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Grit and Mindset and Disposition, Oh My!

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, engaging in discussions with other teachers and players about the key ingredients to success for a young musician.  There is such a surplus of great talent these days and it leaves parents of gifted young players to wonder how they will do down the road. What factors influence a child’s success down the road? It isn’t as simple as talent, practice and a great teacher.

This summer, I have been reading about grit, mindset, and a child’s disposition in lessons.  This blog will detail all of these elements and how they intertwine and lead to what I believe is a higher chance at success.  A child with the right temperament or grit will face adversity in their training by applying themselves even more, believing this will pull them over the hurdle with time.  Pair this with a child who believes in a growth mindset and knows to value the challenges of learning over playing perfectly.  With the right support, these first two qualities generally lead to a happy student disposition in training with a teacher who is patient and kind but skilled.  If you have these elements on hand in your violin training, you have what I consider to be a great recipe for success.  

Before I get started, let’s set aside careers, awards, competitions, and the hard stuff for a moment…. After all, that always feels nice!  For a student to experience success as a musician, they need to feel free and clear and play music communicating something without a struggle.  In the beginning and intermediate levels this can be achieved fairly fluidly with talented, hard working students paired with skilled teachers and supportive families.  Then we hit the upper levels.  And for many, it’s a game changer.

Virtuosic violin is an expressive powerhouse. It is thrilling, vibrant, high octane, and poignant, using all of our technical tools to get a musical message or set of emotions across.  When a young violinist receives their first assignment of virtuosic literature, I can almost see their hearts beat faster. For many, this is the moment they have been waiting for.  But suddenly the factors involved to succeed have skyrocketed.  And then with baited breath, full hearts, and often tons of talent, we wait.  For me, as a teacher, this is sometimes where things get very interesting.  In the end it isn’t talent that separates this group of students headed into the upper levels of performance seeking careers in music.   It is temperament and mindset alongside someone (or a group of people) protecting a child’s joy, making a conscious choice to nurture their love of music above all else.

I have taught virtuosic violin for over twenty years now and a few things have become very clear.  Talent matters.  Discipline matters.  Genetics matter.  A combo of those things is an interesting if not awesome thing.  Past that though, solid grit in temperament, growth mindset, and a happy child are the absolute most important things in the mix.   

Let’s start with “Grit”.  Grit is essentially the ability to keep long-term goals in place and push through setbacks with a whole heart and healthy attitude.  Some kids will work through technical problems mentioning them in lessons un-phased.  They might ask for more practice tips or different avenues to master a certain passage.  They brainstorm with you with a healthy combination of determination and good attitude.  They don’t carry their struggle in their heart or feel it deeply enough to have it hurt their sense of who they are or what they are worth.  Students like this can appear unflappable in rehearsal and they will work for weeks without questioning a method.  And you know what I noticed? So do their parents.  No questions… just discipline, trust, and an unspoken commitment to a process that truly has no end in sight.  Then there are other students, just as talented and sometimes even more so, who even in their first stab at something will immediately feel discouraged.  That once motivated glimmer in their eyes dims.  Sometimes these are the brightest students.  They have come by so many things so easily it has a deep effect on them to have to struggle without results.  After a week of frustration, they will announce they don’t think they are ready for that piece or don’t like it anymore.  The parents have sometimes already visited Youtube in frustration thinking there is something they are missing in the equation, trying earnestly to help get through the hurdle.  But violin technique isn’t “Google-able” really…. although sometimes I wish it were!  It’s also not microwavable.  It takes consistency and effort for months, sometimes almost without any forward motion in the largest concerti.  This ability to work with very little audible improvement takes grit, faith, and unusual perseverance for a young person.  It isn’t for the faint of heart AT ALL.  And that includes the parents.  To play the highest level literature for concert careers, I feel this characteristic is a must almost for everyone in the house.  It completely outweighs talent and discipline and genetics in the end assuming everyone has a fair share of those once we get to a certain juncture.  It can do this because it is a way of life and it pairs well with growth mindset, flavors your wellbeing, and ultimately effects how you move from one day to the next.  

When I met my husband he probably thought it was pretty exciting for me to be a concert violinist.  Then at each date we had he asked with avid interest how my practice was going and heard “It was pretty good. How was your day?”.  He must have been baffled…maybe even disappointed!  After a few months of dating he asked that same question again and I remember being very excited in my answer because THAT day, I had experienced a breakthrough.  I finally was successful at getting my Barber Concerto last movement at tempo, calm and memorized.  And I was set to perform it in a few weeks with orchestra.  It took me months to achieve this. Longer than I thought it would.  I had to whip out analytical techniques I didn’t know I had and there were setbacks along the way.  I was not quiet about my joy at getting to that point, I was just quiet on the journey there.  

What if your kid is super talented but not super gritty?  I read a wonderful book about grit (entitled GRIT!) years ago and one of the things mentioned in it was how they are researching how to encourage grit in young children.  There isn’t a lot of data back on this and so the jury is still somewhat out.  However, the one conclusion they had so far was that teaching children “growth mindset” was a huge help.  So read on to hear my thoughts on “Growth Mindset”!

Growth mindset is the knowledge that you learn by sometimes failing or making mistakes, and that by even trying you are teaching yourself how to get closer to the goal.  People with growth mindset do not believe you were born with a set ability or intelligence and that hard work greatly changes outcomes.  They don’t equate talent or brilliance with having to work less.  They know that even the brightest of students need to work incredibly hard to reach their potential.  This resonates with me as a teacher and a performer in so many ways.  To play a large-scale virtuosic work, you will need to perform it literally dozens of times under pressure.  With each time, your body gets more fluid and relaxed and with every mistake you make in concert, there is a work around which develops in your body to mend it.  It is a fascinating process to me.  Sometimes the very next day your body has already relaxed in a spot where there was tension or panic.  When I tell students they will need umpteen performances to get a virtuoso piece or concerto where it needs to be I get wide eyes.  This is frustrating to both students and parents.  

“Why should it take that many performances if I work diligently and do as I am told?“

Cue panic.

“Umpteen performances?”

“How will we get those concert opportunities?”

“So we will play badly in public a lot in order to play well months later?”

“Won’t I gain a reputation for making mistakes?”

I understand it doesn’t sound ideal (really!) but when famous violinists are performing new concerti they don’t debut it with the London Phil.  They first try them out with community orchestras and get their bearings…multiple times.  This is what the body needs to play something extraordinarily difficult requiring so much balance and control.  Most parents have no concept of this and they will get frustrated hearing mistakes even in the first performances.  They seem to equate lots of discipline and practice to the right to play the piece with little struggle.  I understand their confusion.  The unfortunate truth is that virtuosic violin is a beast and it doesn’t work like an exam you can cram hours for.  These same parents sometimes are very aware of the concept of growth mindset and its benefits, paying careful attention to give praise to their children for efforts, and not awards or perfect scores.  But there is an unfortunate disconnect when said efforts don’t result in clean performances or audible progress right away.  Instead of understanding how the body assimilates to this complex grid of information in the upper level repertoire, they assume something in the training or practice is amiss.  This anxiety flows to the student and before long, we have frustration all around.   Sometimes I think to understand and encourage growth mindset it is useful to also describe characteristics of someone with fixed mindset.  I personally think a lot of kids and parents with innate fixed mindset are very attracted to the violin as an instrument so this next part to me is very important to read.  To be a solo violinist or a concert violinist of a high caliber, you have to be obsessed with precision, pitch, sound, refinement.  It takes an enormous amount of attention to every detail.  Hello Type A!  The accuracy of the final product DOES matter and especially in competition or auditions.  Being a bit of a perfectionist could help in the quest of being a violinist!  This would appeal to someone who has what is referred to as “fixed mindset” …a person who values things sounding perfect.  This type of student also believes talent and intelligence will lead them to success. (NOTE: the music industry never works this way!!)  These students tend to focus on appearing perfect or sounding perfect and when they do, they feel the most satisfied and successful. They will avoid challenges in favor of being seen as better than other players, playing the same pieces for years in competitions rather than venturing into new literature and working through hurdles to yield progress.  Let’s draw some comparisons to illustrate the mindsets.  In studies with children about fixed mindset and growth mindset, fixed mindset students felt smarter when they did something right the first time or before others around them.  Growth mindset kids felt the smartest when they had to work hard for something to get it done correctly like a large crossword or giant jigsaw puzzle.  Fixed mindset students chose challenges they knew they could master to preserve the appearance of being very smart and growth mindset kids chose challenges they weren’t sure how to master before starting them just hoping for the best outcome.  So the perfectionist student might feel challenged adopting a growth mindset.  They will have to work hard only to embrace mistakes and learn from them.  And sometimes a perfectionist type kid comes from perfectionist Type A parents, which can be tricky!

If a child is coming from a perfectionist household, there will need to be some major adapting to embrace a growth mindset in training.  Everyone in the family will have to become comfortable with hearing mistakes in the first several performances of a large work.  Too often in my studio, I have heard parents upset with kids right after performances on some of the most difficult literature.  I would respond to them in front of the students to make sure they all understood that from my perspective these first performances are where we are in the trenches together.  There are no shortcuts.  Let me be perfectly clear – even a student completely following everything asked of them in class will encounter these hurdles in performance.  It is not an indication necessarily of their discipline, efforts, or talents.  It is simply par for the course.  The parent that allows for this process, mentioning only where things are improving or lightly commiserating when surprises occur, is the parent of a student whose chances of succeeding long term just skyrocketed.  Growth mindset and grit must be applied at home, in the studio, on stage, and in the aftermath.  It’s a full-blown virtuosic violin lifestyle.  A family commitment to growth mindset and how it pertains to virtuosic violin will ensure a happy joyful learner who isn’t afraid of mistakes, but grows and learns from them.  That brings us nicely to “Disposition”!

