January meme: Jan 30
Jan. 31st, 2014 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn...and I missed one by a day! Sorry ollipop! Anyway, the question was: my very first music teacher.
As usual, this will be meandering and only tangentially related to the question you actually asked :) This one seems to have turned into "things my parents did right." :)
My aunt, who was a music teacher (and whose four daughters all played a musical instrument, all quite well), gave me a violin for my third birthday. I started going to Suzuki lessons with Mrs. B not long after. I don't remember anything of those early lessons. It was quite frustrating for my mom, according to her. (And now that I have my own kid whom I am subjecting to the same thing, I see what she means, although there are certain circumstances in my case which make it a little less frustrating for me.)
I went to lessons with Mrs. B until I graduated high school, so obviously I do remember later lessons with her. She was a good teacher, and I picked up a lot of good habits from her that I'm only realizing now, as I try to teach. She encouraged my mom to tape our lessons and listen back to them. She taught me to read music well, which a lot of Suzuki kids are weaker at, and encouraged us to do orchestra and other group events. We did scales and arpeggios and tonalizations (hilariously, I had no idea that a "tonalization" was supposed to practice good tone until a couple of years ago... I mean, I knew it was supposed to sound beautiful? but not why it had that name) and all the things that it's easy to slide over when you're interested in playing songs... but that are absolutely necessary to discipline one's fingers. She supplemented the Suzuki pieces with classic violin literature, Fritz Kreisler and the popular pieces like "Meditation" from Thais and the great violin concertos and so on.
Mrs. B was the closest violin teacher at the time; she lived a little more than half an hour from our house. My mom is awesome for carting us there every week. Every week, you guys. Also, my mom is awesome for not switching me to the closer violin teacher once one set up shop in our town. That violin teacher was a very nice lady, and... well, let's just say that I played about as well as her. At the age of 7 or 8. And it wasn't like I was a child prodigy or anything. (I expect my mom asked me how I'd feel about taking lessons with her, and I was probably fairly blunt in my response. But I really admire that she listened to me.)
My second music teacher was my piano teacher, Mrs. R. When I was six, I got in my head that I really, really wanted to play piano. (I still don't understand why, except maybe that my mom learned piano briefly when I was a little kid.) My mom, in her awesome way, dutifully found me a piano teacher (this was tough, as most teachers would not take a six-year-old kid -- finally she found a Suzuki teacher), and I took piano as well until the end of high school.
Mrs. R was a totally awesome teacher. She also taught me how to read music (I remember doing clapping rhythm exercises which I now am trying to do with my eight-year-old student...) We had group lessons where everyone had to get up and perform for the other kids. She really tried to instill a sense of proper technique and musicality in me, some of which I hope stayed... I remember that when I started (I was a really small kid for my age) I had to use footstools so my feet wouldn't dangle and sit on a platform so that my arms would be in the right place proportionally to the keyboard...
What I mostly remember about her is that she was (well, is) an awesome person.She was one of those people that I kind of wished was my mom when I was a kid (she had four kids of her own). She reminds me a little of Julie Andrews as Maria in Sound of Music: that same ebullient, joyous personality, always smiling, always ready to laugh. Also, her house was also filled with books. At her house I read Edgar Allan Poe, The Screwtape Letters, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, a couple of the L'Engle books, and loads of other stuff I can't even remember now. (I also remember her son was a big Zelazny fan and tried to get me to read the Amber books, but I was waaaaay too young for them and disliked them. I like them very much now!) My sister and I still feel a little guilty that piano was never our primary instrument and so we would totally blow it off for violin.
ollipop! Anyway, the question was: my very first music teacher.As usual, this will be meandering and only tangentially related to the question you actually asked :) This one seems to have turned into "things my parents did right." :)
My aunt, who was a music teacher (and whose four daughters all played a musical instrument, all quite well), gave me a violin for my third birthday. I started going to Suzuki lessons with Mrs. B not long after. I don't remember anything of those early lessons. It was quite frustrating for my mom, according to her. (And now that I have my own kid whom I am subjecting to the same thing, I see what she means, although there are certain circumstances in my case which make it a little less frustrating for me.)
I went to lessons with Mrs. B until I graduated high school, so obviously I do remember later lessons with her. She was a good teacher, and I picked up a lot of good habits from her that I'm only realizing now, as I try to teach. She encouraged my mom to tape our lessons and listen back to them. She taught me to read music well, which a lot of Suzuki kids are weaker at, and encouraged us to do orchestra and other group events. We did scales and arpeggios and tonalizations (hilariously, I had no idea that a "tonalization" was supposed to practice good tone until a couple of years ago... I mean, I knew it was supposed to sound beautiful? but not why it had that name) and all the things that it's easy to slide over when you're interested in playing songs... but that are absolutely necessary to discipline one's fingers. She supplemented the Suzuki pieces with classic violin literature, Fritz Kreisler and the popular pieces like "Meditation" from Thais and the great violin concertos and so on.
