Building Skills - notes from a talk by Ed Krietman

Definition of skill:
"To be able to do the task consistently, with ease."
EVERY TIME, not almost every time.  It has to look easy, feel easy, and sound easy.

3 C's:

1. Comprehension (knowledge) - understand the task
2. Cooperation - practice until you get it right (physical cooperation)
3. Constructive Repetition - when you get it right, repeat six times to make up for each time you didn't get it right, and then add 10 more repetitions

Review to remember vs review to play better: to play better = standard rises, layers are added, work toward playing artistically.

Goals when reviewing: Tone, in tune, musical line, essence of child coming through the piece.

Transformation comes through skill, not knowledge.

At the bottom of the page I jotted: "See quote Nurtured by Love art."  Possibly I was referring to one of these two sentences?  [edit - maybe it says"Swc quote...," like I would know it well enough to know what that stood for?]

"The substance of art did not lie, after all, at such a height or distance.  It was, rather, in a most ordinary place: within my own self."

"Works of art encompass in their entirety an artist's personality, sensibility, and ability." (Nurtured by Love - revised ed. p.106
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Finally, notes jotted on a scrap of paper transcribed here ... I can't even tell you when/where this talk aired.  Possibly in Parents as Partners 2012?  Or the SAA Online Mini Conference? I'll use the PP label, in any event, as I will with the other notes I found with this one.  If any reader can help fill in my memory lapses, please contribute!

The iPod Theory

More from Parents as Partners video "7 Guarantees for More Progress During Practice" by James Hutchins, Suzuki violin teacher, teacher trainer, and parent:

Every performance a student hears gets "downloaded" and stays with them. We all know we'd like to have the best performances downloaded. But as we are learning, we will play mistakes: out of tune notes, wrong bowings, etc. These are also getting downloaded. If we are only playing it ourselves, that is the only version getting downloaded and memorized, and it's the wrong version.

For an example of what should happen, he drew a chart (for those reading music - if not yet reading, just take that step out):

Start with playing a piece by memory.

For every memory performance you want to have played it two times with the music.

For every two times with the music, you will want to have listened to it four times.

Often this is reversed - listened once, played with music twice, played by memory four times. This results in more mistakes as the wrong version was downloaded more than the correct one.

You may think all this listening will take a long time, especially for the longer pieces. But if you start early, even a year or two previous, the right version will be downloaded before they even start and the student will know a wrong note right away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can attest to witnessing both the good example and the "often happens" one!

When a good amount of listening has occurred, the learning is so much easier!

Practice tips: Lights out!

Practicing in the dark helps us to listen better. We can hear intonation, tone, expression. The practice partner can use a FLASHLIGHT to check one thing at a time: Bow hold, flat left wrist, general posture... It's also a fun motivator for kids to play in the dark with a flashlight!

Thanks to James Hutchins for sharing this and other ideas in his Parents as Partners talk, "Guarantees for More Progress During Practice, the Sequel"! http://suzukiassociation.org/ppo/13356/ for those registered.

I just love that playing the cello is something we can do in power outages - as long as we have some repertoire memorized!

All Ears

Notes from Parents as Partners videos "Listening" presented by Edward Kreitman.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of the Suzuki Method is listening.

Three types of listening:

Passive Listening - The CD of music being learned by the student is played over and over, every day. It is played in the background at meals, playtime, in the car, at bedtime, etc. The child will learn the tunes, learn about good tone of their instrument, and good intonation. The music becomes internalized. When they can sing the tune, they are ready to learn to play it. They don't necessarily have to be able to sing in tune, but should know pitch direction and pulse.

Parallel Listening - Sometimes listen to the CD several books ahead of where the student is. Hearing where they are going is encouraging and motivating to the student and parent. It builds a vision. Listen to any other music as well - all styles are beneficial.

Active or Targeted Listening - Within a lesson or practice time, a student is asked to listen for a particular thing in the music - slurs, form, articulation, etc.