A child who is at work with a relaxed happy disposition learns faster and makes music that is relaxed and honest.  This seems like a simple concept.  Every single article about internationally acclaimed Juilliard pedagogue Dorothy DeLay details this.  So where do we go wrong seeing so many students stressed, scared of passagework, cramming practice, and parents with furrowed brows?  Well for one, we seem to have a large amount of parents using music lessons as a faux highway toward Ivy League.  This is understandable to some but it is the bane of most established music teachers I know.  They need those awards and the highest seat in orchestra or so they think, in order to pad their high school or college apps.  Believe me when I tell you that when I was a kid, this never crossed my parents’ minds.  And as an educator for decades now, this phenomenon is only getting worse.  A kid who truly loves violin or music in general shouldn’t be asked to abuse their gifts to pad their young resumes and there is nothing joyful about it.  (Spoiler Alert - expect a blog on this later!)  But allow me to return to happier sentiments….I have now sat in on 5 weeks of lessons for my daughter with a former DeLay student who now works at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  Here is what I have noticed and these are all things that have contributed to a joyful disposition in learning. He allows her to contribute.  I try really hard not to interrupt to speed things along.  And yes, I know we are on the clock. Sometimes she is intent on making a connection that at first seems completely “un-violinistic” and irrelevant.  But when we allow her to do this in her own way, she usually surprises us with something in fact related and that can help.  She is part of her process and yes, it takes time away from instruction but it gets her to the goal faster too.  She is connecting with him and building trust and rapport.  I never question this teacher on how he is going about things because I know from experience that this would bring tension to my kid in the middle of her lesson.  And I actually know quite a bit about violin and pedagogy, right? Some parents don’t.  Still, I am quiet and even when a question pops up in my head, I keep it and you know what?  Every time this has happened, the question gets answered on its own without me uttering a word.  As a reward for my patience, the flow of the lesson and my happy kid get to continue without a hiccup.  If my daughter is not feeling good about something, I see her teacher steer away from that and search for a better feeling, a more relaxed state.   Sometimes this takes time, and might need a story or two.  Then she is back on track.  He doesn’t teach her when she is tense or feeling frustrated.  Once she is in a happy state, he leads her back happily into work.  The result?  My kid loves to practice for him and looks forward to every lesson.  It isn’t a Disney movie over there (read: 20 minutes of colle exercises at the last lesson) but to her, he is the closest thing to Mickey Mouse on the violin.  It is currently her happiest place on earth.

So what does it take to get to Carnegie Hall? Grit, mindset, and joyful disposition…. and apparently, a good dose of each.  Some of the most amazing solo artists I have ever known are also incredibly down to earth and humble people.  I see this as no coincidence.  They want the pieces to be polished and precise but more for the composer who wrote them than for themselves.  They LIVE in the trenches of major pieces of literature shepherding them as they grow one performance to the next, mending mistakes at every turn.  Their emotional wellbeing doesn’t hinge on any singular performance.  They care more about the music than they do their own egos and they want to move people more than they are there to just dazzle them with a note perfect performance.  

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Finding Joy in Practice

When students are younger, the quest for beauty and joy is more apparent in their practice and lessons. You can see it in a child’s body language and in their eyes as they discover new moments in their music. They frequently aren’t self-conscious about feeling things through music and showing it – sometimes they find silly moments but they will also find deep ones. Better yet, young children often willingly engage in story telling, character refinement, and happily sing melodies with you. With the right parental participation and encouragement, the sky is the limit for practice joy. Lucky for them, the violin has plenty to offer. Sometimes I wish I could bottle up this innocence and passion for learning so they could use it later on a “rainy practice day”.

As the students progress they encounter more difficulties with technical growth, harder literature, auditions, competitions, performances, and sometimes pressure to achieve.

Some of them still retain those rose colored glasses amidst the pressure ….How do they do this? And how does this effect the outcome of their training and hard work? What can we do as teachers and studio parents to retain joy in practice and training? Below are some ideas I have about how to keep children joyful and happily engaged in their music education.

Artistic and Academic Integration  

With my younger students, I ask parents to attempt to tie in concepts from school to practice room. Can you find patterns in your classical composition? Count how many times the theme happens. How do they differ? How can you use your knowledge of fractions to help with subdivision and make your rhythm more precise? How does this affect the character of the piece to have the rhythm more distinct?

Is the student also a budding writer or artist? Tie in artwork or a narrative to music making.  What colors do they see while playing? Ask them to imagine water, land, beach, or mountains. Is it rainy and wet or is there sunlight shining? Ignite their tactile intelligence and ask them to imagine how their feet feel in sand or warm water or gravel….how does the bow hair feel against the string? How is their main character dressed? Ask them how these connections could change their choices in tone, texture of sound, vibrato, bow speed….Make a mood board and let them put it all together to see their composition in a way that inspires them to create specific, intentional sound.

Pull in history and do some research. Who is the composer and what do we know about the period they lived in? Have them look up what was happening in the world the month or year the piece was written. Ask them what might have inspired this piece to happen? Monkeys were sent into space the year Kabalevsy wrote his violin concerto! Can you hear the monkeys?

Tickle their imaginations and build a feeling, a story, and fully formed characters around your piece. If you make these connections with your young musician, you are strengthening existing skills, building their confidence, and reinforcing a fabric of information that aids in memorization and the clarity of their interpretation. They become beauty ambassadors for their music.  

Environment

Create a practice environment that lights up a child’s mind… Have them help you decorate a space they love with great lighting, a stand that can hold everything they need, and bring in a metronome and tuning device. Organize their music by category and build a notebook that facilitates finding each component of their practice. This will be a creative space where lot of hours of work happen and the more they contribute to how it looks and functions, the better.

Is your kid one who would respond to the art section above? Collect paint swatches for colors, fabric swatches for texture and tone, and find stock pictures of different landscapes and places. Have paper and art supplies nearby and encourage them to draw their main character in detail.  Some kids will take to this immediately and others will be less inclined but the space they work in can influence them for sure. Then explore together what techniques can bring these visuals to aural fruition.

Bring technology into the practice space and engage in some research. Utilize the amazing tool most of the teachers I know never had: YOUTUBE. Find 5 recordings from reliable performers of the same piece and ask them to make a list of similarities and differences.  Create a word doc chart for charting differences in recordings and keep a few charts out and ready for use. What are their favorite moments in each performance and why? How do the tempi differ and how does this compare to their own tempo. How are the musicians communicating with one another in the performances and how does this add enjoyment to the listener’s experience?  

NOTE: For the art integration and research, it is my opinion that you should absolutely count this as practice time and label it as research and artistic development! Not only will their practice soar but also their performances will reflect this addition to their work. Try and make this a reflex reaction to frustration in technical work with the knowledge that when your student comes back to it, they will be more relaxed, armed with artistic ideas.

Practice Makes… Near Perfect

Perfection is overrated when a child is developing as a young violinist. There will be big leaps, plateaus, and as you acquire new techniques, sometimes-unavoidable setbacks. A fluid parent, student, and teacher are a must. If perfection is something you strive for in other areas, intermediate violin will be a rough pill to swallow let alone advanced or virtuosic violin training. You can’t cram for a test and the body doesn’t respond well to stress or pressure from any source when you are coordinating hands and building balance for a supple technique. Be mindful of a student’s steady efforts and how thoughtful and engaged their practice is. Make this your priority along with an ongoing stream of inspiration.

Keep in mind that some techniques or fundamentals will take longer than you expect while others will be a breeze. In my own training, it took me two minutes to achieve a solid up-bow staccato but it took me nine months to achieve a spiraled vibrato. These aspects of our playing cannot be rushed and it isn’t like a multiplication table or something you can drill like flash cards. The body has to relax and find its way alongside a lot of hard work. Frustration or practice battles with parents will only make it move slower in my experience. In a similar way, some pieces will take multiple tries on stage to get near perfect and this is not a reflection of work or dedication. This becomes more and more true with each new level of playing. Often parents are not aware of this and find themselves frustrated and discouraged. Children then pick up on this and carry it into their work.  

Child Led Learning and Fun

These days kids are more scheduled and in a family with multiple children, it might feel like they are making less and less decisions on their own. It is for this reason that I feel allowing a younger student to make certain choices in practice can be very effective. Dorothy DeLay was known to say that her priority was a happy and joy filled child in a lesson. This is what she was shooting for in every lesson beyond the teaching of violin and classical music. When children are in this state, they are more fluid, willing, and learn with greater ease. She was extraordinarily conscious of her choice of words in lessons and always managed to bring comments into a positive framework to allow the child that safe space emotionally to learn and grow. In my teaching, once a child is feeling fluid and happy, I will follow their lead for a while and we inevitably discover something together. If there are certain components that are determined to be necessary in your child’s work, consider allowing them to choose some of the order. Give them ample space to make a suggestion or problem solve and be willing to apply their idea fully followed by a fun Q and A about what worked and what didn’t. Be flexible enough to miss something on some days if it promotes a happier learning space during the week. Treat your pieces, etudes, or scales like basic nutrition and do your best but take stock in the week’s work more than every day. By the end of the month, you will have made beautiful strides in all areas and have a happy kid walking into the practice room. Strive to make the beginning and the end of every practice session positive, light, and affirming.  Ask them what their favorite part of today’s practice and use that to brainstorm about the next day’s work. Leaving the practice room with a smile on their face all but guarantees they will want to walk back in later.  I have been known to stop practice sessions slightly early if I feel this happy state is achieved because I know it leads to more happy practice later. 

Balance and Rest 

As a teacher, I see increasing amounts of children arriving to lessons exhausted and yawning in lessons. I will ask how they are doing and if they are tired and try and coax a smile out of them.  The parents lightly brush it off and we try and make the best of it. Through casual conversation, I learn of their schedules and it becomes clearer to me why they sometimes seem uninspired, have trouble working effectively, and why parents grow frustrated with a decline in interest. It is not a new phenomenon for kids to be overscheduled with activities but as a teacher of 22 years now; it seems to be getting more common. I am a Mom myself and at times it is challenging for us too. Especially with creative kids, they want to do it all and many artistic talents will yield well to another art form and that is exciting for everyone. But physically they are still very small and they can only do so much by the end of any week. There needs to be room and breathing space for a child to lead in the lessons and in practice. If we have to prepare too many pieces, always on a time crunch and racing the clock, we aren’t creating an atmosphere that will inspire them to come forward and participate. It becomes more centered on checking off boxes in some daily list of activities and that can turn learning music into a chore.  Most parents agree that they would love for their children to continue to play music for a lifetime but if music making becomes a chore, how likely is this? If instead we allow the time and space for music to be a form of expression and an artistic outlet, our chances for a lifetime of music increase.

Parents, students, and teachers need to be watchful of schedules and learn to say no to certain opportunities in favor of balance and rest.  

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Fall in Love with Your Sound!

How do you feel about your sound? Not your pitch or your projection or your vibrato. Your SOUND.

