How to Get Your Suzuki Violin Students to Accept Criticism… A few times a week I receive emails from Suzuki parents around the world responding to my question, “What is your biggest practicing struggle with your Suzuki violin students right now?” What do you think their answer is? Almost without exception, the responses are either, “How […]
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Five Great Music Apps For Helping Kids Practice
I love my iPhone and iPad, a little too much you could say. I’m a wee bit addicted, and I just love keeping track of everything in my life on my phone. I track my steps, my food, my goals, my journal, my finances, my to do list, everything on my phone, even my practicing. […]
Why Do You Want Your Child to Continue Violin Lessons?
I recently wrote a blog post for violin teachers about their “essential question.” The “essential question” is in essence the real reason for their music teaching. Their core values. It occurred to me that parents need to address this question for themselves as well. If you truly want to improve your child’s music lesson experience […]
Your Essential Question: Do Your Music Teaching Methods Match Your Most Important Values?
Teaching violin lessons can be grueling. It’s easy to get into a rut. Say the exact same things over and over. Teach the same songs over and over. Many of us work long hours away from our families. We spend the after school hours with our students and not our children. Most of us don’t […]
5 Things I am Loving This Week–January 8, 2016
Things have been a little rough this week. Between sick kids and sick husband, it’s been a little crazy. However, I’ve been feeling good and lessons this week are going great. My students are preparing for our recital on the 19th, and they are all quite prepared. It’s a good feeling! I’ve been staying motivated […]
Plucky Violin Teacher Reader Survey 2015
Hello Teacher Readers, I want to make Plucky Violin Teacher blog a valuable and relevant resource for you, so I wondered if you could do me a huge favor. Would you take five minutes and fill out this reader survey? Responses are anonymous, and there are only ten questions. I would really appreciate it. a […]
The Plucky Violin Teacher Book Club
Join Us In Our Quest for Continuing Education One of my favorite ideas of the Suzuki Philosophy is the “three legged stool” of parent, teacher, and student to create an ideal learning environment. I also believe that there is another three legged stool that I have to keep balancing. These three legs are business owner, […]
Common Shoulder Rest Mistakes
And Why You Should Fix Them! by McKenzie Clawson When I went to institutes as a young Suzuki student, I came up with a theory that you could tell who belonged to what teacher by their shoulder rest. It seemed like every student in a particular studio would have the exact same shoulder rest to the […]
5 Things I’m Loving This Week–September 4, 2015
This week has had a lot of ups and downs. I’ve been pretty grumpy. Sometimes I really struggle to stay positive. I have had to be very intentional about choosing to be happy this week. I didn’t want my bad mood to affect my lessons. I really had to practice what I preached. And, you […]
5 Things I am Loving This Week–August 28, 2015 Edition
Hey everybody, I’ve been experimenting with replacing my weekly round-up of violin teaching resources with another post, but you know, I missed it. So we’re back! I hope that’s cool. Let me know in the comments if you prefer two straight-up blog posts each week. I want to bring you guys the best of what’s […]