Category The Suzuki Method
New Stuff: Ringtone, Shoulder Rest
Jenny Yun is a violinist and Youtube video maker who creates nicely (not overly) produced recordings of the Suzuki repertoire. She dresses well, stages her videos in well-appointed rooms, employs a professional accompanist, and even does some of them in a recording studio. She can also really play the violin. On top of that, I […]
The Last Note
Book Four is a long haul. In yesterday’s lesson, after we played through the final notes of the final bars of the final piece, Teacher rejoiced jubilantly – a slightly unexpected celebration for me, “You made it!” She wrote the date in the book in the margins next to the last measure. Sloughing through all […]
Overdue Housecleaning: Suzuki #MeToo
William Preucil has long been one of Suzuki’s biggest success stories. Heralding from the first family of American Suzuki, he traveled the world as a young performer. Early in adulthood, he established himself as a first-rate concertmaster, holding the post with several prominent orchestras. He settled into the top job at The Cleveland Orchestra in […]
Bach, for Reals
As the pieces In the Suzuki Repertoire get longer and more complex, they take longer to work through. My most recent piece, Karl Bohm’s Perpetual Motion from Little Suite No. 6, was an exception. All the pieces that preceded it in Book Four took longer. Still, I began the Perpetual Motion at the beginning of […]
Progress Report
Vivaldi isn’t going anywhere, and I continue to play both the first and the third movement of the A Minor Concerto daily, but I’m now three weeks in to learning a new piece. Teacher started me on Karl Bohm’s Perpetual Motion prior to her heading out of town for a couple of weeks, then in […]
Violin Grasshopper
I’m acquainted with a seven-year-old who has been playing the violin for a few months. I’ve talked about my passion for the violin with him and his dad on several occasions – once I even helped them through a broken string crisis. So we’re kind of violin buddies. On Thursday, his dad asked me if […]
L’estro Armonico, Vivaldi’s Opus 3
L’estro Armonico, Harmonic Inspiration, is a work of Italian Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi published in 1711. Popular in the composer’s lifetime, as were many of his works, the collection of concertos has been transcribed countless times since its original publication. L’estro Armonico contains twelve concertos, which, according to Wikipedia, were written in a 7-format. The […]
Turning the Page
Seven months in I am turning the page on the first movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto in A Minor. Not only do I feel ready enough, but my copy of Suzuki Book Four itself compelled me to move on when, during my practice session on Monday, as I flipped to the first movement’s third and final […]
On to Vivaldi
I’ve known of “The Vivaldi Concerto” in Suzuki Book Four for a long time – a Youtube video I watched quite early in my musical journey referenced it in an off-handed way prior to me knowing much of anything about Suzuki or music in general. But I do my homework and tend to read well […]
Memorization and the Play-Through
Getting to the spot in a new piece of music where I can play it through without stopping is always a thrill. After yesterday’s lesson I am much closer on this newest piece – we worked through the remaining section of the Third Movement of Seitz’s Fifth Concerto, a flowing stretch of slurred sixteenth notes […]
Ryan Libel 