If we all agree that the violin is the closest instrument to the human voice, then it doesn’t seem a far leap to suggest that your sound should be your very highest priority.

So often, we are distracted by pitch, bow technique, left hand pyrotechnics, and everything that makes the violin sound virtuosic. There are so many tremendous things that the violin can do, it is easy to be seduced away from what the ear and the heart truly want: beautiful sound. Neglected, it can detract from your performances, interpretations, and the compositions themselves. Without a fully developed tone, your connection with the audience is hindered. Like a bad radio signal, the message you are trying to deliver is marred, distorted.

The tone you produce as a violinist is like your signature. If you hone your craft enough, it can be recognizable anywhere on any piece. It can tell a story, project an emotion, take our breath away, and even develop a following! Love them or leave them, the most revered players in the world have a sound which is iconic and totally their own.

Beginning methods of violin place great importance on the sound and beauty of tone. This is clearly the highest priority and rightly so. So much of basic technique centers around the ability to create beautiful, clear sound. But then, virtuosic technique starts to take off and fancier literature catches our ears. If a student isn’t careful, their journey to their signature sound gets off track. Getting a young student to practice a lyrical piece and focus on drawing a beautiful spiraled tone is a hard sell when they have Sarasate showpieces to explore!

But here’s the thing. There comes a point in a young violinist’s life where I believe it is imperative that they take the time to explore their voice on the violin. They need to take the time away from the virtuosic literature and fall completely head over heels in love with their own sound. It is what makes them unique and is the conduit for everything they are trying to communicate. All of the bells and whistles of violin aside, think of how you feel when you shut out the busy parts of the life and quiet the voices in your head. Gorgeous sound isn’t about being impressive or flashy or loud. It is about being understood, centered, and clear. After all, we were human before we were violinists. Is there anything more satisfying than playing a perfectly written lyrical piece and having the audience quietly hanging on your every bow stroke? We need that connection to the room in our lives and so does the audience.

I remember playing single phrases for hours in a room in my tiny house growing up. I would bend sound this way and that way, adjusting pressure, speed and sounding point in small increments. We were way past playing in tune or clean in my studies – I wanted to express something more personal, subtle. It was at this point in my training that I grew the most. I looked forward to my practice. It became my personal haven with no end point. I was in love.

So on Valentines Day, it seems fitting to share this blog with my fellow violinists and students. Take some time today to explore your unique voice. It’s our musical superpower as violinists and everything else can wait. Go ahead – fall in love!

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Staying in the Game – Increasing Repertoire

This blog is about the importance of keeping current with new repertoire while maintaining a teaching or performing schedule.

This has been a hard one for me to stay committed to throughout the years but now in my forties, I can say that it has made a huge impact on my career and my ability to relate to my students.

As I became more involved with a few conductors and pianists more on a regular basis, their wishlists for repertoire became more known to me.  I struggled with my own list of things I still wanted to sink my teeth into too. Then reality would set in. Did I have time for this? I teach 30-40 hours a week and that doesn’t count the administrative work to run the studio. I also have three kids, two of whom are still very young at 4 and 6. There are still 24 hours in a day right? But that thirst for new repertoire never dies, does it? Remember the absolute thrill you got hearing you were going on to a new piece when you were studying violin? Sometimes artistic growth depends on new repertoire. You are bound to come across fresh phrases and opportunities to expand your ears…. There was also the realization that at this point, my career is where it was meant to be. I am not in my twenties anymore competing internationally, or building connections with management to play with more “A” orchestras in hopes of a broader solo career. I love my teaching studio, my family, and my occasional jaunt on stage. So there isn’t as much to risk in learning something new and (GASP) making a few mistakes in public along the way. And there is so much to gain in joy and satisfaction playing beautiful music on stage.

So I started accepting more requests to learn a new sonata or concerto to perform. I was immediately happier. Sure, I was pressed for time but my brain was vibrating in a way I had missed. And I noticed something else.  I was relating to my students differently. It hit me that THEY were learning things for the first time too. So that feeling of things being fresh or building the muscle memory from scratch, analyzing new patterns – we were on the same wavelength. I had a bit more patience with them and there were more ideas at my fingertips for helping them get through these first stages of learning on something. The difference in my teaching for these students was palpable. And now I have a broader repertoire to extend to them as well. What a nice surprise!

As far as the performances went, I can safely say they went pretty well. A few times I really surprised myself and had terrific first times on stage. For the concerti (three new ones performed with orchestra in the past three years: Prokofiev No. 1, Korngold, and Dvorak!) I did myself a favor and went to more orchestra rehearsals. This helped tremendously and the orchestras were happy to have me more often. For a standard concerto I am performing on review, one to two rehearsals would be enough but for these newer concerti I gave four. I also was careful to schedule a session with the conductor with a pianist so they could hear my tempi in advance. Every little bit helped. For sonata and recital literature, I upped my rehearsals there too and benefited. One unexpected bonus of this was working with adult musicians more often. Sounds silly but I work with kids every day. There is a definitely different feeling to making music with other professional musicians. And adding rehearsals made that happen for me. It reminded me of the collaborative joy of being in my conservatory days and doing more chamber music. Endorphins firing all over the place and a sense of community at work with people I respect and can relate to musically.  

I hope by writing this blog I have encouraged other teachers and performers like myself to keep learning new repertoire no matter how challenging it appears. Even a shorter piece learned in depth has been so satisfying for me in this stage of my life and career. It has been a true blessing for me in my life and as I head into my second performance of the Korngold later this month, I am so grateful I said yes to it last year.  For the record, I almost said no!  

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100 ETUDE CHALLENGE!

This blog is about our studio experience this summer taking “The 100 Etude Challenge”.

As we approached the summer of 2016, I knew we had several students who needed to focus on their fundamentals and feel their technique solidify. We do scales and etudes every lesson and I believe this is how things should be done. Sometimes with competition season I feel parental pressure to focus on a performance piece or the need to rehearse with piano and we lose our way temporarily. Before too long, we always head back to Flesch, Hrimaly, Wohlfarht , Kreutzer, and Rode. This is where our skills are built and where our technical fluency begins. In every major work for violin there will be runs that are in the form of a scale or arpeggio, broken thirds, chromatic lines – sometimes all of the above! Composers will take their melodies and add double-stops to make it richer, more passionate, or just to embellish.  Without scale work and etudes, our hands stiffen just as we should embrace these embellishments or virtuosic passagework.  

So I took a leap right before summer break began and issued out a 100 etude challenge to my studio.  The prize? A trip of fun to an amusement park to celebrate their newfound progress. Cue shocked looks and wide eyed students!

I started with just the teenagers stating that if they reached 100 on their own they could earn a trip just for them. They have a fairly tight peer group so this idea appealed to them very much.  If that goal wasn’t met by August, there were told we would invite the little ones in to contribute. Initially everyone seemed on board.  Quickly, some students questioned our ability to reach 100.  I encouraged them playfully to spend their time practicing instead of figuring out how many etudes each of them needed to pass per week. It was surprising to see the different reactions in the students and I learned more about them in the face of a challenge.  Some had great blind faith and leapt into work. Others doubted we could get there but participated nonetheless stoicly. Some left half way through. I allowed them to send me videos during the week or when they were on vacation to pass etudes to get us ahead. I emailed back comments when I needed them to work harder and made a point of only passing them when they were truly finished and representative of their best work. As we approached August it became clear that although we were almost 2/3 of the way there we needed to call in the rest of the studio to help us reach our goal.  

The little people in the studio were thrilled. They knew they might be called on and were asking at every lesson, waiting in the wings to kick into high gear. I allowed them to use their etudes retroactive to the date the older ones started so we tallied up happily.  We were more than ¾ of the way there now!

The younger students love the etudes and this always surprises people.  By and large, they really enjoy working on them and some of my students tackle more than one at a time without my prompting. It took me years to come up with why in the world this would be true (it surprised me too!) but I have a pretty strong theory now. I think the elementary school crowd likes etudes because they run more in line with their child development as well as their schooling. Etudes are full of patterns both rhythmically and harmonically and there is symmetry everywhere. They seem to approach them almost like a game. The kids who like them are great at rubix cubes, crosswords, and mazes. They also get to use the metronome and regulate their body and feel it coordinate in different ways. It is stimulating them in all the right ways. Some of my friends who are teaching colleagues approach me about my teaching of etudes so early and seem to think I am torturing the poor kids. When they chide me about it, I tell them with a wink that they shouldn’t project their feelings about etudes on the kids.  The kids take their cues from us.  If I didn’t teach beginning violin in a way which is (at least at first) child led, I wouldn’t have even picked up on the fact that they liked it. I would have introduced the etude book as, “Here is the book of drudgery we have to somehow make time for in our lessons together. “ My own daughter is 6 and her favorite part of practice is her scales where she gets to invent a rhythm and template it up and down. It changes every day and she likes to surprise me.  I give her extra kudos if she can add a bow distribution to it. She also loves what she calls “Melodious Double Slops” where she sounds like two people at once.  She now has her very own metronome where we learn how to stay steady in the Wohlfarht Etude Book 1.  

So with the whole studio (that’s 20 students) in full force, we reached our goal to 100.  It was an amazing moment and the lead up in the last weeks was so exciting.  They have made such strides and the difference in their work ethic is palpable.  The little ones were our heroes and this lifted them up in a beautiful way that made the achievement even sweeter.

One thing I have learned is you cant force a student to do fundamental work and you cant force a parent to value it. In the past, my assignments have been glossed over, undervalued, ignored, and cast aside. I have even been told by parents they could just handle that part on their own! (Darn those pesky etudes and scales!) Every student I encountered here over the summer who was a return student of mine on summer break from music school reported they don’t do scales or etudes in their school during the year. They say they don’t have time in their lessons either. I feel there is always ten minutes.  Sometimes that is enough to hear the beginning of an exercise or a scale and introduce a new concept about balance or breathing to apply during the week. I understand there might be periods of time where your fundamental work is limited but you still have to be committed to getting back to it. As a teacher I know it is my role to encourage, support, and create opportunities to motivate the whole studio so I do my part. By taking their development as young people into the equation, I am able to keep them interested and happy to work. The rest is up to them!

Happy workers in practice are great violinists and musicians. Once a kid is happy to put good thoughtful work into play, (see what I did there?) the sky is the limit. One thing is for sure. There isn’t just a day at the park in their futures. There is cleaner, more empowered playing coming this year for them thanks to the summer they spent on this challenge.  

