Mahmoud Ibrahim

Another Late Update!

***I've been planing to spruce up the blog a little bit...so I'll add a special "Progress Page" for each student that contains remarks about his/her performance and progress. Also, I'll try to add podcasts to the blog so that you can hear my students playing. However, I've been wondering if I should take their permission first, before I post podcasts of them playing. Although their identities are hidden anyways, this still might be an issue...What do you guys think?!

Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Violin Teaching Diary

Comments (3) | Archive link

I'm Back!!

I'm finally back to update the blog. I had exams and then I had a vacation...Sorry :) So, this is going to be a short account of what happened since I last blogged here!

The Parents

You all know that I talked to Malone's and Joe's parents about attending the lessons with their kids. I also explained how important it is to pay attention in lessons so they can be the home teacher. Both Malone's and Joe's mom agreed finally and starting attending the lessons. I can't tell you all how fast their sons improved when they attended the lessons. We were finally able to get through the first variation on Twinkle,Twinkle. And I got their moms to help with teaching them the rhythm of the second variation. Joe Loved It!! For the first time, I saw him being really excited about his violin lessons, he really enjoyed when he saw his mom and Malone's mom clapping their hands when he stops playing during the rest. And he wouldn't leave when the lesson ended, he wanted to play it more :D

This, however, continued for two weeks only. Their moms soon started to skip lessons again and we are back to the slow improvement thing. Yes, they are now more involved at home and frequently play them the CDs but still...you know! I talked to them again, so they said that they can't keep attending the lessons because they are busy driving their other kids to other classes...so, as a last resort I will set new hours with them, so they don't have any excuse.

Joe and Malone

Joe's behaviour improves but also slowly. When Joe misbehaves I don't allow him to play. I make him just stand or even sit down and watch the lesson. When he comes back to playing is his own decision. You see, he always just wants to leave and he thinks that if he can make enough problems with me then I'd give up and send him home. Grounding him in class doesn't give him that, he has to be here until the lesson ends and it's his own decision if he wants to spend that time playing the violin or if he wants to spend it watching Malone play!! I'd often ask him if he wants to join, when it's been 5 or 10 minutes since he's been grounded, being angry he says: "No, when are we leaving?".

This lasted for a couple of classes, until once I grounded him like always and after few minutes he asked me if he can play again...I gladly said YES :). Of course I still have to ground him a couple of times every lesson...but grounding time is getting shorter every time and now he sometimes even begs and apologizes so he won't get grounded. I think this approach is working fine. I can't make him behave well and I can't make him respect the lesson, but if it's his decision to play, it will automatically reflect on his behavior in class and his improvement.

Have Fun,
Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Violin Teaching Diary

Archive link

My Apologies

Just wanted to say that I'm really sorry for the lack of updates. I'm really busy these days as I have the semester's final exams at college going on and also there is a paper on that is due on the 15th of February. So, there probably is going to be one or maximum two updates until the 15th :(

Just to keep you updated, Malone and Joe continued with me...Their moms agreed to attend to lessons and get more involved, so I didn't fire them. Things are going better now and they are progressing a lot faster than before :)

I promise a long and detailed post about what happened with the parents and how everything is going with the other students very soon. Also, there's a little story about Mike that I want to share...

Regards,
Mahmoud Ibrahim

Archive link

Is It The Right Decision? (My Final Decision)

I made my final decisions about the situation with Joe's and Malone's parents...

1- I will fire the students if their parents don't cooperate. I hinted that to the center owner and he didn't object. The meeting didn't happen last Wednesday because Joe's mom was busy and Malone's mom as they have a family member who is terribly sick :(. So, I decided to stop the lessons for Joe and Malone until I have a meeting with their moms. Joe's mom is supposed to come see me next Sunday, while I'll have to wait for Malone's mom because of her situation.

2- In the future, I'll make sure that Suzuki's philosophy and my teaching policies are very clear to the parents before I start teaching their children. That way I can save myself all the trouble I'm in now :)

3- If the mothers cooperate (hopefully!) and the students continue with me, I'll try to adapt somehow "gamey" methods; in the hope that it makes the classes more accessible and fun to the students. So if anybody got a game or an idea or a resource, please help me out... :)

Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Violin Teaching Blog

Archive link

Is It The Right Decision?

