Erin's Violin Blog 2

Erin's grandma has been visiting, and she is a Suzuki violin teacher too, one with lots of experience and expertise. Erin has been having lessons with grandma, almost every day, and the enthusiasm built up during the institute has been running strong. She is learning to use her finger to play F-sharp and can now play the opening two measures of the first Twinkle variation. She is so pleased to be learning new things.

I hope the momentum continues.

Erin's Violin Blog 1

We have just returned from our first Suzuki Institute together. Erin is 3 and a half, and is playing on a tiny thirty-second-size violin (which is a little too small for her, but a sixteenth is still much too big). I am Miranda, her mother, a former Suzuki violin student and a part-time Suzuki teacher. Since we live in a remote community in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, if my children are going to get a Suzuki education, it's going to have to be me who provides it.

Erin has had this little violin for about a year now. She has scrubbed away on it as if it were a toy (gently, though) and we have casually worked on bow-hold and violin-hold and rhythm-recognition. She has been a quiet observer of many of the lessons I teach to other students, so she has absorbed a lot by osmosis. And we've been playing the Book 1 tape faithfully for a few months. But I sensed the need to officially start our teaching/learning routine, so an institute seemed like a good place to begin.

The institute we attended (the only one in British Columbia) was a tiny one, about 5 hours' drive from where we live. There were about thirty students, two faculty, and the students were mostly Books 1 and 2, ages 4 to 10. There was a group of four pre-Twinklers there this year, which gave Erin a nice cohort of peers. She was very shy for the first two or three days, snuggling in my lap, occasionally offering out a bow-hand to show off a bow-hold. But as the week progressed, she became a full participant in the pre-Twinkle group class activities, and at her last couple of master classes she actually played the first Twinkle rhythm on open E out loud for the teacher. At the final concert she enthusiastically took her place on stage with the other children and played her open string rhythms during the final Twinkles.

I feel as if we've really begun.