I wonder what next summer will bring?

[abhorman-blog]

Traction

On this snowy day in Washington DC it is easy to think about traction. We think about traction for our vehicles and getting from here to there and wonder if our tires are good enough. We question the salt on roads and whether they have been adequately treated so we can move safely with from one destination to the other soon. Sometimes it seems at just the thought of snow or ice, the whole city shuts down for fear of lack of traction. It is all over the media – our trigger response to the weather and whether people think we are overreacting, being safe by staying put, or placing people at risk just to keep things on schedule.

It is also competition season in my violin studio so we speak of traction a lot in our work here. We discuss traction in our work and progress and the ease in which we receive and apply concepts. Over the past few years, with some of my most talented students, I noticed that the feeling of traction in their progress sometimes actually repels them or scares them and we hit a roadblock. Often as we break through to a new level of playing, we don’t sound all that great getting there. There is traction during the process but in a sense, there is an uncomfortable feeling that goes along with it. We are moving but the friction is palpable because to make progress we have to back up, grip, and sometimes move through the ugly stuff. At times it feels like quicksand! It doesn’t always sound or feel great and for some, it causes them to just retreat or avoid this feeling altogether. And we were just on the verge of a breakthrough! We hear glimpses of it almost like a sneak peek. For many, the parents are on board but the students are the ones that are fearful and uneasy.  Enter more friction between parent and student and teacher on the sidelines giving repeat instructions attempting to establish productive “traction”. Of course the parents don’t have the same feelings of discomfort and unease as the students do in process. Some of it is psychological. Even I avoided correcting my bow grip for quite a while when I was a young violinist. I had so much wrapped up in how I sounded when I played. It was part of how I communicated and in some ways a large part of my identity. Violin was my outlet and my life was not easy at the time. The idea of sounding bad for a while in order to sound better later on was a bit over my head for longer than I would like to admit. But my teacher was persistent and patient and kind. He pops in my head a lot nowadays as I notice similar reactions in my students. They have to move through it and there is no Mapquest or ETA. After all, it took people 6 hours to just travel the highway back home from work last night for lack of proper traction. They got there, but it was scary.

But what about the students who move at lightening speed like a race car that embraces the traction? Or students who have zones of learning where they embrace said traction while we all cheer but then get hobbled in the next turn? How can everyone be a bit more accepting of the feeling of traction and allow themselves to move forward wisely and without hesitation? These are things I ask myself a lot to encourage growth in the studio. I ask these same questions of myself as I grow my business and find myself with new clients and new challenges. Most of these behaviors seem subconscious to me so an open dialogue has proven useful. Once I explain my own experiences and what I have seen in other students in their journeys, sometimes we can navigate better together. From there, things have the potential to feel more fluid.

It seems to me that a common thread that weighs in here is whether the student is accustomed to a feeling of challenge and struggle. Many of my students excel so much in school they have never broken stride. That aptitude has attracted them to an instrument like the violin and it also contributes to them excelling here too. But the feelings of backing up, refining, problem solving only to fail and try again are relatively new to them and they aren’t versed on how to cope with these feelings.  My own mother told me vibrato took me 9 months to master in large part because nothing had really broken my stride before. Navigating these feelings can feel like you are walking through mud. But with each met challenge, the navigation becomes more familiar and less uncomfortable. We learn to accept the feelings we have as part of the process and par for the course.

In my opinion, assessing where traction will hit and encouraging it for each student is key.  Challenging them is necessary but it is not one size fits all. It usually takes me a few months to figure out where their stride will hit a bump. We move through it together while I watch the student’s reaction and tailor the next steps to them. I wait longer than most observing children make mistakes so they can feel it, problem solve with me, and correct it in good time. To often I think we stop kids mid mistake and they cannot become accustomed to the feeling of working through their challenges. It is hard not to step in midstream and make it all better but it works wonders and I now sit back and am fascinated to see how they react to their own mistakes. At this point parents sometimes voice concerns. Kids are worried they aren’t moving forward at the same pace suddenly and motivation can go down. Sometimes even the need to learn said new concepts is challenged and I have to respond to that too. But to me, these are life lessons in traction we teach in the studio. Not everything will be breezy – everything can be moved through with time.  We wont always sound perfect or have a smooth transition from one level to the next. What we CAN do is learn to embrace the process in all of its stages and with effort we can find ourselves having a productive reaction to the feeling of traction. Our lives will be richer and then our music making will be more profound. Today I watch people in my neighborhood shoveling while it is still snowing, icing the walks and bundling up for tough conditions. Their eyebrows are furrowed but they know they must take these steps. They have been here before. And by midweek, the sun will shine again.

[abhorman-blog]

NSO In Your Neighborhood Event coming up!!

Don't forget! Our NSO “In Your Neighborhood” event is next Tuesday at 5PM at First UCC in DC. We are the only private studio represented in this series and are so grateful!  Please attend and enjoy a master class by NSO violinist, Jane Stewart, leading three of our students - Masato Chang, Chloe Lee, and Kayleigh Kim with pianist, Brad Clark! 

This master class will be featuring three HVS students in different levels and age groups, ages 7-13, representing some of our best work in the studio this year.  We are so grateful for them to have the opportunity to work with a musician from the NSO and hope to see you there in support!

This class will also have an emphasis on breathing and stage deportment so spread the word!

[abhorman-blog]

A General Who Still Fights

At a concert of mine a few months ago, a new student’s parent approached me and said how much she appreciated me performing with such a busy teaching schedule in place. She then shared with me that her friend, a musician who was along for the concert, remarked to her that I was “like a general who still fights”. It has stuck in my head and made me smile ever since.  I do feel older now (hello 40’s), more seasoned, and the balance in my life is much different but I love it. I have three kids, I lead my violin studio as best I can - and yes, I still appear regularly on stage with orchestra and in recital with piano.

It made me think about the pros and cons of solo performing alongside high-level teaching. This blog is about my feelings about striking that balance. I am still working on it so some of my thoughts are works in progress!

I started performing with orchestra as a soloist when I was 14. It is an intoxicating and spectacular feeling to present a large-scale work with orchestra. You finally hear the work as it was written with all of the parts and the textures present. You also are physically placed in the midst of it, positioned on stage. The vibrations are very strong against your body and there is a conductor and baton right next to your scroll reading your every move. To me there have been moments where it feels almost like you are at the helm of a ship. There is so much trust involved with the conductor and hours of score study to fully piece it together with all the sections of the orchestra. There is an amazing feeling of warmth and community when full score is memorized. It is both powerful and intimate. I was hooked immediately.

At 15, I left everything I knew including school and family to study solo violin in Paris and never looked back. I started teaching when I was studying at the Paris Conservatory when I was 16. I surprised myself when I fell in love with teaching immediately. It was a wonderful feeling to impart the knowledge I felt so lucky to have received. As I continued teaching once I moved back home, my studio grew gradually and with it, so did the students’ level of playing. Suddenly I was teaching the full gamut of literature to kids brimming with ambition. I realized that because of my good fortune in teachers, I had the ability to help many students finally play sections of large works that had eluded them and ultimately cost them hours and hours of practice. A great fingering, a new concept, correct bow placement – sometimes just one thing would make all the difference and all of their hard work would finally culminate into the result they had been waiting for.  

While my teaching hours happily increased, my solo performances in town picked up and I struggled with practice, efficiency, and balance of home life. It was not a situation where I was easily able to choose one or the other. My solo performances were fewer and farther between than the teaching and would not sustain us financially in their paychecks. The teaching was not just a passion – it was a stable income. It was also a regular connection to people and a source of such joy in my life. I couldn’t see myself dropping either aspect of my musical life. So the choice in front of me was more of a question really – was it possible to do concerto work while I taught 40 hours a week? (Yes, you read that correctly – 40 hours!) Most people I talked to said it wasn’t possible and urged me to act sensibly. I was also growing my family alongside these choices being made and am currently the mom of three kids. We bought a house, moved to the city, and became involved in our neighborhood and schools. Life is so rich and has so many facets. Could solo work practically fit in all of this? But now go back and re read the paragraph about how playing solo makes me feel. It was my first dream – the thing I sacrificed most of my childhood to do. So you can imagine my indecision. I found myself continuing to accept solo jobs and delivering performances all the while wondering with each one how I would get it all done. I tried to place trust in my training and effective practice and remain fluid, practicing as deeply as I could and working hard on all fronts. Occasionally I would allow my deepest fears to come out of my mouth, usually to family, usually right before performances. The ironically, somehow those performances would go better than any of the others ones placing me right back where I started.  

Eventually I stopped questioning it. I moved forward on all cylinders, unable to give up the performance aspect of my life. Instead, I focused my practice more, organized my scores, and honed in my schedule. My studio grew more and more advanced and competitive. My teaching was now 90% virtuoso work so I was demonstrating constantly, almost practicing alongside the students.  I felt technically in shape even when my practice was threatened because of my teaching and work with students. My musical brain seemed more on than off so this helped me get the most out of my solo practice. I started to see the healthy benefits of teaching the works I performed and even found myself making subtle changes to my interpretations based on things we discovered in together. The students attended my performances more than not and they seemed motivated by watching me do the very things they heard in lessons.  It allowed me the opportunity to speak to them about nerves, rehearsal techniques, even inviting them to rehearsals so they could watch things come together in real time. Many students of mine have stayed after their lessons to hear a run through of my concerto knowing I do them every day for weeks leading up to a concert. The sheer courage and commitment it takes to step out on stage and perform a full concerto is a good example to try and set when you run a high level studio and I feel its effects for weeks afterwards. When my students and family are there to support at a successful concert, everything does really feel all right with my world.  They have all contributed to this moment in so many ways and we share in this success.

A few years after that decision, I made what turned out to be another significant commitment to my studio and myself. I decided I would learn a set of new works every year including a concerto. I realized that some of the newer works just weren’t taught in conservatory when I was younger but I still yearned to know them and to teach them. This has proven so meaningful to me to keep this commitment. It allows me to relate to the students in a way I wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It also allowed me to take on concerto opportunities in the last few years I wouldn’t have otherwise. When I am learning something new, I am starting from scratch and teaching my hands new things, seeding new muscle memories, studying a new score, and just generally having to work or focus more. I have to manage my time better and be more tunnel-visioned. All things I ask of my students. My first performances on concerti are not perfect – sometimes full of little surprises and this is so healthy for my students and their parents to witness. If I am fortunate enough to have multiple performances, they can see a piece relax and deepen. I am also immediately more empathetic to student frustrations or progress plateaus. These difficult works and their progress move so slowly.  In review we get gratified so quickly almost like our old work is thanking us while our muscle memories come flooding back. With new works, there is almost no positive feedback for weeks if not longer. I am able to give my students more genuine support reminding myself on a regular basis of how it feels to learn new pieces from scratch.

