I had a recital for my private studios over the weekend. I always think of trying to have them twice a year, but mostly end up only managing once a year-it’s not easy to put together and get everybody to agree to attend! It’s always worth it though, to push the students to practice, to get them to hear other students and hopefully be encouraged, and to get the parents to see the progress that their kids (and perhaps compare them to the other kids in a healthy way) are making.

I got a lot of nice comments afterwards, and I had a few parents talk to me about their hopes and goals for their own kids’ violin playing. It’s good to hear, especially when those goals are reasonable and fit into the plan we already on, but it’s good for me to reevaluate how I’m encouraging each student and how I can be pushing them to do better. Every student learns in a different way, and one of the probably more underestimated challenges of teaching is figuring this out, and then continuing to teach in a way that helps each student the best. There is no one way, there is no one path, and what works for 5 students won’t work for the other 5. Sometimes I figure a student out quickly (this is obviously easiest when they learn and are inspired by similar to things to me) and other times it takes much longer. Sometimes I’ll really hit the nail on the head for awhile and then something changes-sometimes I’ll get a beginner who progresses really well for the first few years and then really stalls out, or other times a student will have a very slow difficult start and then really fly. Sometimes I get a transfer student (one who came from another teacher) and I’m very different than the previous teacher so it takes awhile to get adjusted. Or that transfer student will have a lot of technique difficulties that I have to address right away and the student feels like I’m nagging them too much and resists, and I have to figure out how to strike the right balance between letting them play and making them fix their posture.

I think I’d been feeling kind of negative the past few weeks, and I’m glad to have the recital behind me as well as a stressful quartet performance. I feel a great weight is lifted off, and I am hopeful that spring is (somewhat) near. I always worry about recitals, but then they end up going well and the parents seem happy.

Then I start thinking of how to improve the recital and when to set up the next one—it HAD been a year, though I’d planned one in November which I had to cancel. Maybe I’ll shoot for that again, something in late October or early November. I’ve been keeping information about this sort of thing in a “bullet journal” I’ve had for a few years now (I don’t write every day, obviously). I have a list of what to bring for recitals and a timeline of what I’ve done that works. I also brainstorm ideas for future events.

The most important thing I took away from the recital is that I’m doing okay with the students, and that I will keep encouraging and pushing the in the ways that I can do best.

And there’s a picture of the quartet from the other week. Action shot!