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.
