This helps facilitate your child’s ability to focus, and ensures that your child gets the full amount of time allotted for their lesson.
During the lesson, please do not comment, coach, or give suggestions to your
child. It is very important that they receive information from only one source during a lesson as it can be distracting and disturb the flow of the lesson when more than one person “teaches”. If you have questions, please raise your hand, or save them for the beginning or end of the lesson.
Please do take notes during our lessons. These notes are crucial to successful practice at home. I will help you determine what to write down. Filming and recording are also useful tools for helping remember what to work on at home.
…unless you are using them to record the lesson or take notes.
We practice to make things easier. Regular practice is essential for learning an instrument. It is my job to give you the tools you need to be able to teach your child at home.
Please practice a minimum of 5 days a week with your child. It is much more useful to practice a little bit every day – even for 1 minute – than to save it all for a few long sessions.
…and only those assignments. Please don’t push ahead on your own. If you are unclear about an assignment, please feel free to ask questions, either at the end of the lesson or during the week.
Turn on the Suzuki and American Fiddle Method recordings at home. Your child should hear the entire Suzuki CD every day, and the Fiddle CD (if you are using it) several times a week! This is immersion listening, and it is one of the biggest factors in your child’s enjoyment and success. To be fluent in playing, the child must be able to hear the piece in their head. You don’t have to sit down and listen quietly to the whole thing every day – you can put it on in the background while doing other activities. Making copies for the car is a great way to get some listening in.
In addition to your repertoire CDs, you and your child will be asked to pick one violin or fiddle piece to listen to every week. At each lesson, I will ask your child to tell me about the week’s “special listening” – the name of the piece and the name of the performer. I can give you suggestions, but there are no specific requirements for your special listening – just that the piece features violin or fiddle.