And sometimes I think there might be another important message to my kids and students in here too - If I am able to have a family, teach a full week, and learn a new concerto to perform, it shows my students that different things are possible. Maybe even that a full life of parenting, performing, and teaching is possible. It wouldn’t be everyone’s choice I’m sure and there are weeks where I struggle more, but it IS possible.  I have a local career where I play all the larger concerti regularly while I run a high level studio.  It makes me feel useful, true to myself, and beautiful to honor all of these parts of who I am.  I am grateful that my students and children can be part of this and I think it benefits all of us in different ways.  

[abhorman-blog]

“Violin Breakfast”

I am both a violin teacher, a performer and now the mother of a 5 year old studying the violin.  Totally uneven misshapen Suzuki triangle anyone? This blog is about us finding a practice routine with her in kindergarten this year.

I watched my daughter’s interest in violin really skyrocket last summer and participated in it as much as I could knowing she was off of school and free as a bird in scheduling.  It was exciting and really heartwarming to watch her grow joyfully and since I am a teacher, I was able to help her every step of the way.

As the school year approached, I felt the dread enter my heart wondering how we would keep up our practice.  She clearly was ignited with interest and yet as her parent, it was my job to find and schedule the time.  At five, she hardly knows what day it is yet let alone what time she will be playing the violin next.  

My teaching and practice schedule is such that the house is not always free or quiet.  And I am not quite ready to send her to another teacher or a separate space to practice.  We are bonding well over violin for the time being so I am soaking that up as long as it lasts.  

It didn’t take me long to figure out that a prime time might be the morning.  Unfortunately, I am not a morning person.  In addition to that, like most moms with three kids getting off to school, mornings are not stress or noise free.  Quite the opposite, actually!  So I took some time to strategize.  If I turned every other task into something more streamlined or simple, would practice become more of a possibility? Clothes set out in cubbies, lunches made, breakfast simplified, I approached the first week of morning practice with a fair amount of trepidation.  To my surprise, she was all for it.  Bright eyed like most 5 year olds in the morning, she thought this was great and brought her sippy cup of milk in with us.  I decided we would start each day with scales, etude, and a review piece.  I make them as fun as possible with games. This way when we are tired and challenged for time in the evening, we would have a better chance of picking up the violin again.  The second session would be when we would do her current pieces and those are the ones that captivate her the most! In the event we were sabotaged by traffic, rehearsals, or another kid’s needs in the evening, we were getting the basics in for sure and that helped my violinistic head. I know very well that those are the most important things for her to be doing long-term.  And she doesn’t seem to be tracking days as much as just enjoying herself.

By the end of the first week, she coined the term “Violin Breakfast”.  She will now head in on her own and call for me when it is time, watching for it on the clock.  And the progress is continuing.  I no longer feel stressed about that second session in the evening.  If we don’t get to it, we have still done a solid half hour in the morning and she loves it.  I try and focus instead on the week’s worth of practice and the quality of it.  I compare this to the way my pediatrician told me to track our kid’s nutrition when they were at their pickiest and I was worried they weren’t getting what they needed to grow. Most days, perhaps because the stress level is lower, we DO get a second session in so this puts us at about an hour a day. Somehow making this time in the morning has offered us two happy sessions together and I don’t see us turning back.

We have been going strong on Violin Breakfast since the beginning of the school year. This includes weeks I am performing concerti and even days when I have been sick and my husband has taken over.  There were a few days in the first few weeks where I had to really cajole myself into the room.  But she was always steadfast.  I take in my favorite coffee in a nice mug and I do my best to engage genuinely, trying hard to mirror the energy she has in the morning. This has served as an important reminder to me of how important my role is to her in this endeavor.  With any habit taking at least 21 days to make, I feel we are over the hump and sailing.   

Best side effect to violin breakfast for me? I am warmed up and ready to practice on my own once she leaves for school.  Our practice together starts my day off right and I feel technically and musically grounded and plugged in. Now THAT I didn’t expect!

Next up: Violin Dessert!

[abhorman-blog]

"Are We There Yet?" A Vacation Inspired Blog

Like last year, as I sit on vacation, I have room to think and ponder the year behind us. This is a welcome change to the hustle of the studio day in and day out as much as I thrive on that energy and love my work wholeheartedly.

I found myself thinking quite a bit about the strategy of getting from one level to another and how in my studio, it is not one size fits all. Often, a student comes to me in the middle of their violin journey and I am picking up where they left off. Sometimes we need to go back together, gather some missed information, or take a detour and discover a few technical elements before we can get back on track. Other times I am teaching them from the beginning, trying to make sure they get what they need from day one.

Inevitably, as things start to really progress, I will get asked questions which can be summed up in the title of this blog.

“Are we there yet?”

This question could refer to starting a new piece, embarking finally on a favorite concerto, the readiness to compete, adding vibrato, learning about shifting….the list goes on. The question itself indicates sometimes a level of impatience. Other times it is just genuine curiosity as to where we are going and how we are doing. Sometimes it is both.

Too often I think students (and parents too) are a few years ahead of themselves when it comes to expectations on literature. Teachers aren’t generally surprised by this. Students have no way of knowing how things should go with building techniques and how one thing leads to another. With very talented kids this is especially commonplace and I can genuinely empathize! I remember wondering when I would get to certain pieces and sometimes it truly didn’t make sense once I started them WHY I was now being granted access. “Wait, NOW we are here?” Then, ironically, there was often rapid fire fears or insecurities along the lines of “Are you sure I am ready?” What a roller coaster!

Once students start to acquire virtuosic technique things can become very exciting. They’ve worked hard for this and the anticipation is powerful.

“Are we there yet?”

Suddenly, in their minds eye, they can almost feel their hands playing giant works. They watch great artists and recognize the mechanics now behind the techniques enough to describe how they are executed. Surely, we must be close! But then from my vantage point, there is still the need for refinement so we find ourselves working on Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven to correct the bow, heighten awareness, achieve supple hands, and refine sound or pitch. This can last months.

I have sensed great tension in the studio over these choices. The pieces don’t sound as readily impressive (they are of course!), they don’t compete as well (such a shame, really!), and frankly the students aren’t ignited by them most of the time. What they really want is to get to that showpiece they have been dreaming of for years now and who can blame them? Sometimes the parents are equally dissatisfied. There are palpable question marks in the room looming over us. How long will this take and what is it offering us? Nevermind that most large competitions require a full Mozart Concerto and/or a lyrical work by a Classical composer in the earlier rounds. It is hard to get students to live inside that reality. Forget that Curtis or other large conservatories require a full unaccompanied Bach Partita or sonata by memory. This is a worry that could feel years away. When big concerti and dazzling showpieces dominate local competitions, it can feel like ambition cloaks the very room we work in. It is disorienting. So how do we re-focus? How about discussing what those compositions teach us as musicians? Or how does learning and performing these pieces yield to a greater ease of technique? But these are more long term rationalizations...

The success of advanced training in my opinion hinges on expertise and trust - sometimes in equal parts. Parents and students won’t understand why we need to learn in a specific order and that should be expected. They don’t have the background the teacher does to fully understand. Having said that, it is human nature for them to want to understand the reasoning behind some of the pedagogy, isn’t it? Especially if it brings dischord to practice and motivation with the student at home. And I don’t mind trying to explain. The problem starts when everyone needs to completely understand to fully support. Sometimes no explanation will suffice because the background to understand is just not there. In these cases, the drive to succeed eclipses the knowledge on deck. Then we have a potential roadblock! Like many teachers, I have had parents leave the studio over this.

In the past, l have felt friction for months while teaching new literature. I could feel the tension from a parent not able to understand its place in the pedagogy. I could feel the detachment of the child, uninterested in the literature at hand. I have found myself growing very frustrated, pained almost, realizing this is the absolute last way I would choose to coach Mozart, Beethoven Romances, or unaccompanied Bach. It is some of the most miraculous music ever written and somehow nobody in the room was as enthusiastic as me! Gradually, as I taught more and more, I realized I couldn’t expect everyone to love the music as I did on a schedule that lined up with their development. I learned to forge ahead undaunted, generating my own kind of enthusiasm. I discovered new things about the works every time I taught them and this helped me stay thoughtful and present. Sometimes we would get lucky and my enthusiasm for a piece enables the tide to turn in the room. Sometimes it didn’t.

I have frequently seen pieces students initially disliked become their favorites. These pieces are generally ones I chose to shine a light on technique that is underdeveloped or needs re working. I like to remind the students that it is unlikely they will like a piece when it makes them sound awkward or unaccomplished and that this is not the composition’s fault. But then, once we resolve the technical issue, that piece becomes special to them. It is the vehicle that helped us to jump over that technical hurdle. Success! Lyrical pieces tend to present a challenge to some of my younger students. Their brains and emotions move so fast and a lyrical work is not stimulating to most of them the way it is to an adult. So we write stories, create characters, draw pictures, use color wheels, anything to keep the creative spirit engaged. After all, it isn’t a bad idea to make a student’s energy slow down or roll differently. Witnessing a very active spirited child spin a beautiful story through a lyrical composition can be incredibly gratifying for everyone, even them!

Our studio parents are some of our greatest allies. They support practice, listening, attending concerts, and fuel the energy behind the learning process that happens 6/7 days a week. Currently, I have the strongest group of studio parents that I have ever had, and I thank my lucky stars for them. We work together and there is a definite team atmosphere a lot of the time. In the end though, I decide on literature and the order and they respect that based on my expertise. Sometimes I will deviate but it is generally to add, not subtract! I am very fortunate that my parents trust me and painfully aware that this has not always been the case.

Now that I have been teaching over 20 years, I have learned to press through these challenges. There will always be some friction as we journey together. I have realized that it is a blessing when everyone is equally excited in the room with the literature we are studying. The ebb and flow of these emotions comes with the territory of teaching. In the end, a violinist’s development is my job and it isn’t always going to be smooth or predictable - but it is always worth it. Because when they ask me, “Are we there yet?” my answer might be “No, not yet.” But the operative word is “yet”.

