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Today I share one of many conversations that I have had with a wonderful young man, who performs and teaches and has recently formally joined the Suzuki teaching community. Ian Lee studied violin with me for almost a decade and currently performs professionally. We have shared our thoughts about numerous deep topics related to music, from practice strategies to more philosophical and historical topics related to articulation and performance practices.
Today we share a conversation we had that introduces Ian to the Teach Suzuki Podcast community. We talk about a 3 x 10 practice strategy and how we might apply it in our teaching and personal practice, and we explore various methods of journaling that will favorably impact our study and practice of music.
Resources
In this episode, Ian and I mentioned several tools that we find useful personally and as teachers. These links are affiliate links, which means that if you use the links and order the item, the podcast will receive a small benefit at no additional cost to you — a great way to support the podcast.
Here are the journal resources that Ian and I currently use:
This book contains a weekly calendar view on the 
Ian uses the Moleskine and I like the Kraft notebooks. Ian works within the printed page. I prefer to draw lines to resemble the Cornell note-taking format, as I also do in my bullet journals.
Teaching Book Resources
The Teach Suzuki Shop is offering two teaching book resources: The Twinkle Project and Little Things for Little Strings by Eva Belvelin, now available in the US in English. Be sure to check out both of these helpful resources for teaching and practicing. Eva’s book is filled with delightful songs to include in group class activities as well as in lessons and practicing.
Eva Belvelin’s Little Things for Little Strings
This delightful book is filled with 85 pages of beautiful illustrations of songs for violin and contains over 170 accompaniment tracks, including variations of the songs. I use the material in this fabulous book in my lessons and group classes to reinforce teaching points or provide additional ways to practice a particular bowing or finger skill and have fun at the same time. Parents and teachers will enjoy this book alike and find hours of fun using the songs.
What is The Twinkle Project?
You can support the blog and podcast by purchasing The Twinkle Project, my book to help teachers and parents of young violin beginners. This book takes teachers and parents through all of the steps to teach a complete violin beginner all the way through the “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” variations and begin the next steps to learn “Lightly Row.” Included in the book are many forms and checklists to guide teachers and parents through the progression of steps to learn this important initial stage to play the violin.
The following video explains why I wrote this book.
This video discusses what the book is about.
Episode 54, The Twinkle Project (this podcast episode examines the book in more depth)
How about buying me a cup of coffee?
If you want to show your appreciation and encouragement for the podcast, why not make a small donation (e.g., the price of a cup of coffee) to my Venmo or PayPal accounts? I am so grateful to those listeners who have regularly encouraged me by making donations on occasion.
Contact Me
I really enjoy hearing from my readers and listeners. If you have a question, a comment, a suggestion, or an idea for future articles and podcast episodes, please consider contacting me. You can find me by email (paula@teachsuzuki.com) or find me on Facebook (Teach Suzuki).
Leave a Review
Many listeners ask how they can support the podcast. If you are a fan of the podcast, you can support it by leaving a rating and review. Here is how to review the podcast:
- Launch Apple’s Podcast app.
- Tap the “search” tab, enter “Teach Suzuki,” tap the blue Search button, and you will pull up the podcast.
- Tap on the album art for the podcast.
- Scroll down to the “write a review” link, and leave a rating and a review.
- That is how easy it is!
If you have questions or answers or would like to comment or send me an email, you may do so at paula@teachsuzuki.com. I welcome comments and questions about this episode and am interested to hear other parents’ and teachers’ perspectives.
You may find more information and useful articles on my blog at Teach Suzuki Blog.
Until next time,
Happy Practicing!
—– Paula —–
© 2021 by Paula E. Bird
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