‘Lesson 1 A Tune A Day’ Part 2 (young violin beginner)

There is an awful lot of pre-preparation work for younger students that needs to be done with the violin before we can begin to play the ‘dots’ on the page.

The aim today with one of my littlies was to get through something on ‘Lesson 1’ from the A Tune A Day book.  Even if you have spent 3 hours planning a half hour lesson, you sometimes just have to go with the flow depending on the needs of the child.

It can take weeks to get the beginner bow hold correct, even with bunny ears exercises.  Very loosely based on something like this: Todd Ehle, violin teacher on the “bow hold” we did a thumb to two finger ‘circle’, tipped our hands upside down so we could see where our thumbs were,  and ‘flopped’ the index and little fingers to the sides of our ‘circle’ (thumb, middle and ring fingers) until we were able to place them on the bow.

Of course we had to keep changing activities, because a 3 year old generally has an attention span of 3 minutes.

From the flashcards I put up in my previous post, we learned to recognise Up Bows, Down Bows and Whole Bows (because those symbols are all throughout the A Tune A Day book, especially in Lesson 1.  The frog on the bow has a bit on the end that looks like a ‘staple’ (down bow) and the tip end looks like the up bow.  We traced it out on the bow, then traced it on the flashcard in front of us.

We used Claves to practice going up and down (it’s more of a gripping hand, I know, but not so dangerous as having a bow poked in either your eye or the parents.  Besides, little hands do need a break from the bow hold position).

We reviewed how to loosen the bow (keep reviewing this, it is RATHER important so poor little people don’t open the case one day to find a whole heap of broken hairs which could be a bit distressing).  Also learned how to take the violin and bow out of the case, hold it properly and walk to the music stand with the violin and bow.  Then we practiced how to stand in front of the music stand and get our violin and bow ready.  Parental help is ALWAYS appreciated, especially with littlies who may need an extra hand to hold the bow whilst they get their fingers ready.

Part 2 next week, we are going to review Up Bows and Down Bows by using the claves again and singing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’.  Every time it mentions “Up”, we are going to go up (at an appropriate angle).  When we hear “Down”, we’re going to go down.  Half- way up is obviously right between the two 😀

To print out a copy of The Grand Old Duke of York, aka The Up Bow and Down Bow Song, click here: The Up Bow and Down Bow Song ‘The Grand Old Duke of York‘

Of course, anything could happen next lesson, but I would like to aim for the following with this song:-

• We sing and do the Up bows and Down bows and Halfway up bows in the right places.
• I play it on the violin and my student does the bowing (with the clave) all by themselves.
• We learn ‘Great Big Whole Notes’ (aka Semibreves) with the claves, tapping them on beat 1 then going around in a big circle for the remaining 3 beats in time to ‘The Grand Old Duke of York.

Maybe the following week we could tap out “Half Notes” (aka Minims) with the claves in time to the song.