violin, jan 2014

I've had a few inquiries about the girls' violin lessons these days, so I thought I'd quickly post a few recent videos.  they're both progressing by leaps and bounds - I'm so impressed!  little buddy started from scratch in september, so it has been less than 5 months that we've had her little 1/16th.  she's gotten through all her twinkle variations, which if you know Suzuki can last quite a long time since all the posture and bowhold is taught there.  she's so excited to be working on 'lightly row', the first 'real' piece.  they call the variation below 'dr. suzuki', with these lyrics:

dr. Suzuki says never be lazy

but practice and practice

until you go crazy

;-)

 

c started with me at 3 years, 9 months, but we took a long break during the pregnancy last year and again during the move.  she started with this teacher in September with the twinkle theme, went quickly through the variations, and is now halfway through book 1 (!).  she picks up songs in nothing flat.  it's a bit harder to get to her slow down and learn the bits of technique that go with each new piece.  this one is 'long, long ago':

overall, I'm so pleased to see them learning so well and even enjoying it.  I won't lie, it's a lot of work practicing with them (we try to do about 5 times a week), but when presented with a choice of which 'job' they want to do first (usually violin or bath or folding laundry), they'll generally go for violin.  I still wonder sometimes what exactly I'm paying the teacher for, since I feel like I'm doing the vast majority of the teaching =p, but whether it's just the accountability of the lessons or having an external authority or the little pointers about what to work on with each piece, i'll take it!