[abhorman-blog]

The Recording Process: A Progress Pressure Cooker

I am writing this blog to describe my current feelings about recording high-level violin with young people. Most of the kids I am recording currently in the studio are age 10-15 and the majority of them are in the 12,13 middle school age range.  

Recording can be tricky physically and psychologically even for adults but with kids,  there are a different set of challenges. It can also be highly exhilarating and the results can be used to celebrate a child’s violin journey or even place in a major competition resulting in performance opportunities.

This past year or so I am noticing that after we record, there is a staggering amount of progress we see, almost like we have created a “pressure cooker” environment in the recording sessions. The kids learn how to focus deeper and longer. They start to see the importance of the first minute of a performance and the finality of the last minute. With the stakes higher and a time limit in a recording space, we tend to be pickier and push a little harder in practice and in lessons. Each child is different in how they respond to this added pressure but they all learn from it. It is such a different energy in recording than there is in practice, lessons, or rehearsals. They are being asked to give an inspired performance over and over again. It is like as if whatever muscle needs to be flexed to deliver a captivating performance is having to flex over and over again on command and what results is a sort of reflex memory built to get the body to deliver.

To get the full value out of recording, we try and reduce the stressors. The stressors generally are time, money, and energy. So this year we will record tracks in different sessions to reserve energy and money and consider pooling money together for equipment. We have some parents willing to take a course in learning to use equipment in recording. We offer snacks and breaks. We are fortunate to be able to at least partially barter with a church that has brilliant acoustics. The kids will be preparing their literature together and will have a break room to visit and give each other words of encouragement.  

After each performance the kids have a number of tracks to choose from. I instruct them to do the major portion of eliminating on their own. I will then reduce it down to the final track. They develop criteria for judging the tracks. In doing so, they put themselves in the position of a judge giving them a valuable new perspective. Perhaps most importantly, they are met with videos of themselves playing. They can see the straightness of their bow, their posture, the position of their wrist, etc. They don’t see from this perspective enough in the course of regular lessons. Frequently with the more virtuosic literature, the amount of technique is so distracting that in the moment they don’t perceive unwanted accents, missed dynamics, or a broken phrase. But viewing their takes, they catch this easily and are even fascinated by it, leading us to instant progress. More than not, there is an epiphany and in the very next recording session, there is a breakthrough.

Now that our students have witnessed the spurt of progress that appears after recording sessions take place, I believe they look forward to the process knowing they will be met with this reward to carry them into the next level of playing.  As they get used to recording, I know we are guiding them through an important analytical process that will contribute to their artistic growth and potentially result in opportunities and recognition for them.

[abhorman-blog]

Empowerment in the Studio

13 year old violinist, Jackson Pope performing Mozart Adagio in E

Student Empowerment in the Studio

A few years ago I gave a seminar at the University of Maryland entitled Practice to Performance. One of the things I discussed was the need for empowerment in a musician’s life while they are building their artistry and career.  

As I spend most of my time running a competitive studio, I see this need for empowerment increasing. The kids are practicing 3-5 hours a day across the board. The pieces are sometimes grueling in difficulty.  They are in the studio every day, face countless pressures, have moments of genuine disappointment in competitions, and strive hard to reach their goals. My job is to mix that with a good dose of empowerment and joy.  

The music was not written to bring us angst and negative emotions! The audience and the compositions are what are most important but in my studio I am finding that we need to work as a team to feel this every day. It is so easy to lose perspective when you are practicing fervently, struggling in rehearsals, and attempting to reach higher and higher levels of playing. The kids here move fast and it is hard to keep up. Sometimes we need to just take a second and enjoy their current level and the journey they have had so far. We need to stop the progress wheel from turning and feel the empowerment that comes from our playing today, in the NOW. When we do this, we can see an immediate benefit. They feel how powerful and touching their music making is to their spirits, our communities, and this serves as a beautiful reminder that this is what the music was written for! It even reconnects the students with why it is they chose to play violin in the first place.

For the second year in a row, we held a benefit for a wonderful organization in our community, Food & Friends. They serve families in need who are battling terminal illnesses by delivering meals every day and offering nutritional support.  The kids always have a reason to perform but this one was very special. They know that my own career halted to take care of my mom during her illness when I was straight out of conservatory. The audience was full of families and studio parents and the students wore formal dresses and tuxes to put on a brilliant recital full of some of our most beautiful literature. Some of the students raised money on their own and contributed it at the event!

14 year old Sabrina Shuster performing Wieniawski Polonaise No. 2

From my perspective, I have had studio traditional recitals in the past and of course charged a fee per student to cover pianist, hall rental, programs, rehearsal fees, etc. For there to be a benefit recital at no cost, I submitted a proposal to the church commission and they approved the charity organization of our choice and our program. The hall rental was waived, and the pianist even waived his performance fee for the cause. With the student cost of the event at zero we were able to make a suggested donation for the benefit and the parents paid no more than they would have for a standard studio recital but received the benefits of their child participating through their art in helping the community around them. The looks on their faces show the pride in their performances. We raised nearly 2000 dollars that evening and the donations are still coming in online. Best of all, in doing this we have taught these young musicians that music and their talents are powerful, that THEY are powerful, and that they can make a difference in a way that extends way past the practice room.  

Next year I am inspired to do more performing in retirement homes, schools, and for a cause.  

pictures by studio parent extraordinaire, Sam Chang

[abhorman-blog]

The Importance of Chamber Music

This past year, it became clear to me that many of our students were in need of a high level chamber experience to supplement their solo work with me in the studio. While we already put a lot of emphasis on sonata literature and encourage chamber orchestra and recreational chamber music with fellow musicians, this was different. This would involve coaching with three teachers, a curriculum, performance opportunities, and even competitions.

I took a large part of the summer researching different chamber programs for pre conservatory students around the country. I also took some time to reflect on the training I received as a chamber musician both before and during my days in the Paris Conservatory. For me, chamber music started early with parents in the house who were both accomplished musicians. They were both Ministers of Music in churches in our area so we played in services together, created descants for me with choirs, and had me participate in small chamber ensembles hired in for Easter and Christmas. My scholarship for private lessons when I was a preteen required me to do a chamber course and play in trios and quartets with Grad students at Catholic University. I then did a full summer of string quartets before I left for the Paris Conservatory at 15. By this point I had fallen in love with sonata repertoire too.

Playing with others is such a crucial skill and it might seem like an obvious one. For me it seemed already in the way I was raised but what about the talented students who do private lessons and youth symphony orchestra once a week? It is hard to describe to parents why it is that something that seems less obvious than a concerto could be so influential to their children's development. While studying and performing solo literature is obviously very rewarding and exciting, there is such value in the advanced listening and collaborating skills you attain through chamber music. It helps to refine the ear, centers rhythm, contributes to stage presence, and promotes a peer group that inevitably serves any young musician as they grow.

We had great success with our "pilot" chamber program this year. Our middle school Piano Trio, Trio Nuage, placed 2nd in an International competition enabling them to make their debut at Carnegie Hall later. Now more students are following in their footsteps and I am excited for what will come. I see friendships building, joy in music making, kids meeting on their own to rehearse, and an excitement in performance that would make any teacher proud. Our Elementary School Piano Trio parents reported to us that the kids go to each other's houses to hang out and then play chamber music together. Imagine my joy in hearing that!

This month is National Chamber Music Month. We are thrilled to be dedicating the work we do and the many chamber performances we are presenting to National Chamber Music Month and hope others will too. Below are some pictures of the chamber music our students have been involved in this year. We hope this inspires more kids to start their journey into chamber literature and more studios to make this a basic part of their curriculum.

Sean Yongjoo Lim and Evelyn Song (student of Lya Stern) performing Sarasate: Navarra for the Strathmore Hall Gala event in preparation for their performance with the MCYO Philharmonic Orchestra and Maestro Kristofer Sanz. 

MCYO Philharmonic at Strathmore Hall where Sean and Evelyn will be performing Navarra with orchestra on May 20th!

Trio Etoile, Carina Kong (student of Anna Ouspenskaya), Kayleigh Kim (HVS), Negin Mostaghim (student of John Kaboff), in rehearsal at HVS. 

promo shots with Trio Etoile for fun at the taping of Classical Open Stage, a local TV show in Montgomery County, Maryland sponsored by The Potter Violin Company. 

Trio Nuage, Aimee Feng (student of Anna Ouspenskaya), Masato Chang (HVS), Colin Hill (student of John Kaboff), being coached at the HVS Master Class with Jonathan Carney on April 26th, 2015. 

Trio Nuage after their Carnegie Hall debut performing Haydn’s Piano Trio in C Major on May 10th, 2015. 

[abhorman-blog]

My High Tech Studio Transformation

This blog is about implementing technology into your privatestudio and practice.

One thing that has been coming up a lot lately inconversations with other teachers is how much technology I am currently using in the studio. My reaction to this is always the same. I genuinely continue to surprise myself at the fact that I am embracing a high level of technology in my private studio and in my own work. I was never a “techie” kind of person. Not too long ago, I had no website, no Facebook, and couldn’t operate my own phone properly! But things have changed and because I was never someone who used technology much before (I believe I was in a practice room!), I am proud of having now embraced it as an adult.  

So what motivated me to change my ways and take a leap toward technology? I encountered some of the most talented kids I have ever known in the last couple of years. As I realized how fast these students could move, I was instantly motivated to explore how I could match their pace. In my studio, the students all learn a bit differently but the pace was staggeringly fast this year and the student numbers were higher. It was exciting and challenging to keep up with it all. Tracking each student’s work and straddling multiple pieces required detailed note taking on my part along with a fair amount of strategizing outside of lessons. One consistent problem we encountered was extending that pace and energy to home. My goal was to make the energy and pace they feel in the lesson extend all week so that it was fluid and invigorating.

My own life also changed a lot too with three kids now of my own to raise and keep up with. Somehow in the midst of all of this, I was receiving a growing amount of performance opportunities. I am not one to turn down opportunities or the possibility to experience great music. Frequently there was a question mark in my head about how to run a competitive studio and produce high-level performances while still raising my young family.

I brainstormed and spoke to some parents and colleagues about how to effectively implement some things that would enable the flow of learning to continue through the week as seamlessly as possible. Parents were integral to this process, using the tools at home, so we found ourselves guesstimating the amount of time needed to coach the parents as well. Most of the technology brought up included things I had not used prior to this or at least had not used in that combination. Some parents were more tech savvy than others – and this I understood all too well! 