Mrs. B was the closest violin teacher at the time; she lived a little more than half an hour from our house. My mom is awesome for carting us there every week. Every week, you guys. Also, my mom is awesome for not switching me to the closer violin teacher once one set up shop in our town. That violin teacher was a very nice lady, and... well, let's just say that I played about as well as her. At the age of 7 or 8. And it wasn't like I was a child prodigy or anything. (I expect my mom asked me how I'd feel about taking lessons with her, and I was probably fairly blunt in my response. But I really admire that she listened to me.)
My second music teacher was my piano teacher, Mrs. R. When I was six, I got in my head that I really, really wanted to play piano. (I still don't understand why, except maybe that my mom learned piano briefly when I was a little kid.) My mom, in her awesome way, dutifully found me a piano teacher (this was tough, as most teachers would not take a six-year-old kid -- finally she found a Suzuki teacher), and I took piano as well until the end of high school.
Mrs. R was a totally awesome teacher. She also taught me how to read music (I remember doing clapping rhythm exercises which I now am trying to do with my eight-year-old student...) We had group lessons where everyone had to get up and perform for the other kids. She really tried to instill a sense of proper technique and musicality in me, some of which I hope stayed... I remember that when I started (I was a really small kid for my age) I had to use footstools so my feet wouldn't dangle and sit on a platform so that my arms would be in the right place proportionally to the keyboard...
What I mostly remember about her is that she was (well, is) an awesome person.She was one of those people that I kind of wished was my mom when I was a kid (she had four kids of her own). She reminds me a little of Julie Andrews as Maria in Sound of Music: that same ebullient, joyous personality, always smiling, always ready to laugh. Also, her house was also filled with books. At her house I read Edgar Allan Poe, The Screwtape Letters, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, a couple of the L'Engle books, and loads of other stuff I can't even remember now. (I also remember her son was a big Zelazny fan and tried to get me to read the Amber books, but I was waaaaay too young for them and disliked them. I like them very much now!) My sister and I still feel a little guilty that piano was never our primary instrument and so we would totally blow it off for violin.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 04:39 am (UTC)My kiddo studies violin halfheartedly in an afterschool program. I suppose I was wondering if it was an exceptional teacher or an innate fascination with music that got you on this path, but after hearing about the early lessons I wonder if it isn't just something you plug away at during the ages of five and six and seven. Sounds like you had caught the bug by the time you were eight, though...
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 09:50 pm (UTC)I suppose I was wondering if it was an exceptional teacher or an innate fascination with music that got you on this path, but after hearing about the early lessons I wonder if it isn't just something you plug away at during the ages of five and six and seven.
It's a combination, I think. I think maybe some of it was innate fascination? I mean, the singing stuff was almost all me (I was in a seasonal Christmas choir for several years as a kid, but that was it) and my high school choir teacher, who was awesome and also getting her doctorate in early choral music and kept foisting it upon us... that's another story.
There's my student, N., who definitely has an innate fascination with the violin; his mom brought him to me at age almost-7 because she plays a little and he picked up her violin and started playing notes on it. And he has a really excellent sense of pitch -- his older brother, for example, doesn't have anything like it -- and is very quick to pick everything up, which is just awesome -- I've been spoiled by him :)
But in addition there's some plugging away that's required; the boy hates to practice, and doesn't do it unless pushed, and definitely doesn't do the careful exercises that he's supposed to do unless his parents ride herd on him, but the weeks where he's practiced you can totally tell that he's super improved.
(K again)
Date: 2014-02-01 05:55 am (UTC)Re: (K again)
Date: 2014-02-11 04:14 am (UTC)My mom says that practicing in the early years was terrible and like pulling teeth. I have memories of getting up at 6am (which was my normal wakeup time) and practicing by myself -- I must have been eight? ten? I wasn't in high school yet, I know. It was more because I had the idea that This Is the Way Things Are than because I had a particularly great love for the violin, though.
Yes, practicing effectively is a lot of what the lessons are for. Pinpointing (and repeated practicing of) various potential danger spots both before and after the piece is learned, techniques such as practicing runs by emphasizing different parts of the grouping (ONE ee and uh one EE and uh one ee AND uh one ee and UH, for instant), scales and arpeggios and tonalizations... My teachers were always very good about emphasizing effective practicing rather than just running pieces through.