Three ways to learn music:
Rote - by being told fingerings, one note at a time, and memorizing them.
Reading - requires skills the very young are not yet ready for
Listening - by EXPERIENCING the music through the senses, it becomes internalized

Learning through listening broken down into steps:
Be able to tell if pitches are the same or different.
Able to tell higher, lower, or same pitch
Internalize the song
Understand the logic of the instrument (piano - keys go lower to higher left to right, string instruments - four strings, next highest to next lowest within one string, moving string to string)
Gain the technical skill for playing the instrument
Train the ear

Suzuki repertoire was designed with learning by ear in mind - early songs use steps and skips:
Twinkle uses a descending scale, Lightly Row goes up the scale and up the chord, the rhythm requires careful listening. Song of the Wind has more steps and skips and a spot with a technical challenge. Don't talk about the number of times a note is repeated - the SONG tells you when to change - the internal version gained by listening.

In practice time with the parent, the child at book one level reviews previous pieces (15 - 20 minutes), works on the current piece (5- 10 minutes), and then the parent can leave the child to spend no more than about five minutes exploring and finding the notes for their next piece, based on the internalized music. If they get stuck you can give them just the next finger. No need to spoon feed the music. If they have figured out the notes in advance, then the working piece can be about how to play it, not just getting the notes.

The Listening Loop while playing the instrument: Concept - Actions - Sound - Ear - Brain - Analyze - Continue or Adjust. This happens several times a second.

Many students don't listen to themselves play and miss out on the loop! You may have to remind them that everyone else is listening - they need to, too!


Edward Kreitman's books: Teaching from the Balance Point, and Teaching with an Open Heart.

September

September is a wonderful month. Warm days, cool nights, and new beginnings.

Some start the new year in January, but for me, September has always been much more of a new year, being so immersed in the September to June school year culture most of my life.  I especially loved the start of the school year when teaching my own children.  I am so glad I was able to start teaching cello lessons as soon as our home school years were over so I still had something to start new in September.  And not only am I excited about the start of cello lessons this month, I also have some of those "New Year's goals" (not resolutions) in other areas of my life. Another post, maybe. 

I've been preparing for the new cello year by reading - getting motivated, adding tools to my teaching "tool-chest" to hopefully make me a better teacher.

I've been reading these:
The Art of Cello Teaching (Gordon Epperson)
Back issues of The Suzuki Association of the Americas' Minijournal
Playing the String Game (Phyllis Young)
Sing a Song of Twinkle (Charlene Wilson)

And I've been re-reading portions of these:
Ability Development from Age Zero (S. Suzuki)
To Learn with Love (William and Constance Starr)
Helping Parents Practice (Edmund Sprunger)
[Ideas for] Teaching Suzuki Cello (Charlene Wilson)

I've also watched some DVDs:
Exploring the Bow Arm (Orlando Cole/Lynn Harrell)
Parents as Partners 2006 (Suzuki Association of the Americas)
Nurtured by Love -the life and work of Shinichi Suzuki

AND I've been in conversation with other music teachers.  I was hoping to attend the Suzuki Valhalla Institute to observe the experienced teachers there... maybe next year!  I did get to spend one morning at Campocello in Vernon, as well as attend their closing concert.

We used to do some of our home schooling outdoors on such nice September days - should we move our cello lessons outdoors, too?  Something to think about!

Importance of Playing Review Pieces

Rita Hauck titled this Parents as Partners presentation The Importance of Playing Review Pieces.

The importance of playing review pieces well:
To learn to play with...

• Excellent technique - good posture, hand position
• Beautiful tone - music is first and foremost about sound
• Appropriate tempo - a slow tempo ensures accuracy
• Sensitive musicianship - phrasing, shaping, dynamics, ritards, rubato, the overall projection of the deeper meaning of music
• Balance between melody and accompaniment (right and left hands of piano)
• Development of intellect - memory

 Ability breeds ability - playing review pieces is more important than playing new pieces.

