Monday, February 28, 2011

Suzuki recital





Yesterday was our winter Suzuki recital. All the kids who study locally with my mom or me played. For the first time we were able to "hire from within" for the accompanying. Erin hasn't had a piano lesson in two years, but she continues to enjoy accompanying. She is making pretty good money as the accompanist for the local community choir, and is doing a great job. When accompanying Suzuki students she is a natural: she knows every piece intimately as a violinist and therefore can anticipate and react in a split second to common stumbles. She knows the tempos inside out, and recognizes when to push a student a little for a steady tempo and when to respond to the student's preferences.

A friend of mine video'd Sophie's and Fiona's performances. Sophie just got her violin back from a three-month stay in the violin hospital where it had a bunch of old repair work and some niggling cracks set to rights. She had been playing on a cheap factory-made instrument in the interim, and was so happy to have her Mittenwald 3/4 back in time for the performance. She put out a huge confident sound!

I think slow movements are SO challenging to play on eighth-sized violins and bows, so I take my hat off to Fiona for fitting six slow beats into her bowstrokes in this piece. Her shifting and trills have come along really nicely in the past couple of months.

5 comments:

  1. It is always a pleasure to listen to the videos you post! Great playing from all of them. Violin hospital for 3 months? Those must have been some serious injuries :)

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  2. Very nice playing!

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  3. Great job!

    It looks like Fiona's almost ready for the step up to the 1/4 size. I bet she'll really appreciate that!

    --Bird Girl

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  4. Unfortunately the quarter is still too much of a stretch for her left arm, particularly as she's working hard on some laxity in her 3rd and 4th fingers, requiring that she have her wrist slightly more extended than many kids need. We're figuring maybe by late summer she'll have grown enough to move.

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