For my own rehearsals and practice, I needed to be able to capture what had happened and retain it for sometimes an entire day before I would be able to address it. Being the mom of two toddlers with a full studio, my practice schedule had no guarantees except at night. Every minute would count. I had to be fluid about practice and grab time as it appeared getting right to the problem spots. 

In our brainstorms we contemplated many things:

How do I keep the studio informed about events, master classes, and opportunities in real time so they are in the loop?

How productive and efficient can I be in relaying information in my teaching?

How can I help them prep for their first lesson on something so we hit the ground running?

How can I keep track of my own practice and rehearsals and retain them longer?

I realized there was so much more that I could contribute to students outside of my own knowledge and teaching. I also had an important realization that I needed to implement technology into my rehearsals so that I could be productive in my own practice. Initially this was awkward but I was spending an inordinate amount of energy trying to remember and retain information from one day to the next around my teaching and family schedule. In the end, I knew I needed to develop a system where all aspects of the lesson/rehearsals and information about the studio were retrievable, portable, and easily accessible through even a smartphone.   

We decided to expand beyond just our website, Facebook and twitter accounts. We built an app and put it on iTunes for free at the end of last summer. Our thinking was that our students would download and it would mainly be for them to keep them in the loop. Now, to our surprise, 6 months later 700 people have it around the world. It shows our event calendar, website news, Facebook, pictures from events, clips from our students, and notifications on competitions and cancellations. It also has buttons for luthiers I know and trust, music stores for buying scores, and SHAR for accessories and strings. I have put everything at their fingertips. If we are starting a new piece, notice the need for new strings, or require a mute, they can order things right there in front of me.  

With that part of the equation done, we implemented two more important pieces of technology to capture the lessons and bring them home with the students. We added a permanent ZOOM camera to the studio for videotaping lessons asking the parents to supply an SD card, and introduced what is now one of my favorite gadgets, the Livescribe 3 pen.  

The ZOOM camera is great because it records high quality sound and is HD.  I can demonstrate techniques and they can record run throughs of their piece to review later. There is no question that having that visual is so instructive. Some of the techniques the students are learning have such subtleties and watching it demonstrated over and over can have a real impact on them finally capturing it and being able to reproduce it themselves. It is very user friendly and connects straight to a computer opening immediately with QuickTime Player. We have used recordings made in our studio using the Zoom for competitions everywhere and although professional equipment is obviously preferred for bigger competitions, the Zoom has gotten us into Final rounds of regional, national, and international competitions. It is our “go to” piece of recording equipment.

Now for my new friend the smartpen! I heard about the Livescribe 3 pen from a graphic design person I know who posted about it on Facebook. I looked at the features and immediately thought it would be useful in a music studio. The smartpen from Livescribe isn’t just a normal smartpen that records pen strokes. It hooks up to your iPad or iPhone and records sound happening while you are writing. It has a feature where you can PRESS on a note using touch screens and then hear the very thing that inspired it. No more parents taking notes and everyone playing the musical version of the “telephone game”. No more having to fast forward or search a video for the moment in the lesson you need help with. All they had to do was find the comment I made that pertained to a problem section and press to hear that portion of the lesson. With 24 students wanting to try this innovation, I had my work cut out for me because the pen wasn’t exactly designed for a violin studio. With customer service on my side, I was able to buy different varieties of notebooks in enough combinations to make it work. We spent quite a few weeks training parents as they walked in. My husband was on standby for when I had difficulties getting the pen to sync or pair up with a device and we extended lessons to accommodate for the learning curve. With it all said and done, I am able to keep a written notebook for everyone the way I have for years in their binders but it was now creating a digital record with sound attached! I can even send previews of lessons to fellow students so they can get a preparatory lesson on something before they even bring it to a lesson. Talk about hitting the ground running!

After one lesson in particular where I thought the pen had saved the day, I wrote Livescribe customer service a thank you email. I didn’t expect a reply but got one about a week later from the head of PR. He asked to interview me and wanted us to shoot a video showing how we use the pen.  We did so gladly, excited to show them how effective this is for music lessons.

Here is the video we shot featuring our 13 year old student Michelle Li performing the Conus Concerto.

Using the ZOOM and the pen together made the lessons completely portable.  Better yet, it cut down on emails during the week, questions from parents, and needs for clarification from students. The zoom provides a needed visual for techniques being assimilated in lessons. The pen creates what is called a “pencast” (audio and notes paired together) that can be accessed on your iPhone or iPad.s Students take their iPhones straight to the music stands and “play” their notes point by point in their practice. Everything is more streamlined now and some of the students are even listening to their pencasts in the car on their way to lessons or events.  

The cost to students is very low as it is just the price of an SD card (15-30 dollars) and a Livescribe notebook, generally under 10 dollars. And the cost of the pen and Zoom? While higher, I was happy to absorb that cost and now see it as having paid me back in spades with so few emails coming in during the week needing lengthy answers or explanations.  

I hope this blog inspires others to implement technology into their private studios and practice with confidence. I am so thrilled I made this leap!

[abhorman-blog]

Starting Violin Later and Why it Works

Masato Chang, age 12, Kabalevsky Concerto after 3 years of study

Photo Credit: Sam Chang

I am writing this blog to detail my thoughts about when students begin violin and how it influences them in the years that follow. 

I have had many beliefs on this subject and they have been really shifting lately. Itused to be that most people agreed that playing virtuosic violin was linked to startingas early as possible. Suzuki starts students sometimes as young as 3 and my owndaughter picked up a violin to join group class at 2 and a half. But what about the evidence of success in students who start far later at age 8 or 9?

More and more in my studio, I am noticing a trend where some of the most musically “plugged in” virtuosic students have started later, and surprisingly so.  Even with just a few years on the instrument, they are just as technically advanced and more startling than that, they are the most connected through the bow hand with tone and coloration of sound. They are the ones who produce a tone most like the human voice and who can tell a story through their sound. I used to think this connection with the sound and the bow seeming to be an extension of your limb was through an early start. But three students later, I am scratching my head. While the other students are very capable of learning how to produce beautiful tone over time, these students who began lessons later arrive with it seemingly already in tact. As I took note of this in our last major studio performance, I decided I needed to delve further into this subject and acknowledge at least to myself that what I had believed before was being toppled on its head.  

Why am I realizing this now? I teach all levels of violin but I teach mostly advanced competitive violin now. We have students in national and international violin competitions and playing with orchestras at as young as ten in large venues. It has changed what I am exposed to and which students walk through my door. I have a different perspective now because of it and I am very grateful for that. I have always been curious about what makes great talent develop and soar. Where is the point of ignition and how do we all play our roles effectively – student, teacher, and parent? It fascinates me and it fuels how I work day in and day out.

I teach a lot about tone; the quality of it and the nuances we can make with it. I utilize as many methods as I have to make phrases happen and to enable students to play from their hearts. I ask what they hear in their ears, have them sing, create imagery, invent stories, you name it. I want them to feel immersed in their art and for the audience to be able to capture it from the stage. Some students come to this more naturally than others but after over twenty years of teaching, they do all find their way.  Getting there is what is most important, not the time it takes.  

On my way to one of my own rehearsals on an evening where I wasn’t feeling well, my Dad drove me to allow me to rest and not stress about traffic. An accomplished professional musician and educator in his own right, I asked him to identify 3 virtuosic students in my studio he thought were most connected in their music making through their sound. He quickly named the three students I would have, all late starters at age 8 and 9 years old. I smiled and told him. This surprised him and so we launched into a conversation pondering together why this would be and what influence we had on it. He told me he wondered whether those students produced music from their hands and bodies more as a language the way a child would assimilate to a foreign language. I remembered instantly how my own son transitioned to immersion school years ago in second grade for Spanish. At first he just understood emotions, tone, and the “soul” of the language followed steadily by the specifics of how to read and write. They sang songs, read poetry, books, and absorbed the language through its culture every morning. We learned some basic vocabulary alongside the immersion but mostly he just fell into it. He found his way to the technique of speaking and writing properly through the soul, emotions, and sound of the language.  

The following morning I shared this insight with my studio pianist.  A big supporter of the Waldorf School, he added his own insights about when the Waldorf School adds another language to a child’s schooling. According to Waldorf, children can easily assimilate to another language at a specific times in development which was around the time these students had begun violin. This tied in so perfectly with what my Dad had said that I had to start thinking about the possibility that somehow these children had received violin as a second language. They use it almost solely as a form of communication. To them it is not about technique or about playing a caprice like a sport. They might have the technique to pull this off but their main motivation is to speak through the violin and you can see it in their whole body as they play. When you ask them how they feel about the violin they answer in terms of loving the art of “expressing themselves”, identifying the violin as “their best friend”, or a vehicle with which they can “say anything”.  

Often in teaching virtuosic violin, I have had the epiphany with students that when they allow their bodies to be devoted solely to music making, the technique will line up and provide when trained correctly. When the body is engaged in music making it is looser and more receptive to triggers for reflex memory and everything functions at a higher level. When we focus on technique and the “sport” of playing, our body tenses up and blocks us from making the music we love so much. Even in my scariest solo performances this concept has proven increasingly true. It always feels like a leap of faith to me to abandon myself to the music and trust that the technique will follow but it works every time. The technique comes easier and faster when I am using music as a language.

When a child starts violin very early, can music making be their first priority when their coordination is so challenged? Their little bodies are barely ready for such a task. I have seen mothers placing fingers for the kids who cant do it themselves interrupting the body learning how to receive the signal. They are bound to feel more physically challenged by such a difficult instrument even if they are very musical and possess great talent. If by starting early they are led to prioritize coordination and technique over music making just to move from one piece to the next, can this in some way hobble them in future years making re prioritizing the music harder or awkward for them? A child who starts later will naturally prioritize making music because they are more prone to want to express something to the world at this point and their physical coordination is far higher. Could just the prioritizing of music as a language get them ahead this much faster? And does it give them an edge later because their ducks are already in a row?