Benefit and value of playing review pieces well:
It is motivating to the students and parents to be playing something well.

The three stages of learning Dr Suzuki outlines:
1) Learn the notes and new techniques of a piece
2) Gain fluency, ease, consistency
3)Artistic stage - more focus on the musical aspect - the spirit and heart of the music


Playing common repertoire of Suzuki pieces allows for group playing locally, at camps, or workshops.

How do you accomplish the enormous goal of playing review pieces well?

Divide book 1 into sections  1/2 or 1/3 the book or 1/4 to be reviewed every day. 
Book 2 and beyond: "Special treatment."  Use a metronome.  A: hands separate up to tempo, next day B: hands together slowly, C: together up to tempo (for piano)

Review pieces at every lesson, with praise.

Have a graduation recital for each book completed - review the entire book daily for one month first.

Teachers, stay on the same page with parents and students:  not leading from ahead, pushing from behind, criticizing from above, but working together for common goal of beautiful playing, which will motivate everyone: student, parent, teacher.

"After the first piece is internalized, train some more, and add the next piece.  Master and add the next. Keep each piece learned so that it can be played at any time.  This is not just the power of memorization, but the power of internalization." - S. Suzuki (Ability Development)

"Just playing through many pieces is not good training if there will be no one piece that is really played with excellence.  Just being able to say, 'I can play all these pieces,' is in fact insufficient, if it results in not developing musical sense, fine interpretation, and beautiful tone."  - S. Suzuki (Ability Development)

“Create fine ability with an old piece—if this method is carried out correctly, every child will grow splendidly.”
—S. Suzuki (Where Love Is Deep)

Parent Talk (Practice Talk)

Carrie Reuning-Hummel's Parents as Partners' talk is labeled Practice Talk above the video and Parent Talk on the video. It's both.

Carrie has an interesting perspective, because she has been on all points of the Suzuki Triangle.  She was first the student (among the first Suzuki students in the US), even having some lessons directly from Dr. Suzuki, then she became a teacher, then a parent. Her children are now grown.

Her most positive experiences as a student were the times when adults could see her for who she was.  Even as an example student on stage with Dr. Suzuki, she always felt he gave that to her.  She encourages parents to strive to do that with their own children.  The old Suzuki term for a parent was "home teacher", but she feels that puts a bit too much on the parents, and they aren't as equipped to teach as the teacher.  She feels a better term is "practice partner".  This will mean different things with different children. She uses her own children as examples.  With one, being right there with the child's practice was too intense, she had to diffuse things by turning her back, being across the room, paging through a book...  With the other, if she had done that, he would have felt abandoned!

You need to learn what works best with your child to become the best helper for them.  See them for who they are.  This might start with learning to see ourselves for who we are.  What are our gifts, our motivations, our temperaments?  She sees talents and gifts as two different things.  A talent is something you are good at.  A gift is something which if taken away would cause suffering - your love, passion, what you must do.  So a talent is not who our children are.

How are your children motivated?  Externally or internally?  She thought she might motivate her daughter by saying things like, "Let's surprise your teacher with how well you will play this week."  But that did not matter so much to her daughter, she just loved the music, and that was what motivated her.

We need balance in our attitude, in our way of giving support and providing a foundation.  Some may do all the instrument care, packing, unpacking, rosining the bow, carrying the instrument, etc.  Then hand it to the child with a message of, "do this for me."  Some may be too detached, do nothing, and say, "I don't know why he doesn't practice!"  We should be detached enough that their instrument is their own - let them carry it and care for it - but BE there supporting them.

Supporting at practice time

When practicing, use questions.  Ask, don't tell.  For an older child you might ask "What do you need from me today?  A creative partner?  To sit quietly and listen?  What will give you the most help?"  With a younger child it might be, "How many times do you think you will need to play that before you get it right every time, 10 or 15?"  "Why don't you play until you hear it get scratchy?  Then we'll see if we both hear it at the same time."  These kinds of questions give the child more ownership and active role in their own practice.

