Do you think teaching vibrato to a five year old is a mistake?
I am following through (ha ha, see previous post) on this. I will let you know how it turns out after another couple of months.
artwork credit: [email protected]

Mrs. Dorothy Campbell Hurd

Regarding my previous post. I want to clarify the way half my students play a tune after they know the notes. They play all the notes, one after another, and THEY yank their instruments down!! I have NEVER yanked anyone's instrument down!!

I know you have observed this type of playing. It is similar to people who take photos that always turn out blurry, because they are half-way through putting their cameras away by the time the shutter is released. OK, that is an exaggeration, but you get the point. In golf or baseball I guess it would be termed "follow through." So, my previous post was about "jumping in" and "follow though."

1  2  3  4 
Once they know the notes of a tune, about my half my students start out playing their pieces like this. Play,play,play,play. Yank the instrument down.
I have been reinforcing some counting techniques. Count two measures OUT LOUD before starting the piece and start on the correct beat. Give the last note of the piece its full time value, then count ONE-one thousand, TWO-one thousand SILENTLY before lowering the instrument. I am not sure all of them can hear what a difference it makes, but a listener really can! Some students even get a big kick out of counting out loud.
If any of them goes on to recording in the future, he or she will be so pleased with the dead air at the end of the tune as well. So will the sound engineer and the producer!!

Last week I tried practicing exactly what I had assigned a student. It included a warm-up exercise, a one octave scale in the key of our new piece, and half of the piece, to be sightread,  and partially memorized. After that, any review pieces she wanted to do count towards the remainder of practice time. Guess what. It was the most BORING practice I have had in a long time. What a revelation! I am going to mix things up around here, I think. How about this? I will send my student home with a bag of balloons. Before practice starts, four balloons must be blown up and pinned to a mini clothesline with mini clothespins. The clothesline must be strung from the music stand to the doorknob. 


For every measure that can be played without looking or listening to the reference material, pop one balloon. If it can still be played at the end of practice without reference, pop a balloon by smashing it in the door as you close the door.  If it is too hard to play, and the balloon can not be used for smashing, put a face on the balloon with a marker pen, and save it for the next practice. Next practice we will add wigs, then glasses, then ears and so on. Any remaining balloons must be brought to the following week's class for inspection. We will finish memorizing those measures at that time and pop the rest of the balloons before moving on to the next part of the tune.