Violin practice and concert

Lara had her violin concert last Saturday. She was included in the group twinkles at the last minute because she has not done all the twinkle variations yet(note 1). It was good training and great to see Lara trying to play the twinkle she has not yet learned by ear. There was a small group practice just before the concert. This was the first time Lara played with other kids (she played with me at home). Even though the other kids are more advanced than her, she did her best. The home practice sessions after the concert were very good and less tears. It's like a driving force, a goal (she already picked out a song she likes in Book 2) to work towards. I like the concept of group lessons in the Suzuki method, and look forward to more of these in the new year.

The home practices had been up and down. Practice was easy at the start, because it involved singing songs and playing games. I remembered the fist time Lara practiced the left hand at home. She thought she could not do it therefore refused even to try for 3 days. I'm glad we got over that hurdle! We usually spent about 1/2 an hour a night practicing violin. Most of the time, I got Lara to play the twinkle variations she alreay learned 4 or 5 times (each twinkle was about 1 minute long so that's 5 minutes). I don't know where rest of the time went. My next thing to try is perhaps to make practice a little more productive but keep in mind that music is just games and play for kids at this stage. Rather than a block of 30 minutes, I want to try 15 minutes of practice twice a day. Still trying to figure out where the second practice could fit in.

I went to check out some violins last week. I had to decide whether to rent the violins for another 3 months or buy a new/second-hand one. I don't know a lot about violins so the risk of getting a second hand one might be the set up fees on top of the violin. Lara is on a 1/8 violin at the moment and as she grows, we'll have to change violin sizes. Anyway I was talking to the violin dealer and I told him how Lara cried at home practices a lot, not because she didn't want to practice (she was usually the one who reminded me to practice) but she was frustrated she couldn't get the sound right. The violing dealer told me he got a lot of school violins for repairs. "One of the hardest thing I had to do is to clean the tear marks off" he said and showing me where the tears fell on the violin. So Lara is not the only kid who does this.... I have great admiration for any kids who play the simplest tunes because I know how much work is needed behind the scene...Here's a snippet of Lara's violin concert.



note:
Twinkle variations:
A - Busy Busy Stop Stop
B - ? (not learned yet)
C - Long little Long little(or Run Mummy Run Daddy)
D - Pineapple Pineapple
E - Running little catepillar