Carrie suggests having a practice tray (or basket, etc.) - something movable if you might practice in different locations (which is nice to do sometimes!).  On the tray you can have several things to help give the child choices.  Dice (how many times), paint swatches (what colour would you like to play that Lightly Row?), things of different textures - fabrics, sandpaper, etc. (would you like to play that like sandpaper or velvet?), a jar with folded slips of paper naming review pieces, a jar with folded slips of paper with creative ways to play (while making a face, standing on one foot, etc.), and a third jar to put the review pieces in once they have been played to make sure that eventually all are reviewed before returning to the choosing jar.  Some people have used Apples to Apples cards for kids to draw for how to play (e.g. "fuzzy").  Have a metronome on the tray.  A student can then record a speed they are able to play something, and work to surpass it.

(My version of the tray - Just added the Apples to Apples cards - great idea!)

"Perhaps we only have one job as parents - to see our children for who they are, and show them we are game, we are interested in who they are, we want to be with them, we want to help them figure out who they are and how they learn.  Give them the journey of their instrument, not make it about us, but be there as a practice partner."  As Carrie's children are grown, she has the experience to say,  "the rewards are huge."  She can see how her kids have used the learning methods they started with in music lessons applied to other things, they have a close relationship, and the music is there.  "Every step is worth it."  And she commends you for embarking on the journey yourselves.

Making Playing Easier, part 2

In the second part of Working hard to make it easy, Nancy Jackson and Jennifer Burton discussed some strategies in Daniel Coyle's The Talent Code.

Goals

Nancy has each student (as young as first grade) take a goal card home at the beginning of the year to bring back the following week with three goals to accomplish by Christmas, only one of which can be related to which piece they want to be playing.  Some examples she gave from her own students' cards were: playing with a straight bow, have a more flexible hand, improve 4th finger vibrato, play scales with 12 notes to a bow at 50, improve sight reading of rhythms.  The teacher and parent support the students with the goals, but the students own the goals.  The teacher keeps the card, but the student has a copy in his violin case, so he sees it each time he gets his instrument out.  Half way through the term, they evaluate progress.  For the summer term, with irregular lessons in her case, she would have the students only choose one goal.


Coyle's book speaks about the importance of setting goals that are JUST beyond reach.  At the edge of your ability.  In lessons the teacher might test the student by setting a metronome at progressively faster tempos - letting her know in advance that they would be going to the point where it didn't work, and that it was okay to reach that point.  Then they could set a goal to work towards that tempo that is just beyond her comfort zone.

It's not just about struggling, but seeking out a particular struggle.  These are the steps suggested:

1) Pick a target
2) Reach for it
3) Evaluate the gap between the target and where you are able to reach
4) Return to step one - either choose a new target or the same one, tweaked a bit.

Deep practice

Another strategy from Coyle's book is deep practice.  His three rules of deep practice are:

1) Chunk it up - break it into small pieces, and slow it down. Football coach Tom Martinez said, "It's not how fast you can do it, it's how slowly you can do it correctly."

2) Repeat it. "By repeating it's like a sled run - the more you go down, the faster the sled goes."  Can I add to that?  Did you ever have your sled go off track?  And then have the sled get caught in that wrong track the next time, too?  It gets hard to fix the run! The more times you go off track the more likely the sled wants to follow that new, but wrong, route!  Careful about those repeats!!  BE there, to help your child should the sled start to go off course. 

3) Learn to feel it. It should bug you to play out of tune or with poor posture.  We can help the students to feel it by making sure they aren't depending on us wholly for feedback.  They might need to turn their back to us to focus, rather than watching us.  We can give them a reminder that, "You are the teacher for...." the one item we want them to focus on such as that pinky finger that wants to lean over, or that bow that wants to creep up.