These three students of mine all entered romantic literature within three years of study. That’s all the way through the Suzuki book for Suzuki students and if not, following all the way through the other standard violin study books. We aren’t skipping steps or forgiving scales and etudes. They literally eat literature for breakfast. This past year, one of them went from La Folia to playing Kabalevsky in 8 months flat. He went through Bohm showpieces, Telemann Fantasias, Handel, Sonatas, Viotti and Mozart Concerti, unaccompanied Bach and 4 lyrical pieces alongside Trott, Kreutzer and Flesch. He performed at every opportunity presented because he loves it. I feel in these cases, they are just going at an incredible pace that they set themselves happily. Once I caught on to how quickly they move, I just tasked myself with keeping up and giving good information.

So what does this mean for the rest of kids starting violin? I have to admit it has me really thinking about when I want my youngest to start. And it has allowed me to slow down a bit with my 4 year old.

How does the decision about when we start influence how a child processes and produces the highest-level virtuosic music? Does starting later ignite musical talent or a musical connection faster? Perhaps we can think about teaching a love and appreciation of music for a few more years before physically handing them a violin. At the very least it proves to me finally that it isn’t a necessity to start so early. A deep connection with the instrument is no longer linked to years on the shoulder to me. And that is a big revelation.

[abhorman-blog]

The Importance of Special Events in a Private Studio

I am writing this blog to detail what I think is the importance of special events in private studios.

With a full studio of advanced students, most of whom are actively competing, it seems we could have an event every other week to keep everyone up and running. House recitals, church performances, master classes, or bigger events - they all add something to a student's education. Performance opportunities are key to teaching a student the art of performance and allow me to guide them through effective practice, stage etiquette, and performance anxiety.

About twice a year now, we engage in what I define as "Special Events" for our studio. For these events, we explore a new genre of music, or experience something new together. It is a departure from what we do week to week and the kids are given a rare opportunity where they are able to continue bonding as a peer group. We are almost a month past our Special Event with Symphony of the Potomac and the memories for all of us are still flowing. 

Last Fall our studio met with Lady Gag's violinist, Judy Kang and had a special event at Strathmore Hall where we learned how to follow our ears and improvise. We ended the class with an "Orpheus" styled performance of Saint Saens Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. We transcribed the Saint Saens for our group to perform with her and had met in rehearsal for weeks going over our parts. The kids had fun picking popular tunes to improvise on in front of an audience. Our students were so excited to participate and the event sold out. The energy off of this event lasted months for many of them. Watching them after this performance, I knew I should keep my mind open to the next opportunity for my students to do something out of the box and inspirational.

This past Spring, when I saw the video of Arvo Part's Passacgalia for duo violins online, I posted it on our studio Facebook group jokingly stating "now all we need is a vibraphone!". In my artist's mind, we had the full sections of violins and siblings on lower strings plus soloists who would love the opportunity to perform with orchestra. It was a vision I could easily conjure up. Within minutes, a conductor who I have worked with for years responded " I can get you a vibraphone and would love to do this". My heart leapt. And just like that, a Special Event started taking shape in my mind. We were lucky to be sponsored by the Symphony of the Potomac and conductor Joel Lazar and have access to a beautiful space in our area to present such large works. I smile when I reflect back on the beginning of the planning stages because the artist side of me that fully embraces the "vision" is now paired with an administrator's job running an advanced studio. A vision of the final product is one thing... but the planning, developing, advertising, and coaching of such a thing is quite another. Still, I sit here today with absolutely no regrets. The effects of planning, preparing, and performing something like this are so long lasting and we benefit as a studio more than I can describe in words. 

Something about learning big concerti most of my life has taught me to embrace the long haul so I slowly started planning, plugging in an hour or so a day. I worked with the Symphony of the Potomac on renting parts, hired extra musicians, and chose the students I knew would benefit the most from an experience like this one. I knew the second half would be with orchestra on works by Part plus one of younger students performing Bartok with harp but I still needed a first half to lead us to it. So I formed a first half of lesser known works for violin and piano by composers like Ysaye, Sibelius, and Previn featuring our younger elementary and middle school students and the concertmaster chosen for our second half. These kids performing with piano on the first half would then sit and accompany their peers in the orchestra on the second half. I took a month to handpick the pieces for each student and then learned them side by side one lesson at a time. Some of the students loved the pieces right away and some were trusting and simply followed my lead. We bonded over editing them together. With the performance event in mid November, I sent them into a competition in October with these newer pieces to try them out. I made a point of calling them 'ambassadors" of music that doesnt get enough stage time. They surprised me and swept the competition with prizes and their excitement was palpable. They WERE ambassadors! We held a house recital to put some finishing touches on and the kids for the first half were smiling and ready to perform for a larger audience. 

Next I received their parts for the Arvo Part pieces from overseas. I carefully formed an orchestra seating chart, edited each part, and sent them out for the kids to bring to lessons. 

For three to four weeks, I took 15 minutes in their lessons to review their orchestra parts for the Part works. Our first half soloists would be accompanying their peers sitting in the orchestra together so they would be playing a lot that night. With multi meter pieces like these, many of our students had never seen or heard anything like it. They were eager but challenged. Special effects, playing on the fingerboard, senza vibrato and learning to blend in softer dynamics kept them engaged and busy. Meanwhile, I continued to train the soloists on their parts. I sent tempo markings and recordings to the conductor and got organized for our first rehearsal. I took a lot of happy deep breaths. Parents organized a reception, passed out flyers, and even donated their services for recording and video. We notified the Estonian Embassy and watched with wide eyes as our event got listed on the Arvo Part Centre website alongside events at Carnegie Hall. I could honestly feel the kids gearing up in every lesson. They knew they were part of something big, special, and that they were going to bond and experience something completely new together. 

At the first rehearsal, things came together easier than I could have expected. Despite the multi metered mayhem, it was thrilling even with lots of work left to do. The conductor was wonderful, generous, and sensitive to the age group. The adults and members of the Symphony were warm and supportive to our students, adding stability to allow them to experience the music without fear. I watched my students bright eyed and ready to open their ears to a kind of music they had never encountered before. It was spellbinding and gratifying for all of us. 

The event itself was the most attended event we have had thus far. This was not your regular violin recital with music most had never heard before played by students ages 10-17. They were so proud of what they had created. They had involved their ears and technique in making art happen. This wasn't about playing faster or cleaner and their focus had to be more linear and specific. I was able to enjoy their performance as a musician and really relish it as their teacher, predicting its effects on their progress individually. 

The weeks that have followed have been active and back to business as usual. We have all returned to our normal literature of lessons, competitions, and auditions. I even had a solo performance with orchestra last weekend. But the air in the studio is different. It is more inspired. The students' eyes light up when they see each other and they are more bonded than ever. And, of course, we are already thinking about next year. 

I hope this inspires other educators to plan outside the box for their students. At this level of teaching, in private studios where we are not part of an institution that serves us, it is on us to provide inspiration, opportunities, and ear awakening projects. It goes without saying that it takes hours of effort, planning, and development but what you see afterwards is beyond worth it. 

The following is audio to the dress rehearsals for our performances of Fratres and Passacaglia by Arvo Part led by conductor, Joel Lazar. 

Passacaglia: 

Fratres: 

[abhorman-blog]

Embracing Other Teachers in the Studio

Embracing other Teachers in the Studio

As I continue teaching high-level students who are pre conservatory and frequently submitting national and international submissions, my thinking about including other teachers in my studio has really broadened and evolved.

For several years I have been bringing in leading violinists and teachers to give master classes to my students multiple times a year. Other teachers have asked me, “Aren’t you fearful you will lose your students to these teachers you are bringing in?” I can’t imagine being fearful of this when my primary goal is to serve the student. I have always figured if they leave in that scenario, they were already halfway out the door and it just wasn’t a good fit. I feel so strongly that we need more sets of ears listening to our kids so that they can truly find their own voice; I am fine with whatever risk I am taking of losing them. It is only my job to serve them as best I can while they are here, whatever length of time that might be.  

I have had students for several years and others who left within a year. Switching studios is a parent’s right and if they feel the fit is not what it should be, the child’s progress will be hampered whether the teacher feels it is time to move them or not. There seems to be obvious protocol for how to leave a studio but parents are often nervous to anger or let down teachers. Even with the new studio urging protocols to be kept, parents will sometimes fail somewhat feeling they can do no right in these situations. They have seen other students try and leave well and to no avail. They try and leave quietly. Then if trust is broken, relationships between teachers can become strained with blame being shifted all around. My own Suzuki violin teacher made the decision it was time to advance to another higher level studio and helped me pick the right person, giving me her blessing every step of the way. We are still in touch to this day. Now that I am a teacher myself I can imagine what a hard decision it was for her to tell my parents it was time to move on but I am so grateful she did. I loved her dearly and I am so grateful she is still in my life. I wouldn’t be the violinist I am without her.  

I have a small list of teachers I know, both in the area in which we live and also outside the area, who I would entrust any of my students with if they requested some time with them. Some of them have specific gifts in certain areas of literature and instruction and I know they have so much to offer our students even if they only see them for one lesson. With select students and their families, where there is a great working relationship, I have engaged in co teaching. In this situation, I see the student a few times a week already and a second teacher sees them once or twice a month to check in and contribute. I coordinate with the second teacher, trust them completely, and see the benefits. The parents trust me completely, and follow my lead allowing a second teacher's presence to be a real asset to our work and the student's development. There is so much literature on deck with some of my students; we can cover more territory this way. I am always the main source of instruction but so many new ideas can be incorporated for interpretations and practice techniques with a second teacher involved. Sometimes I have my own performances and rehearsals and this offers me some very needed back up. I am also the mom to three beautiful kids of my own and if one or two of them is sick or needs me I can rest easy knowing my work is covered. Lastly, one more set of ears and eyes are so useful in submissions to larger competitions. I am frequently picking from multiple tracks for preliminary rounds or competitions and having someone else step in can allay my concerns and stop me from second guessing myself. 

Recently I started coaching more chamber music in the studio.  I will be sharing coaching with the piano and the cello teachers involved.  I find myself really looking forward to collaborating with them and experiencing new ideas as well as learning new practice and rehearsal techniques.  I need to feel community in teaching at this level.  We have so much in common in our weekly struggles and joy teaching such gifted kids these difficult works; we can be a marvelous support network for one another. Of course in this case the risk of losing a student to one another is removed so it really got me thinking. Too often I feel private teachers are so nervous about students leaving, we shortchange them instruction and experiences without meaning to do so. There is too much tension between private studios and not enough working together to form communities of support to help our kids grow and develop.  Students and parents will switch studios as they see fit but with so many talented teachers AND students to serve in our communities, working together still seems an obvious choice.