Musical Meanderings

This is a blog centered around some of the musical encounters and experiences that I come upon in my daily life as a musician.

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Location: Alameda, California

Monday, June 11, 2007

Colorado Suzuki Institute

We are in Vail, at the Colorado Suzuki Institute. I am taking nine intense days of teacher training, and Isabelle is studying Suzuki cello for five days at cello camp. Wow---I can't believe how tired I am from this teacher training. We have six hours of class daily and then we have to go back to our condo and watch two hours of videos each night.

Is it lovely outside? I don't even know. Is it nice in Colorado?

This afternoon I took Isabelle to do her first "play in", which is a big gathering of all the cellists of all levels. They play selections from all the Suzuki repertoire and everyone plays the pieces that they know, together. At first when the teacher was chekcing all the student bow grips, Isabelle noticed that her bowgrip was not a "Suzuki" bowgrip like everybody else's, and she started to cry. She was panicking in front of the class, saying, "mom, where's my bowgrip? Mom!???" I felt so helpless and guilty because I've let her slide on bowgrip and her bwgrip isn't good---she just would always refuse to learn a good bowgrip---so she hadn't gotten there yet.

After that she tried to imitate their bowgrip and came up with this really bizarre looking configuration of her hand on the bow that made me cringe. She used it for awhile. They played a few of the easier tunes that she knows and then they totally went into the harder pieces. Isabelle was crying for about a third of this "play in", because she only can play the first half of Suzuki Book One, and they were playing all kinds of music that she doesn't know. She also would cry if I played on the pieces that she doesn't know, so I didn't play.

It was kind of a nightmare for me, to get through this. I felt really guilty and like I'm a bad teacher...but we went home and we practiced together a little and we went swimming and we felt better.

So she doesn't seem that traumatized by this experience. (I am, however.) But she starts her classes tomorrow morning, and I am very excited about this as I will go with her and we will get some great teaching from the man who is my teacher here also, David Evancheck. He is really great with the little ones, and so I am hoping that he can straighten out this bowarm trauma gently. Good luck David! Let's put it on you for now, and I'll be the at home parent/teacher.

In other news, Isabelle went ice skating for the first time last night! She was stubborn as an ox and would not hold on to anything. Her balance is great and she only fell a few times.

We have another week of the Suzuki Institute, and I am looking forward to observing her classes as a part of my teacher training. This teacher training is really giving me some good ideas for teaching the little ones. Teaching 3-5 year olds is definitely an art within itself.

1 Comments:

Blogger Oleoptene said...

Hi Marcie -- I was happy to find your blog because I am hungry for as many accounts as I can get on the experience of Suzuki teaching for parents and for teachers. My sister, Lisa Collins, was in the training in Colorado with you, I believe -- she got so much out of this and mentioned, at the time, your amazing composure. I would love to know more about how your time in Colorado has influenced you and your daughter. My son participated in the 'cello program at the Oregon Suzuki Institute and loved it, but his younger brothers' violin/viola teacher preferred that her pre-twinklers not do the institute because she's still working so hard on establishing habits and holds. Still, I have a hard time imagining watching my four year old playing with his belly button on stage waiting for his turn to perform!

3:23 PM  

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