Ask yourself...
In summary they offered these questions:
Do you have a rich listening environment?
Do you ask your child for feedback on goals?
Can your child evaluate their work?
Do you have a review routine?
Can your child play in slow motion?
What are you doing to ignite your child's desire to practice?

Making Playing Easier

Nancy Jackson and Jenny Burton in the Parents as Partners presentation: Working hard to make it easy. Part 1!

All children can learn to play with ease. Ideas from two books by Dr. Suzuki: Nurtured by Love and Ability Development, and two other books currently on the market: Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, and Daniel Coyle's The Talent Code. These new books show studies that support Dr. Suzuki's ideas of the 1950s.

1) All children have talent - every child can learn.
2) Given the right environment and opportunity, all children can achieve success.
3) Repetition is key to the ease of playing. Knowledge + 10,000 times = Ability.
4) Review of prior material makes things stick.
5) Success breeds success.
6) Never hurry, never rest. (Work hard, but go slowly.)
7) Parental support is paramount.


From Malcolm Gladwell's The Outliers:
"Exhibit A in the talent argument is a study done in the early 1990's by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues at Berlin's elite Academy of Music. With the help of the Academy's professors, they divided the school's violinists into three groups. In the first group were the stars, the students with the potential to become world-class soloists. In the second were those judged to be merely "good." In the third were students who were unlikely to ever play professionally and who intended to be music teachers in the public school system. All of the violinists were then asked the same question: over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?

"Everyone from all three groups started playing at roughly the same age, around five years old. In those first few years, everyone practiced roughly the same amount, about two or three hours a week. But when the students were around the age of eight, real differences started to emerge. The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing--that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better--well over thirty hours a week. In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.

[Similar studies on pianists revealed the same sort of data.]

"The striking thing about Ericsson's study is that he and his colleagues couldn't find any "naturals," musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor could they find any "grinds," people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn't have what it takes to break the top ranks. Their research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

"The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours."

Other case studies of those who worked hard to make it easy included the Beatles and Bill Gates.

Between 1960 and the end of 1962, The Beatles performed 1200 times in Germany. By the time they came to the US in 1964 they had all that plus more. They were not good on stage when they went to Germany, and very good when they came back.

10,000 hours - all but impossible to reach that on your own by the time you are a young adult - parents' encouragement is necessary.  Bill Gates' and other school mothers bought computers and started a computer club in their school.

Working hard is valued and nurtured more in some cultures than others. Rice patty agriculture - a year round effort of hard work to get a high yield from a small piece of land vs. North American agriculture of seasons - taking time off. Taking breaks result in things falling through the cracks, though. My personal experience - with myself and with students - is that if you take a break, you don't just not progress, you actually REGRESS in playing.

Speaking of people who succeed in math, "Success is a function of persistence and doggedness, and the willingness to work hard for 22 minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after 30 seconds. . . Success is not so much ability as attitude." Alan Schoenfeld (math professor)

Working hard to make it easy... part 2 to follow.

Mapquest. How do we get there from here?

Alice Joy Lewis presented this Parents as Partners talk, based largely on the book Positive Personality Profiles (R. Rome).

The map
First she talks about needing to know where you are going in order to reach your destination.  In music studies we should be looking at two things: Taking the student to a place of ownership of technical and musical skills (ownership meaning they are easy), and developing in children a happy heart.  Not in a self indulgent sense, but happy from feeling competent, having good self discipline, feeling capable.

How do we get there?  In our journey we discover the route.  We are motivated to do what we like to do. Teachers and parents need to create a climate to motivate. We all know this is different for different students.

Personality profiles
In R. Rome's book, he has a personality chart divided horizontally as outgoing and reserved, and vertically as task oriented and people oriented.  We are all a bit of each, but usually one quadrant is more dominant.