Now we come for the important event for last Sunday's lesson: Malone and Joe. They are both around 6 years old. Malone is really quiet and can't concentrate for more than 5 or 10 minutes. He tends to just stare and think about whatever, and sometimes I actually might need to shake his body or hand to get his attention. However, difficult that problem might be it's fixable especially if his mother cooperated.

Joe, on the other hand, doesn't pay attention. He has an attitude that is very similar to those kids in parenting reality TV shows! He keeps playing WITH the violin (not playing the violin), tends to make a lot of comments about Malone's clothes or my clothes or the room or my violin or Malone's violin or the center owner or the piano in the room or whatever...you see the point! And also sometimes he exaggerates or ridicules exercises that we do in class. For example, when I instruct them to hold the violin, he'd hold the violin upside down or hold the bow with his left hand although he knows exactly the right thing. His mom doesn't attend the lessons (neither does Malone's mom) although I talked to her plenty of times before about the parental involvement when learning using Suzuki violin method (I even once told her that it's a waste of her money and time if she keeps bringing him and not attending). She also tends to threaten her son whenever he misbehaves(Like no video games today or something), so he behaves well in violin class only because he wants to play video games or he's afraid of mom or something, which I think is not right as it doesn't serve the purpose of finally convincing him to behave well in order to respect his teacher, his classmates and his violin.

Furthermore, Joe's mom and the owner center don't support my efforts. For example, I'd warn Joe that if he misbehaves there will be no violin playing for him today. When he does misbehave, I let it go with another warning (just to give him a chance) and when he does it again I'd end the lesson. At that point it may have been only 15 minutes since the start of the class, so his mom says "Well, Joe. I didn't come all the way over here for you not have a lesson. If you don't behave well, you will not watch cartoons for three days". Joe gets into the surrender face and sadly says "Ok, I'm sorry. I won't do it again". The center owner comes into play and tries to convince me to continue with the lesson: "Come on he's young, take it easy on him...He's only six". So I continue the lesson for another 5 or 10 minutes or so. Another situation would be that I send him out, so the center owner and his mom are afraid about his morale (!!), they make him play and tell him how good he plays...That especially REALLY ANGERS ME!!!

Come on, his teacher sends him out because he misbehaves and wastes his classmate's time, only for him to find the center owner telling him that he is the best violinist ever!!? That's INSANE! The kid must think we're crazy or something!! All they both do is just empower him and encourage him to continue that behaviour.

It's a mess and frankly I can't teach that way. So, when he misbehaved this Sunday I made him sit down, listen and not play for some time. When I allowed him to play, he misbehaved again, so I sent him out and refused to let him in again (It was only 5 minutes till end of class).

Joe's and Malone's progress is relatively very slow, I don't like it because they are both really smart and can do much better. So, I told the center owner to arrange a meeting for Joe's and Malone's mom with me next Wednesday or Sunday. I will try to explain how important it is that they get involved (without interfering in my teaching) and how important it is that they supervise their children's practice at home..etc.

I decided that after this meeting, if their moms don't cooperate I'll warn them again and if they still don't cooperate..I'll NOT continue teaching Joe and Malone, as it is clearly a waste of my time, their time and their money. I don't know if it's the right decision or not as it might mean that I gave up on my students?!?! I don't know, really. It will also definitely mean a lot of problems with the center owner; since he loses customers that way. This is really tricky!! So, if somebody actually reads this blog, please give me your input...Would it be right to refuse to continue with Joe and Malone if their moms don't cooperate?

Regards,
Mahmoud Ibrahim - For the rest of my violin teaching news visit my violin teaching diary

Comments (9) | Archive link

Meeting My Teacher

I haven't seen my teacher (Dr. Osman El-Mahdy) since last July I guess. It's a very long time considering that I really admire him , I mean he's just like a father to me. He's been my teacher since I was 7 (I'm almost 21 now) and he's taught me a lot regarding life in general left alone violin playing and music.

