The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, written by Benjamin Britten in 1946 is an excellent introduction to all the instruments in an orchestra. Take a listen!

Defining Progress

"Of Course our purpose does not lie in a movement to create professional musicians, but to create persons of a beautiful mind and fine ability." 

-Shinichi Suzuki

Ed Krietman gave a wonderful talk about defining progress as part of the Parents as Partners online program. His talk alone is worth the $8 of the program! He begins by recounting how he asked a group of parents how many of them had signed their children up to take music lessons to become professional musicians; no one raised their hand. Why then? Here are some of their reasons: 

• To develop poise and the ability to present themselves in public whether speaking or playing music
• To gain a lifelong love of music
• Develop problem solving skills and healthy confidence in the face of struggles
• Learn to break complex problems into small, achievable steps
• Develop fine motor skills and good eye-hand coordination
• Learn to strive for excellence
• Transfer musics unique learning skill set to other subect matters
• To build confidence
• Learn to create something beautiful
• Develop sensitivity to beauty in the world
• To share a positive emotional experience with their parents around the study of music
• Learn to manage their time effectively
• Choose a social circle of friends who enjoy making music together
• Enhance memorization skills
• Become calm and centered

If these are the primary reasons for enrolling in music lessons, then what we are really doing is teaching life skills through the study of music. The by product is learning to play an instrument well. Despite this, it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring progress based on where the child is in the repertoire. Knowing how to play a lot of pieces is not skill. Krietman defines skill as being able to "do the task consistenly with ease" or the 3 C's:
Comprehension-basic knowledge of the notes, how a piece sounds
Cooperation- physical, technical aspects of being able to achieve the above
Constructive Repetition- repeating the task 10,000 times
"Transformation comes from skill, not knowledge."

Lava, Saryu's mother, sent me this wonderful email after watching this video: 
I just watched Edward Krietman's Defining Progress class. It was very informational. There were many take aways for me from this class. I always wondered how progress in violin should be measured and like others fell for the wrong measurement of counting the number of pieces they learn. Since the love of music and the skill to play an instrument are the objectives for us to teach Saryu violin, we will have to realign our path to these goals and not get caught up in the number of pieces she learns. :)

I'd love to hear some of the reasons you all decided to sign your children up for violin lessons and some of the positive changes you have seen in them since starting music lessons. Please comment on this post if you have anything to share!