The outgoing/task quadrant is D: Driven, direct, determined. The outgoing/people quadrant is I: Inspired, impressing, interacting.  The reserved/people quadrant is S: Status quo, stable, supportive.  The task/people quadrant is C: Calculating, correct, complete.  (She had many more words, I just chose three of each.)

In order to communicate with our students/children, we need to speak their language in order to maximize their strengths.  What motivates one does not motivate another.  Here are just a few examples.

The D student does well under pressure, they are goal driven and like a challenge, they like to be part of the choice and have freedom to do things their way.  They need to learn boundaries which hold firm. The choices given them needs to fit with what the parent or teacher can live with: "Would you like to practice just before or just after dinner?"

The I student needs recognition and approval. They like prestige, friendly relationships and opportunities to inspire others and a chance to verbalize. We might need to let them talk before the lesson or practice time before they get to work. They will need to learn time management, that tasks must be completed, listening instead of talking, and they have to be accountable. 

The S student needs security, appreciation, assurance. They like to identify with a group, have established work patterns like always practicing everything in the same order, they need to work at their own pace. They need to learn that change can provide opportunities.

The C student needs quality answers, excellence, value.  They like clearly defined tasks and explanations, sufficient time and resources to complete tasks, limited risks.  They are detail oriented.  Needs include detailed orientation, reassurance, an open door policy.  They need to learn that total support is not always necessary, there are deadlines and sometimes you just need to play it.  Calculated risks are sometimes okay, and there are varying degrees of excellence.

What do we do with this?
By paying attention to and working with the student's personality, we are going with their flow, making things easier for them.  It is that ease which motivates.  Don't put them in a box, but learn their personalities.  In the Suzuki triangle of student-teacher-parent you have three personalities which need to work together!  The teacher and parent need to adjust to and learn the language of the student.

Talent

In this Parents as Partners talk, Susan Baer gave several book reports. I will share a bit of one with you here. She said if you are only going to read one of these, it should be The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. Here are my very brief notes based on her notes based on the book. :-)

Talent - not something you are born with, but something you develop.

3 elements common to the lives of all hugely successful people:

Deep practice - 10,000 hours of concentrated effort toward the objective of skill mastery to become an expert in any given field. (e.g. 3 hours a day for 10 years)

Ignition - Person or event which sparks and stokes the passion. Without this, 10,000 hours is not likely to happen.

Master Coaching - Steering development, giving the student what they need at each step of the way.

As a side, I was directed to this book some time ago and shared it on our local homeschool email list like this:

http://thetalentcode.com/explore/ - cool website/book/videos/blog about developing talent! This fellow has visited and studied several "talent hotbeds" to see what they do to grow that talent.

Recent Publications on Talent Shared by Susan Baer

Tip: Peruse any of these books by going to http://books.google.com. Type the title of the book in the Search box.

Colvin, Geoff. Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else. New York: Penguin, 2008.

Coyle, Daniel. The Talent Code: Greatness isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. New York: Bantam, 2009.

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House, 2006.

Dweck, Carol S. “Caution: Praise Can Be Dangerous.” American Educator: Spring 1999. www.sde.ct.gov/sde/lib/sde/pdf/cali/praisespring99.pdf

Gardner, Howard. Five Minds for the Future. Boston: Harvard Business School, 2006.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown, 2008.

Levitin, Daniel J. This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Pink, Daniel H. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Penguin, 2009.

Syed, Matthew. Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

Tharp, Twyla. The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

The Value of Repetition

Ability equals knowledge plus 10,000 times. - Suzuki

Susan Baer presented "The Value of Repetition" at Parents as Partners.  After discussing the value, and relating repetition as a way which we also learn the spoken language, she shares some ideas to make those repetitions in music practice easier, more fun, but still effective, rather than just tedious, mindless repeating.

You may find that in one piece there are several problems which need to be addressed - incorrect rhythms, out of tune notes, trouble with a bowing technique, a shift, etc.  Playing through the whole piece, trying to correct everything, is not a very effective way to practice or an efficient use of time. It's much more effective and efficient to practice small units, addressing only one problem at a time.

