Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Progress Tuesday

AE:
Learning: Still Etude, she knows the whole thing now, so it is just a matter of playing it over and over.
Working Piece: Etude :)
Struggle: Looking at her bow when she plays. The number of times I have to say "look at your violin" during one practice session is astounding.
Looking forward to: starting Minuet 1.

AM:
Learning: Etude, finally!
Working Piece: Etude
Struggles: With the bow hold with the thumb inside, she keeps tilting the bow towards herself and we need to keep reminding her to tilt it away!
Looking forward to: learning the rest of Etude.

E
Struggle: Memorizing the Etude. I typically can commit a piece to memory while the girls are learning it, but not Etude... I think I just need to practice it myself!
Looking Forward to: Summer Institute! We are going in June and I am SO excited I cannot wait!

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Progress Tracking Tuesday

It has been a while, so a lot has changed :) Both girls learned Andantino and Allegretto, and are very excited to start working on Etude.
 
AE:
Learning: Etude
Working Piece: Allegretto
Struggle:Bow hold. She keeps gripping it too hard or else her fingers slide up on the bow. She corrects it if you remind her, but her goal is to keep it herself. Minuets is when Ms J moved their students' thumbs on the inside, but she won't move AE's thumb until she keeps her bow hold well.
Looking forward to: knowing the whole Etude (sh is learning it backwards).

AM:
Learning: To keep her 3rd finger of left hand curved when she puts it down
Working Piece: Allegretto/Andantino, Etude excercises
Struggles: She plays way way way too fast! (Same as before, we still struggle!) She looses her posture when she plays too fast. Next Saturday she has to play May Song through Allegretto/Andantino for her teacher to "graduate", so we are working on polishing.
Looking forward to: learning Etude.

E
Struggle: Keeping up! the girls are quickly surpassing my violin abilities, and I struggle to remember exactly all of the finger positions that the teacher demonstrates. I think I need to start taking pictures during lessons.
Looking Forward to: 45 minute lessons! We decided to up the lessons to 45 min starting this summer. I am quite excited about this, because I feel so rushed during lessons now. The girls are still quite young though, so we will see how it goes.