Category Archives: Teaching

Teaching

Nice job

I was so pleased with the children’s performances last night at St. Margaret’s! Things went really well, and my students played wonderfully. Of course it wasn’t perfect, but overall we did a great job showcasing the hard work all of my students did this year. And my piano playing wasn’t bad…It was also fun to watch the other performances. There was quite a bit of singing and speech making, and everybody did a wonderful job!

Two more student recitals to do-one at my house with all of my private students, and one at the ballet school. The ballet school one I am very concerned about as I will only have two students playing and I don’t have to organize it. The one at home should be a lot of fun, but I’ll have to make sure everything is in order (and hopefully the audience can fit comfortably enough.) On both performances I will also be playing a little piece, so that should be a nice treat for the audiences 🙂

I’m glad this week is over though–I was so stressed about it (and naturalmente my stress continues for a bit longer), but I did great on my Suzuki final and will be registered for books 5 through 10 (10!) shortly, AND as I mentioned, my class performance went well. My practicing continues, with another lesson on Monday. I’m ready to just relax into wedding season/summer…but we are not quite ready for that yet.

Performing, Teaching

Arts Night

Tonight my two violin classes (well, one is violin/cello) are performing at the school’s Arts Night. (St. Margaret of Scotland School, just fyi). I am playing piano to accompany them, which is always a bit terrifying for me. I took piano lessons growing up, but since then have not owned a piano nor do I have very good access to one for practicing, so it’s a bit scary! Luckily these accompaniment parts are pretty easy. I could probably get someone else to do it, but I don’t trust them to play with the group/lead the group the way I need it, and then what would I do? Conduct?

Hmm…there’s a more frightening thought!

Teaching

Finals week

My Suzuki class comes to a close on Tuesday. I’ve been working all day today on a take home final exam and also on finishing up my binder of work. It’s been a wonderful year learning about Suzuki Pedagogy with Vera McCoy-Sulentic at SIUE, and though I will be relieved to be done (and have a few hours each week back to myself), it has been a WONDERFUL experience. I have learned so much, and my students have certainly benefited in many ways.

Next on the learning docket-book 4 at Ottawa Institute in June. I need a break, but by then I’ll be ready to focus again, I hope!

Tomorrow is back to practicing and preparing my students for a variety of upcoming performances. I also have pottery class again, and should be able to pick up four pots that I glazed last week. I can’t wait!

Performing, Teaching

Intonation

2 Comments

I played for a friend today, who mainly suggested I work on my intonation. I suppose it all boils down to that…it’s funny, because unless you are really well trained, you don’t really notice intonation, but the more you focus on it, the more out of tune stuff sounds. So it’s a self fulfilling prophecy–the more you listen, the worse it sounds. But it seems that more drones are in my future, and more scales and arpeggios too, methinks. Always gotta try to be more in tune.

Let me say a few words about my pottery class. I started about a month ago, taking a class at Krueger’s Pottery in Webster Groves with a couple of friends. I am not good with my hands (odd, yet, not odd), but I’m getting better… Tonight was the first night I felt like I was making progress, and tonight was ALSO the first night I got to take something home! Doing a new skill makes me think about what my adult violin students are going through. It’s so easy to want to give up when something gets difficult, and it’s easy to disparage yourself when you don’t get something right away. It’s really hard to be patient and know that the skill you are learning just takes practice. As a kid, you didn’t expect to be able to do stuff right away, often it took years and that was okay, that was expected. As an adult, you can generally accomplish the tasks or skills you want, so a new skill is truly a new challenge. I think it’s great to challenge oneself in a new way, and pottery is turning into a nice creative outlet for me! I hope I can continue to challenge myself in new and creative ways in the future.

Performing, Teaching

Friday

Today has been a really productive day so far–I practiced about 45 minutes of scales/arpeggios, then went to the gym.  Now it’s lunch with a friend, more practice, and rehearsal tonight.  I had grand plans of catching up with several of my friends whose partners are in CA with the SLSO (nice story here) but “unfortunately” I accepted some gigs and haven’t been able to.  (I use unfortunately in quotes, because, while I love hanging out with friends, I don’t have enough work as it is.  If the orchestra weren’t out of town this wouldn’t be an issue, but since people are gone, those remaining have made extra efforts to get together, and I haven’t been free.  Which is unfortunate.)

I’ve also had extra gym appointments this week with my trainer.  Each month he’s been running a little contest to win 4 extra sessions with him the following month.  Last month was to lose the most body fat percentage, and somehow I managed to win.  That meant that instead of seeing him twice a week, some weeks I was seeing him three or four times.  To answer your question, yes, I am now totally BUFF and in shape (not really, but getting closer!

I had a nice day teaching yesterday.  Several of my beginners are getting the twinkle variations in really nice shape!  Of course they are at slightly different points, but (this always happens to me) I tend to subconsciously start clumping students together in repertoire, so in the past few weeks I’ve been moving three different students onto Twinkle Theme, and now one is previewing Lightly Row.  Exciting times indeed!  My adult students are doing well also–they are all at varying stages/places (ranging from beginners to advanced, Suzuki and non-Suzuki), and I always feel that the more I get to know them personally, or at least attain a basic level of comfort, the more productive our lessons are.

Performing, Teaching

Tax Day

Tax day is traditionally an awful day for freelance musicians.  Not because we are bad at math or stupid (though that doesn’t help), but because we generally don’t get taxes taken out of our pay throughout the year.  (It usually takes us awhile to figure out that we should have been paying quarterly taxes.)  The other problem is that we TEND to not keep very good track of what money we have made (and spent!)–it’s easy to lose track if you don’t write stuff down, and we ARE musicians, you know, flighty and such.  However, I got my taxes done last week, so today I am just sitting pretty, and glad to not be panicking.

The weather this week is fantastic, and I just bought a new pair of running shoes yesterday.  I notice that many of my “facebook friends” have been training for marathons, half marathons and the like.  That’s not really my style (am more of the lazy sort), but it seems like such a cool thing.  I started thinking about it when I learned one gets a medal for finishing these races.  I haven’t gotten medals since Science Olympiad in middle school.  A few years ago  I was talking with my youngest sister Carrie about some award she had won in school, and after a few minutes, she says, “so have you won any awards lately?”  I don’t know if she was being snarky or trying to be polite, since adults tend not to win awards (nor have award opportunities, sadly), it was pretty funny.  So perhaps a racing medal, or a Nobel Prize would be a worthy goal.

I am excited for my gig on Sunday- Trans-Siberian Orchestra!  I have known many people who have played this gig, but I never have.  UNTIL NOW.  Wish me luck!  I also will be playing with the Quincy Symphony and a wedding…busy times indeed.