As a violin and viola teacher, I always believe that every people can play good music if they are trained with suitable methods. My fundamental teaching style was based on the methodologies promoted by Galamian and his book Principles of Violin Playing and teaching. I also found that Flesch’s The Art of Violin Playing and Fischer’s The Violin Lesson are excellent resources for my students for their better violin learning.
Teaching Approach
I assign my students to learn scales, etude, two contrasting pieces to study together in a regular lesson. All these materials bring important learning targets to students and they are indispensable. Scales can improve students’ intonation and establish the sense of different keys. It, moreover, improve the familiarity of violin geography and let fingers run faster. Etudes help to drill specific violin or viola techniques. For example, if the student gets some trouble in playing Martele bow stroke, I suggest he plays Kreutzer’s Etude No. 7; or a student wants to play a melody with a beautiful tone, then I suggest he learns Mazas’ Seventy-Five Melodious and Progressive Studies Op. 36, No. 7 before applying into context. Besides I choose suitable pieces with certain technical challenges for them, I also ask students to choose pieces that they want to study according to their interests. It is important to combine students’ musical interests and technical challenges as I think these motivate students a lot and help them establish a good practicing habit. I include some duet playing to improve students’ ensembles. When students first received the piece that they are going to study, I offer students a score with all my choice of fingerings and bowings in it already in order to save more lesson time to learn the music directly. However, it is also a good method to let the students find their own fingerings and bowings and come with their own solution. Learning how to finger and the bow is a crucial part of the violin pedagogy process. Discussion of the pros and cons of different approaches can help students to be ‘self-sufficient’ and allow them to solve their problems on their own in the future.
Curriculum Design
In addition, I used Paul Harris’ Simultaneous Learning approach in my studio lesson as well. This approach makes all ingredients of music can be learned together with a single piece and make the lesson become an organic process. I usually maintain a positive learning environment in my lesson and use praise and encouragement to build their confidence as well as act as their motivation. I divide three terms in every year: Term 1 (September – December); Term 2 (January – April); Term 3 (May-August) and set different targets for students to accomplish in each term and trace closely to their progress.
Theory
Music theory helps us play our instruments better. In my lesson, I always relate music theory closely to our instrument. For instant, in learning intervals, I do not only ask students to be aware of the sound and aural aspect of the interval but also use finger patterns to enhance their memory. Such as playing a major sixth, I ask them to think in playing a whole tone but in two adjacent strings and fifth in the same finger on two different strings, etc. For more advanced students, I ask them to notice any musical events that happened in their pieces such as modulations, and how modulations are conveyed in our playing in terms of sound and mood. Including Music Theory in my lesson allow students to transfer their musical understanding into playing the music.
Performance
Performance is always a final goal of students and musicians. I encourage my students to go for performance possibilities as many as possible. I consider performance is one part of the whole learning process. When students start to learn a piece, they spend their time in their practice room and keep correcting their mistakes. After their hard work and they bring the piece to play in front of me (their teacher), however, they always said that they play better in the practice room. I find that it is different when playing in the practice room and in front of other people (including the teacher). There is a kind of pressure when students play in front of people. I encourage my students to find chances to perform in front of their family, friends, schoolmates, and in school concerts. During these “mini-concert”, they learn to confront their performance anxiety and correct and respond to their mistakes during performing. In this way when an important concert arrives, students should feel easier to perform as they have already performed and refined the interpretation. More importantly, they have less stress when performing in front of public audiences.
Lesson Format and Preparation
I require my students to bring a notebook as their lesson log every time they come to the lesson (especially important to young students). In the lesson log, I write down what they have learned in the lesson and what they have to practice during that week. In addition, they need to record their practice and show me how they organize their practice time and content. Parents also can see through the lesson log to know about their progress and allow me to communicate with their parents. Through the lesson log, I set clear goals and targets for my students and tell them my expectation. This is one of the important parts of goal-oriented teaching and allows students to have a clear goal in mind and obtain continuous improvement.
As a teacher, I take time to prepare for each student before their own lesson. I plan for each individual student with long-term (year-plan), medium-term (Term plan), and short-term (lesson plan and record) teaching plans. Every student is unique, and one of the teacher’s responsibilities is to nurture individual personalities. The individual teaching plan suits their individual needs and I am flexible to amend the plan according to each lesson’s progress. The lesson plan and record also allow me to track each student’s progress and independently with their lesson log. Therefore, there is no excuse to lose track when students said they forget to bring their notebooks. Moreover, I have to know and understand their repertoire very well beforehand in order to demonstrate to students fluently and allow students to have a good model to imitate and experience.
Anand Li 