Month: April 2011

So our morning practice was just a continuation of yesterday: more tantrums and refusal to cooperate. Did she play the Tanz even once? Maybe, but after that, nothing — except crying and complaining — for a half hour.

On the plus side, I made more sensible, modified threats. I explained that we were going to have to make up the practice time, and if we didn’t make it up before her birthday party, she might have to make it up then and miss the party. This did not add any fuel to the fire (which was already going quite nicely, thank you).

As I contemplated what to do on my way to work, I realized my best option was to pick her up early from school and insist that we practice immediately. Normally, I pick M up an hour after her school gets out and take her straight to martial arts. She loves martial arts, and I figured that her desire to go would be a good motivator — because if we couldn’t finish our practice before the martial-arts class, as a natural consequence, she wouldn’t be able to go to that class.

My plan worked as I had hoped. We got home, immediately practiced, and M was very cooperative. We went to martial arts, picked up dinner, and then had another short practice after dinner.

For the short practice, as a combined carrot and stick, M agreed in advance to let me hold one of her toys hostage. Specifically, as we were on the way home from martial arts, she asked if we could stop at Radio Shack and get a hex bug she has been coveting. I said that we could, but on one condition: she would have to let me hold it hostage, and she would only get it after our evening lesson, and only if she cooperated. She agreed.

Now, she was also quite cheerful to begin with when I picked her up, in contrast to her obvious foul mood yesterday. So who knows how much my different strategies even affect her; maybe it’s just her mood, more than what I do, that determines whether she melts down or not.

Technique-wise, we worked on her left hand: keeping the 2nd (middle) finger parallel to the frets so that she’s reaching less with the pinky and any reaching needed is done backward, by the 1 finger, which can more easily reach back than the pinky can reach forward.

We practiced after dinner, and it went pretty well. We did:

• A couple of D scales.
• 21 good repetitions of the first 2 bars of the Bach Tanz
• 4 sections of the Bach Tanz, out of order (D, C, B, A, I think).

M was a little uncooperative, but her resistance was cheerful (e.g., making jokes), not tearful. And I had one good threat in my pocket: If she caused our lesson to drag on by not cooperating, we would not have time for dessert. I probably only had to mention this twice.

Also, she has begun to respond well when I say “Do X — right now.” I’ve started saying this recently because she often dawdles every time she’s asked to do something.

But I’m giving the wrong impression.  Though I did periodically give “right now” instructions, and more than once told her — gently exasperated — to quit fooling around, conflict was a small part of the lesson. For the most part, both M and I were cheerful, and it ended on a good note.

Working on the 21 two-bar repetitions turned out to be a great exercise. We took it in chunks that gradually got bigger. First, she did one repetition, and the first was nearly perfect. We discussed it a little, then she did a second; she made a mistake, so that one didn’t count. We went on like that, one at a time, until she had done a few. The only technical problem she had was a drifting left pinky, and she was able to notice it and work on it herself.

Then I started asking her to do two right in a row for them to count, and to stay in position after the first one while I counted off another two measures. After doing that, I asked for three in a row, and then for five. When we got to five, she nailed them. She didn’t nail the next five in a row, but she was aware of what she was doing, so I was satisfied.

Overall, by taking this approach, I was able to remind M to focus, and she was gradually able to experience longer and longer periods of focus.

The Bach Tanz sections were variable — she blew the first A section because she didn’t pay enough attention, but then got it right. She blew the C section because her right hand wandered all over, but after a couple of slower repetitions, she got that too. And she nailed both the D and A sections the first time through.

Maybe I can keep her away from the violin after all.

Thursday: We had some extra time this morning, so I decided we’d do our entire lesson in the morning. We stayed with this Twinkle accompaniment, and I just wanted to get through four measures. It was like pulling teeth. Each time M played a measure or two, she’d drop her hands, get out of position, roll her eyes, and grumble.  In a half hour, we didn’t get through even two measures perfectly more than once or twice. So frustrating!

I kept reminding M that by not cooperating, she was dragging things out, and we might have to practice in the evening. And she kept playing carelessly. This is the same type of garbage that she was doing with the Suzuki repertoire when we were trying to get through more. I thought I’d get less of it by using this new music.

When we got home after school, we practiced again. But I started by trying to give her some control and also illustrate my point about focused practice: I had her time me, using the stopwatch, as I played through the four-bar section 5 times perfectly. It actually took me 7 tries, and with some talking, it lasted 3 minutes. I told her that was how long her practice could last if she really focused.

She did a better job paying attention than she did this morning. Also, at one point, she made a “joke”: I said, “Now I want you to play that section a little faster,” and she played a few bars of the Bach Tanz quickly. “That was a joke because I played faster, but I played something different,” she explained.

We also had a nice moment where she got really upset and frustrated about being able to string together two measures, saying she couldn’t do it, and then managing to do it after we simplified and simplified down to just the few notes that were giving her problems.

She never did get through all four bars, but she did do some focused, attentive playing. Now if only she would try to do more of it.

I still felt pretty bad today, but I was able to get up with enough time to do a short (15-minute) before-school lesson. M was very cooperative.

Our evening lesson was not so great. She kept wanting to do stupid things and call them April Fool’s jokes. I tried to be patient.

Before jumping into the Bach Tanz, I asked her to play Meadow Minuet. She did a nice job on the first 3 sections; she almost forgot to play the last one and made a few note mistakes in it. But it was pretty good given how many days we laid off it.

The Bach Tanz was a little disappointing. We started by practicing the transition from tosto/end of A section to natural/beginning of B section. It took a while, but she eventually got it. I then had her run through the whole song. The notes were fairly accurate, and she remembered to play a tosto repeated A section, but she mostly forgot her vibrato and forgot to play a tosto repeated C section. In fact, she almost forgot to repeat the CD sections.

This is a common pattern (seen in Meadow Minuet earlier): She lets her mind wander and gives up on the song before it is over.

I asked her to play the Tanz again, and it got worse: She went from the initial AB sections right into CD, totally skipping the repeat.

Rightly or wrongly, I decided that nothing good would come of continuing, so I told her we’d practice in the morning. We practiced for about a half an hour in total.