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Bow Hold Buddies™ – Dianna Denley’s review
I recently purchased some of Ruth and Martha Brons’ wonderful Bow Hold Buddies™. Their website ‘Things for Strings’ is listed in my links column (as ‘Bow Hold Buddies’). What are Bow Hold Buddies™? A FANTASTIC idea designed to help students develop their bow hold with ease, with the assistance of some buddies (photos from the Things for…
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Distracting students with devious devices
I recently purchased a new distracting device with the aim of using it to distract my students whilst they play a particular song, to see if they can keep playing without, well, getting distracted. It’s an important performance technique to learn, don’t you think? The device is called a “Gotto-Go Machine” and cost me about…
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Music rhythm game ‘Don’t clap this one back’ with rhythm flash cards
I first heard of this game through Samantha Coates at the Winter Piano Teacher’s Seminar and I loved the idea. I have tweaked it a little though. How to play:- Clap a rhythm to your students/class. They have to clap it back to you. The only rhythm they can’t clap back is “Don’t clap this…
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‘Kitten on the Fingerboard’ – violin third position shifting song
Having decided that some of my students needed a reminder to relax their thumbs whilst shifting and as preparation for upcoming exam pieces, I wrote this song along with a simple piano accompaniment. It was well received and thoroughly enjoyed. Start off with a slow shift up and down to the notes, so students can…
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Music Teaching – How to fit it in with family life
Someone asked me a few days ago how I manage to fit all my students into my schedule, my own family (hubby and two kids), my practise time, composing time, house cleaning, helping the kids with homework, garden work, looking after 4 rabbits and a fish, lesson preparation, repertoire searching and blog time. Well, I…
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‘Lesson 1 A Tune A Day’ Part 2 (young violin beginner)
There is an awful lot of pre-preparation work for younger students that needs to be done with the violin before we can begin to play the ‘dots’ on the page. The aim today with one of my littlies was to get through something on ‘Lesson 1’ from the A Tune A Day book. Even if…
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Beginner violin symbols and notes game ‘Lesson 1 A Tune A Day’ Part 1
Little violinists (ie 3 year olds) aren’t often able to read words yet but they are quite clever at recognising symbols and patterns. I use different books for different students, depending on their needs and in part, what books I have available at the time. The music school I work for part time sprung a…
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AMEB Online Examinations – Notes from Feb Seminar
Relying purely on my notes here from the Feb/March-whenever-it-was Seminar I attended on the new Online Examinations for Theory. Covered first was the concern teachers mainly had with the online examinations on just how to prevent students from cheating. We learned:- A parent would need to pay for the theory exams/practice examinations firstly by credit…
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Violin Connect Four – violin game
One clever mother of a couple of my students suggested a Connect 4 game using some of the resources I already had. It was such a great idea, I decided to post it here. To play you will need: A Skittle Gameboard Set of flashcards ‘letter name cards’ from the skittle gamecards skittles/smarties/gummy bears etc…
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Children’s Choir with violin solo ‘I’m Trying To Be Like Jesus’
I did this short arrangement for our upcoming Stake Conference later this month. I kept it simple as it is going to be the prelude item. The children are simply singing the melody the whole way through, with the boys beginning on the first verse, the girls singing the second verse and all singing the…
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