Starting to Teach Violin!

April 30, 2022, 9:11 AM · One of the things I've started taking on since the start of the year has been private teaching at a music school near where I live! I started teaching piano lessons in the neighborhood this past fall, and have continued those both around the neighborhood and at the music school this spring. However, in addition to piano, I have also started teaching the violin for the first time, and I thought I'd write a little about these first few weeks.

Currently, I have three violin students: one has just started, so I'm teaching the basics with the Essential Elements 2000 book - same one I used when I started! The other two are both in middle school, working out of Suzuki Book 2. I'm working on preparing them for a recital in a couple weeks given with groups of students.

So far, the things my teachers have told me I do well or need to work on have been my strengths and weaknesses when teaching. I've found the easiest thing to help my students correct is intonation, as I can start to catch them if they're drifting a bit flat and have them restart the measure to try and correct that. Intonation is always a tricky road, especially when they are still relying on the tapes and the tapes unstick and they haven't gotten them replaced yet, but with a lot of repetition and muscle memory, they start to get the hang of it.

The most difficult thing for me to teach is everything to do with the bow. When I first started private lessons, my teacher had to work to undo a habit I had built of moving my bow shoulder, causing the bow to skew towards the fingerboard at an angle. For my beginner student, just starting learning, I made it my goal to make sure they have a straight bow from the start, and so far I think I have succeeded in that. Trying to articulate (ha!) how they should do different articulations has been difficult as well. I think spending some more time on my own with a certain bow-stroke could help me work out the exact mechanics of it I could then pass along to my students. At the same time, because they are all so new to the instrument, I realize I don't necessarily have to push the same kinds of skills my teachers at college would expect. For now, I just want them to get a feel for it and to have fun, and we'll naturally build more skills as we go into higher levels.

I am excited to hear my students in this upcoming recital in May, even if it feels a bit rushed from my perspective - I haven't gotten to know them for a full semester! I think the fall-winter semester will go even better, as that will be my chance to spend several weeks working on other pieces and their skills before December. I think I'll have a lot more violin teaching experience under my belt to write on at that point, too!

Replies

This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

Starting to Teach Violin!

Replies

Laurie's Books

Subscribe