So I decided it was time to go see him and say hello. I went to Cairo Opera House where he teaches and talked with him, told him my violin teaching news, which he seemed very pleased about. I also observed two of those amazing group lessons...It's always magnificent to see how very young students play relatively difficult pieces (like those from Suzuki's Book four) easily, with happiness and dedication.

Anyways, I decided I'll be a frequent visitor and I'll also study with my colleagues under Dr. Osman again (they are through with Suzuki and study other stuff) as steadily as I can. I think that although some of my colleagues in the class may be less skilled than I am, there's always nothing to loose playing for my teacher and hearing his feedback.

Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Violin Teaching Diary

Archive link

Nothing Like Scales..!!

Ok...so this is the main thing in yesterday's class: Ed showed tremendous improvement in his bow hold and also some improvement in intonation. These are the fruits of long hard work with scales for the past 4 months finally becoming ripe. I can't tell you how pleased I am and how happy with this result. Let me tell you the story...

When Ed first came to me he already could play the violin but he had terrible posture and bow hold because he never had a teacher(!!). So my one and only mission was to wipe out all the stuff he learned and fix his posture. He could read music notation fairly well, so we advanced through the Suzuki repertoire a bit quickly and I got him to play scales right from the start; as it's always the best way to focus on posture, bow hold and intonation...We advanced through scales and I got to fix his back (it was always bent backwards as if he was carrying 1 ton of steel on his chest) and gradually his left hand came to the correct position. However, his bow was the most difficult to fix; as he'd always have problem with his ring and pinky fingers being lifted in the air whenever he reaches the very tip of the bow or the very bottom of it. He also didn't move his wrist as he should so his bow wasn't straight. Last, his bow was inclined towards him (the bow should be a little bit inclined the other way with hair towards him and the wood towards the outside).

I saw that working with G Major scale, two octave at eight counts a note, wasNOT giving the required result. I think it was because it's relatively easy for him to do it, so he didn't practice it at home. My solution was to make it a little bit more difficult: I increased it to twelve counts at a somehow slow tempo. I guessed it would be a challenge to him, so he's going to increase his scales practice time at home and it should also teach him to save the bow without any involuntary vibrations in his right hand....I GUESSED RIGHT :)

First, his fingers no longer go off the bow when he reaches the tip or bottom. Also, there are no unwanted vibrations and yesterday I noticed that the bow is now inclined the right way. The bow also goes a little bit more straight now, since he's starting to use his wrist more and more. He was practicing hard and it paid off well...When I told him that there's improvement with the bow, he said "Yeah, I know". He looked really proud :D

Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Complete Violin Teaching Diary

Comments (2) | Archive link

My Students

Hi Everybody,

Thought I'd just give you an idea about my students before I actually start posting my violin teaching news...

I got five students whom I put in three different classes:

(Note that the names are fake to preserve the students' privacy)

Name: Ed
Level: Book Two
Studying Time: A little less than a year and a half

Name: Conrad
Level: Book One
Studying Time: About Three months

Name: Mike
Level: Book One
Studying Time: About Three months

Name: Joe
Level: Book One
Studying Time: About Three months

Name: Malone
Level: Book One
Studying Time: About Two months

I put Conrad and Mike in one class as they are about the same age and I noticed they advance as quickly as each other. The same for Joe and Malone, While Ed is in his own class as he is a lot more advanced than the others.

The lessons are given every Sunday and Wednesday and each class takes one hour. I also give them a big 2 hour group lessons (All five together) once a month. Usually the first Sunday of every month.

Regards,
Mahmoud Ibrahim - My Personal Violin Blog

Comments (2) | Archive link

Introduction to My Blog

Hi,

Starting my violin teaching career, I thought it would be great to keep track of my thoughts, experiences and observations as I tackle this somewhat difficult road.

I use "Suzuki Violin Method" (same method I was mainly taught by), and I'm very much into Dr. Suzuki's "Talen Education" philosophy.

I'll be writing as often as I can, but sometimes I might be busy. Enjoy reading and Have Fun :)

Regards,
Mahmoud Ibrahim

Click here for more about me and violin teaching

Comments (4) | Archive link