Скачать или смотреть Making a Bow Hold With Your Child - Suzuki Violin Lessons for Parents

This is from a class for new parents who are preparing to start Suzuki violin lessons with their children next term.

The parents are learning to make bow holds, place violins on shoulders, shape violin hands, play variation rhythms etc, as well as studying the philosophy of what creates successful violinists.

In this particular class we are learning to make bow holds.

00:00 Drawing on the hand

00:48 Relaxing the arm

01:06 Placing the bow stick on the fingers

01:52 Putting the thumb and pinky on their tips

02:41 Flipping the bow onto the shoulder

02:52 Checking the thumb and pinky

03:13 Twirling and balancing the index finger

04:08 Flopping and curving the middle two fingers

04:42 Pointing the bow up towards the ceiling, and feeling how loosely we can hold it.

05:16 The violin holds up the bow.

05:35 so really we just want a gentle hold, as long as it doesn't move.


Learning to Make a Bowhold - Suzuki Violin Lessons for Parents, Fri 24 May, 2013.

Practice these skills first on other adults until your teacher says you're an expert and ready to be unleashed on your child! We use practice violins and practice bows so we're free to make mistakes and learn quickly. For practice arms, shoulders and hands to learn on, use your partner, other parents and any available non-violinists you can find to practise on so your first hands-on shaping of your budding violinist will be accurate, smooth and confident. Little kids don't have the patience for you to make your mistakes on them, and besides, they are likely to engrave your first attempt on their brain. So practice first and make it a masterful one!

The most important time to practice this is immediately after the lesson while it's still very fresh. If you do it the same day, it will feel very easy and all the details you learned will come back and become strengthened in your memory. It will seem so easy that you might wonder what all the fuss was about. But if you leave it till the next day you'll discover (although often not until the next lesson with your teacher) that you've forgotten many of the finer details. To test the importance of this, simply try it both ways and experience the difference. (On second thought, don't! Just take my word for it!)

Once you've established that you can do it outside of the lesson environment, and with someone who has no idea what they're doing or whether you're doing it well or not, repeat at least one good bow hold every day. Do this and it will stay easy and natural. The more you do it, the easier it will get. And before you make your first one with your child, you want it to be very very easy. You want to be able to be confident and relaxed as you do it, as if making bow holds are as natural for you as breathing. You want to be able to "whisper with your hands," and create success for your children. The secret to having it be this easy is not how many times you do it, but how many consecutive days you can do it on. Mark the days you do it on your calendar next to your listening stickers with a distinctive sticker, picture or symbol.

Remember, this is for YOU at this stage, not your child. Let your child(ren) watch if they want. If they ask, explain in simple terms what you're doing and why. But also explain that its not yet their turn. No harm will come to them from letting desire and anticipation build. But plenty of harm can be done rushing in before you're ready. Let them wait.


**** Much of the inspiration for this is from my latest favorite book, Edmund Sprunger's excellent "Building Violin Skills, a set of plans designed to help parents and children construct positive practices" c.2012 - Parent Phase iii (preparing for the first lesson with your child)

NB. the execution of this is all my own and any mistakes or questionable decisions are all on me!

"Before you attempt to make bow hands with a child, I can't recommend strongly enough that you do at least 100 with another adult first." - Edmund Sprunger p.160