequately.
One of the things that delights me about Erin's unique situation as a young, fairly advanced violinist in a small rural program is her lack of any condecension or competitiveness concerning other students. Perhaps it's partly her nature, partly the fact that she's not in an age-stratified environment at school, and partly the collection of musical friends she's blessed with, but she is not becoming a musical snob as she becomes more and more capable. She loves participating in group classes with the Book 1 kids, loves playing in community orchestra and giggling over missed entries with the grownups, loves "taking notes" for her little brother during his Twinkle practising.
July 17, 2002
The big push in the past few months has been to find a balance between more autonomy and responsibility for Erin in her practising, and the ongoing need for guidance and facilitation in problem-solving. She's now wrapping up the Vivaldi g minor concerto, 3rd movement and trying to keep the weighty Book 4 and 5 repertoire firmly within her grasp. Two complete Vivaldi Concerti and the Bach Double are a lot to retain when they've all been learned in the past 6 months. She's practising about a third of the time completely independently, and taking daily responsibility for her review work. After some growing pains, the independent practising is proving increasingly diligent and efficient. Eight seems pretty young for this, I agree, but she's always craved autonomy and independence, this kid, easily falling into patterns of conflict and resistence, and since we were wanting her to take more responsibility for musical details, this practising independence fits with the "total program".
We've opted not to do an institute this summer; Noah wasn't quite ready. Instead Erin will again do the local music summer school on piano, with an orchestra option on violin. She'll also have the chance to work on three or four violin-piano duet numbers with a pianist friend of hers who will be visiting for a week. The two girls live 9 hours apart but became fast friends last summer. They're quite well-matched on their respective instruments. It should be a productive and enjoyable partnership.
Hitting the Target
