Year: 1998

We began the fall by establishing a routine of regular weekly lessons with Erin’s grandmother. For a few weeks this worked quite well. Erin struggled a little with the bow distribution in Allegretto. Andantino came easily. But the first phrase of Etude arrived about the same time that the novelty of weekly lessons wore off. […]

Well, we’ve marked our first anniversary on the violin. We’re back from the institute. It was nice to see familiar faces and I was proud of my little Suzuki student. She was so confident and comfortable in the institute environment. She actually volunteered to be the first student to play in her master class on […]

My little performer performed a beautiful Twinkle Theme at our spring recital last week. Her first recital, a “Twinkle Graduation”. She was very pleased with herself. She is now working on Perpetual Motion. A lot has happened in the past couple of months. She has been teaching herself new pieces. The power of repetitive listening! […]

I keep expecting the bubble to burst. We have been rollicking along for almost four months now. The routine is established, progress is occurring, and the progress is serving as motivation. I am amazed. It really seems to be working. It took Erin about a month to learn Lightly Row. We are now working on […]

We’ve moved up to a sixteenth-size violin. The tailpiece on the thirty-second-size cracked, and it has proved impossible to find a replacement. I had a nice sixteenth sitting around waiting for her, so we’ve switched. It’s a little too big still, but she is in LOVE with the tone. It sounds so huge and robust […]

I’m wondering where we went so wrong last fall. I didn’t appreciate how hard it would be to get a home routine established, and I guess I just wasn’t committed to it: in the back of my head I kept thinking, “well, she’s still only three-and-a-half…” And I think I questioned my own motivation behind […]

We are developing quite a routine the past week or two! We are finally, for about the first time ever, managing to practise more than once or twice a week. We have had a dismal fall and winter on the violin, but are, I think, finally hitting our stride. We are working through lots of […]

Well, we’ve started again. Four days and counting. It is a struggle, but we are managing a short practise every day. And I have stopped asking Erin to use her left hand. I want her to enjoy the ease with which she can play open string rhythms for a while before we go back to […]