Even in small units there may be more than one issue.  Break it down to just one thing at a time.  Maybe the notes are out of tune and the rhythm is incorrect, and the bowing technique is difficult.  First you may eliminate the bowing and rhythm just to work on intonation.  Play the notes in a slow, smooth, even way.  Once the notes are consistently in tune, increase the speed.  When it is corrected and becomes easy, work on the rhythm.  But just use one note, such as an open string.  Then try to use that rhythm in a song you already know - Twinkle, anyone?  :-)  And again, use an open string to work on the bowing technique, etc.  Once each individual element is corrected, then you can put them together again.

First you will work towards accuracy.  This may happen in a day or two.  Then you want it to be solid.  It may take a week or more.  Then it will become easy.  In a few months it should be performance ready!

Repetitions are most effective when spread over time.  I know in my experience I can do this kind of small practice, and find much improvement after several repetitions at one practice session.  But if I leave it at that, when I next come back to it, it likely will have slipped back a few steps, and more repetition is needed the next day, and the next, etc. 10,000 times doesn't happen overnight.

Robotic or musical?
In order to keep the repetition from being mindless, and in order to keep the repetitions from only reinforcing the problems, there must be careful attention and brief and frequent feedback!  Getting the child involved in the evaluation will help you to know if the they understand the concepts, lead to more confidence, and be an invaluable tool for later independent practice.

For each repetition, ask a yes-no question.  Is that F# high enough?  If the answer is no more than yes, perhaps a smaller unit of practice is needed. 

Now the fun part
Get creative!  You will want a game appropriate to your child's age and attention span. How do you determine the number of repetitions?  The child's age?  Or maybe take two dice and roll them.  Or more than two!  Or a deck of cards.  The low numbers might have special rules: A= 20 repetitions, 2 = add the next two cards drawn together, 3 = triple the next card drawn, etc.. 

Or maybe the repetitions will be guided by how successful the repetition.  Use two cups and some marbles.  The goal is to get all the marbles moved from one cup to the other.  Use the yes - no questions. Each time the answer is "yes", move a marble to the 2nd cup.  If it is no, no marble is moved.  Or, if it is no, a marble moves back to the first cup.  Again, find something which suits your child's level. 

Amateurs practice until they get it right.  Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong!

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.   - Aristotle

One Minute Pointers

From Parents as Partners - a few little gems from the One Minute Pointers.

• Do everything in your power to keep your child playing their instrument.
• Practice every day for consistent progress.  No one enjoys doing what they are not good at.
• Don't underestimate the social value of music.  Participate in groups. Music friends will help keep your child grounded through the teen years.
• You are helping to nurture beautiful tone, and the beautiful hearts that our world needs.
• Enjoy the process. Don't push.
• Play persistently and positively when you practice with your child. That is, PLAY in the fun and games sense!
• TTT = Things Take Time.
• Listen to your child, listen to the lesson, listen to music together and talk about it.
• Communicate with your child's teacher.
• This time with your child is precious - love it, value it, rise to it.
• Keep a healthy sense of perspective.  Don't compare your child to others.  Music is not a race.
• Mistakes are a natural part of the journey. Celebrate what your child does well and view mistakes as a chance to grow.
• Do exactly what the teacher instructs - no more, no less. This gives you the best value for your music lesson dollar.  Your teacher has a long-term plan.  Trust their expertise.
• Enjoy this time with your child.

Listening Maniacs!

The Suzuki Association is having an online conference program called "Parents as Partners".  I have just watched my first video and am very excited about all we can learn from these experienced teachers and parents.  As a teacher I was able to sign up myself, and add 5 parents for free.  I chose the parents of my youngest students.  If there are others interested it is $45/individual for non SAA members, $25 for members.  The deadline is 6:00 AM Monday morning if they don't fill up before that, so get moving if you want to join in!  

