Keepviolinin

Spring is in the air, our trees in the backyard are already budding, which means the kids are going to be wearing T-SHIRTS to school soon..ok..since we’re in CA, kids are already wearing T-shirts in schools now, but I’m still in my ‘winter’ mode.  As I tried to think of a way to motivate my students, I’ve decided to reward them with the T-shirts I designed in exchange for their practice charts and listening charts, which is 200 times of practice and 100 times of listening:) Fair enough? I think so:)

These T-shirts are very high quality 100% cotton and Made in Taiwan:)  I’m very happy to give them away to my students so they feel proud of learning and playing the violin:)

Here are photos of the T-shirts laying down in my studio:

White

Blue

Grey

Yellow

Pink

I can’t wait to see my students in these colorful shirts:)

Lately, I’ve been wanting to make my private lessons even more fun for the students, so I started taking some online improv classes with Christian Howes who is a Jazz violinist.  He has lots of videos online that are quite helpful to my teachings and gave me lots of ideas on how to make my private lessons even more interesting aside from all the Suzuki pieces:)

Learning how to teach violin improv is very exciting for me and I can’t wait to try some of these games with my students:) If you are also interested in learning how to do violin improv, you can visit http://christianhowes.com/

~ Keep Violinin’

Private Lesson Time:)

Private lesson with a student on Saturday afternoons:) My saturdays are full of lessons, but I LOVE IT!!!!!

~ Keep Violinin’

love my saturday morning group lessons:)

What better way to begin a saturday morning than having these wondering Suzuki kids come to my studio for a group lesson:) The above photo is my beginner’s group with children ages 5 to 10.

I’m proud to share this video of the mothers who spent the last 3 months learning with me.  They have worked so hard not only on organizing the New Year Celebration, but also preparing this piece for everyone:

It’s BOOKED!!! I’ll be attending the 2012 SAA Conference in Minneapolis, MN during Memorial Day weekend!! I’m super excited!!! I can’t wait to see Dr. William Starr again and hopefully I’ll get a picture with him as well:)

Enjoy this clip from Saturday night’s performance at Bethany Elementary School in Mountain House, CA

If you would like to see Part 1 of the Saturday night’s celebration, you can view it here:

I had to share this picture with all of you!!! This is a picture my student’s younger sister drew while waiting for her brother to finish up his violin lesson.  When he was done with his lesson, she wanted me to see her drawing and as you can see, what a wonderful gift she gave me after I finished teaching:) 

~ Keep Violinin’

So instead of recording Austin tonight, Austin decided to record me and my husband..haha..

A little background on my husband – Dave is a fast learner…he played violin and piano(like most Asian kids) when he was young for approx. 5 years but gave up when he was in high school. Since we moved back to CA, we were fortunate to buy another practice violin, so whenever he heard Austin practice, he would practice along on some pieces with Austin to keep our son motivated and entertained:) Dave’s never played Andantino, but since he’s heard this tune so much, he picked this piece up in less than 20 minutes!!  SOOO…instead of recording Austin…I decided to play a duet with my husband and Austin recorded us, which became a very fun night for us:)

Enjoy!! ~ Keep Violinin’

Tonight I taught Austin a new song, Andantino, in Suzuki Book I.  It’s in the key of D Major, and he’s started to use his 4th finger.  We’ve been working hard to develop some 4th finger muscles these days, so here’s a prelude video to this piece.  I’ll upload the final piece in a couple days, but I was surprised he could already memorize the first part of this piece:) I think it’s because we’ve been doing a lot of listening of the Book I CD:)

~ Keep Violinin’