Category The Suzuki Method
Suzuki Kid
The CD that came with Book Two sat securely in its sleeve until yesterday. Teacher has asked me a few times if I’ve listened to it, but she hasn’t made much of it. I know from my independent reading, however, that Dr. Suzuki would not be happy with me. Additionally, I wrote on my struggles […]
Mischa Elman Plays Gavotte
The song I’ve been polishing the most remains Gavotte, by the French composer Gossec. Teacher says it will remain the most technically challenging song in my repertoire until near the middle of Book 2. I am continuing to greatly enjoy working with it. I found a YouTube of Mischa Elman playing the song – I […]
The Kodály Method
My musical sister called me Saturday to wish me happy birthday, and as we chatted she made me aware of a pedagogical method about which I’d been clueless – The Kodály (say ko-DAY) Method. Apparently Sister and Brother-in-Law are prepping to host a fellow who’s doing some intensive study on the Method at a nearby […]
Birthday Present
Last night I got home and had a package in the package room. Teacher told me to order Suzuki Book Two, so I did – I got the one that comes with the CD. I opened it, started leafing through the book, and started getting excited about what’s to come! For one thing, it looks […]
The Elements of Music: 3 of 7, Tempo
Allegro, andantino, allegretto – all are titles of songs by Dr. Suzuki from Book 1. All are also tempo markers. Of the elements of music I’ve written up to date, tempo is easily the most straightforward. How fast or slow is the music? Convention dictates the tempo be expressed with an Italian word. Sometimes, composers […]
An Asterisk Is an Asterisk
Gavotte by Gossec is coming along. It’s the “graduation piece” for Suzuki Book 1, and I’ve just started in on my third week with it. I’ll probably get the rest of it next week. It’s complicated and wonderful, with slurs a-plenty (four note slurs!) and circle-bows and grace notes and string crossings and intervals the […]
When Wrong Sounds Right
To begin each lesson, Teacher asks me to play some song from some ways back, relatively speaking, in my repertoire. I have them all memorized, of course (it’s the Suzuki Way), and I do play them all through at least once every time I practice. When I’m practicing, I start with Twinkle Twinkle and work […]
No New Music
My Austin long weekend kept me from too much practice last week, so my new song languished. Of course we worked on it in yesterday’s lesson. I’d been struggling to hear what the last couple of lines of my minuet are supposed to sound like, so the first thing I asked was for Teacher to […]
Bach is Beautiful
Well I’m enamored of these minuets. As I’ve developed a basic competency playing the first one, and am at the spot where I can start to hear what the second one is getting at, I have come to the conclusion that I love Bach. To hear teacher refer to him, I think all violinists do. […]
Tenuto?
I’m enjoying having music to guide me, and learning what it all means. The Suzuki method does not focus on reading music until book four, but all the songs are laid out in proper staffs – while I’m no expert at looking at scores, to my eye there is an awful lot of musical notation […]
Ryan Libel 