How easy is this?
The first video is called "Listening Like a Maniac" by Michelle Horner.  Listening is an integral part of the Suzuki method.  Dr. Suzuki believed children could learn music the same way they learn to speak, by hearing the "mother tongue".  So Suzuki includes CDs as well as books.  (When I was learning violin I had to check out cassettes and a player from my school library!)

Michelle shares the story of her daughter and herself, who were doing all the Suzuki violin stuff, including listening to the CD, but progress was slow and frustrating.  But then she learned a new idea about listening.  She tried it with her daughter, and saw progress speed up.  But it's not just about learning more songs faster.  The process became smoother and more joyful.  Then she introduced this new listening idea to her own guitar students.  More success!

 Here's the scoop:  If you want to progress faster in your music studies, and to make the learning process smoother, listen to the music "like a maniac"!   Not a crazy person, but a real enthusiast!  What she did was to burn new CDs, with the current and the next two pieces to be learned repeated 10 times each.  One of her student's parents, though, told her this was just too much work.  She wanted a magic button.  And she found one!  It was "Repeat 1" on the CD player!  Rather than count repetitions, she would have one song repeat for one hour, then switch pieces and repeat the upcoming song for the next hour, and then the NEXT song for the third hour.

The kids (or other family members) don't always want to listen to the same song over and over and over (and over and over and over and over and over and over and over), but you really have to get the family on board. Think of it this way: it means fewer repetitions - full of mistakes - by your child. Michelle's daughter, who is now 14, also shares on this video and encourages parents to ask their kids, if they start to complain, if they want to go back to the slower learning?  Putting the music on for listening has to be the parents' responsibility up to about age 12.  Michelle's daughter at 14 is still a listening maniac, but now she takes this on by herself - she knows it works!

If you wanted to learn a new language, would you be able to do so by only listening to it for 15 minutes a day?  Or only hearing the words - even if it is two hours worth - only once a day?  Don't just listen to your CDs straight through; repeat the songs you are learning.  Over and over - at least 10 times a day.  Even if your children (or you, adult learners) are eating, or playing, or falling asleep, the repetition will eventually work the music into their (your) heads, and the music lessons can then be about technique, musicality, etc. and not just correcting notes.


My own experience
I was just talking about this last night with my husband.  When I was about 19 [edit: I think it was actually closer to 22, now that I think about it] I had my first opportunity to play Handel's Messiah.  Back up a bit.  I first heard the Hallelujah Chorus performed when I was 11.  I loved it, and asked for a recording of it for Christmas.  That was my first LP.  (You know, kids, those "really big CDs" which your parents have in the basement from years gone by.)  Lo and behold, Messiah was a lot more than one chorus! My first LP, my ONLY LP.  AND my sister and I received a turntable for our bedroom!! Yahoo!!  It was listened to a LOT.

So, back to my first chance to PLAY Handel's Messiah.  Most of it came pretty easily, but there was one aria which was a real bear.  Why?  Because it was one that was omitted on my recording!  While all the other movements were familiar, as though I had been playing them a long time, this one was a total foreign language to me.  It didn't help that it was full of accidentals (accidents waiting to happen!). I'll revisit that in another post. My point here is that just LISTENING made playing the rest of it so much easier.

So fast forward almost 30 years and I have another opportunity to play Handel's Messiah. (An unusually long period from most cellists' perspective!)  This time, I pull out that same aria and it flows under my fingers.  Yes, I should be a better player, and hopefully should have retained something from having played it before, but I really am convinced it's mostly because in the mean time we have a different recording (on CD) which has been listened to over the years, which includes "The People that Walked in Darkness". 

Why not try it yourself?
So, students and parents, are you up for the CHALLENGE???  How about for the next week you listen to your current piece and the next two, at least 10 times in a row each day?  Become a Listening MANIAC!  Just see if you don't learn that piece faster than usual.