Long, long ago...

It has been a while since my last post here, what happened to us?! LOTS!

Life became to busy and I became too exhausted to keep blogging about it.

However I have great things to report :).

-We DID finish successfully our 100 Days of Piano Practice!!
-We in fact colored about 4 Hundreds Club charts during this process.
-We learned an 'off the record' piece in a month from one of my son's favorite movie, which has helped so much to keep him motivated.
-We have helped motivate 2 more friends to take piano lessons :).
-We are half way Book 1 already-yaay!
-Big A is learning how to read music!

So we have been 'good' busy :).

We are currently working on Au Claire de la Lune and we have a recital coming up this weekend.
Regarding technique, we are still working on:
- a good posture,
-curved fingers,
-counting notes.
It seems like we have been working for a long time on those points but have made, perhaps, a slow progress, not sure why.

What I like to do is to take one of those points a day or a week and work during our whole routine on just focusing on one point, either play every piece keeping in mind a good back/feet posture, or keep our focus on curved fingers/dot on thumb during the whole routine, or counting the notes of every piece so big A doesn't rush to every piece.
I have found out that this helps both of us to manage each issue in a none overwhelming way, however Consistency is the key word.
To remind myself, I like write our focus for the week or the day on the top of our chart, in that way we'll know what to work on.

I was reading today some of the Parents questions in the Suzuki Forum website regarding how long is it OK for a child to practice. I remember I use to ask myself that question a while ago, I don't even ask myself that anymore. I think that asking ourselves 'how long should we do this?' makes the music practice sound like a chore or like a time-out, where you set a timer and you will do it until the timer goes off. I understand that there is several ways to parent while practicing the Suzuki method, but allow me to explain my point. When big A and I started our Suzuki journey our teacher advised us to practice a 'good 15 to 20 minutes', in her words, but she also explained that in order to get those 'good 15 to 20 minutes of practice' we probably needed to spend 40 minutes practicing. Back then big A was about 3 and a half years old and his attention span was a challenge. I remember I set up the timer and try to practice with him, it seems like we were both looking constantly the timer to see if it was close to be done so needless to say that the focus was on the Time but not on the Practice.
After we did our 100 Days of Piano Practice, I discovered that it was a lot more effective to set up a goal for the day and work towards that, so it could take us 20 minutes or one hour to get there but we would have something more useful to focus on rather than just the time.
This way of approaching our daily practice made possible for big A to make big leaps in his learning process. Which also helps him to see results on a timely manner and keep him motivated.

What have you found out makes practicing easier?

Seeking Balance

"Always keep in mind that the goal of practice is to make things easier". --Edmund Sprunger.


We are currently on day 49 in our 100 Days of Practice Challenge! Almost half way there! Yeeeaaayy! :)

I actually thought that following up on the piano practice would be a lot easier during the Summer, but some days have been more challenging than others. We go out swimming, have playdates with friends, go to parties, mom has to catch up with work, we all have to catch up with chores at home, and some days I have to admit we just barely make it practicing piano BUT we STILL manage doing it.

Big A is still motivated and he loves to play piano without my supervision, in other words, play freely without a routine. That's OK with me, but at some point in the day we do our chart practice so we can measure progress and I can oversee how is he playing and make sure he has a good posture etc.

Our teacher is thrilled with our progress and decided last week to even give us more homework, so our daily practice has become a bit longer now, and to my surprise I was the only one who sort of complained to the teacher :), big A was happy about it and he even requested more 'homework'.

On a different note today we finished our Hundreds Club chart for the French Children piece! We completed that chart just as we did with Cuckoo, we practiced 5 times that piece for 20 days and voila! we are done with 100 times! This is our second chart!

It feels nice and gives both of us a nice sense of accomplishment, and it helps big A mastering each new piece a lot faster. Our next move after this is probably Lightly Row with both hands as we are currently putting the two hands together with the patterns and the melody.

What are you doing currently with your child?, how is your daily practice going?

In my next post, I will review a couple of chapters of the book I am reading: Helping Parents Practice by Edmund Sprunger. I have been doing some more reading and I have some opinions about what the author writes. I have been slowly reading this book but I will get there :).

Thanks for reading and happy practicing!

Summer has begun!

Hello everyone! I am back after a while of not posting here. With the beginning of the Summer a lot of things have changed in our routine. Big A is currently on Summer break and he is at home with me. So I have been extra busy trying to keep him entertained most of the day.

Today we had our Suzuki lesson, the first lesson of our Summer classes. Our teacher was very happy with all our progress! I was very happy and proud of all our hard work during these past days, I am happy to report that it is paying off!

We are still on the 100 Days of Practice Challenge, we are on day 38!! And I can only say that is AMAZING how much can you improve when being diligent and disciplined enough to practice everyday, it has made a big difference in every aspect.

So we finished our 100 Cuckoos, and now we are filling up quickly our 100 times chart for the French Children's Song. Big A is picking up quickly on all new pieces, we are currently working on 3 new pieces, and he is very positive and has a great attitude towards the challenge.

If I were to give any advise to any Suzuki parent that is currently struggling seeing improvements in their practice or in their process, I would say give it a try to the 100 days of practice challenge, better yet, try it for 20 days, you will see how much you and your child improve the quality of your practice that you will be hooked AND convinced that this challenge is worth to keep it up.

I myself am thinking on applying this concept to other areas where big A and I are currently struggling :).

It has been only one week since we started officially our Summer break, but I am exhausted! and of course, have a renewed appreciation for all teachers :).

Little A will start her Music Together class this Friday, we are excited about it, she was in this class the past Winter and she loved it! We still play their CD all the time at home and in the car to cheer us up.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to share here your opinions about your own Suzuki progress!

It's all about the Planning

This weekend was kind of hard for our Suzuki practice. Yes, is the beginning of Summer and there is so much to do, and the days are longer, and there is so much excitement about playing outdoors! So yesterday we spent most of our day outside, we went swimming and when we were back we were ALL tired BUT, we are on a CHALLENGE, remember? so we had to practice Piano even if we are too tired.

So big A and me argued for a while, he had a really negative attitude, I blame it to the fact he was tired, I myself wanted to go to bed too. However somehow we were able to practice productively our pieces according to the chart.
The thing about practicing when one is too tired or hungry is that there is no room for enjoying the music making process, which defeats the whole Suzuki philosophy. We, as parents, are supposed, to nurture with love.
So, lesson learned for myself: If I know we are heading to the pool the whole day, we must practice before when big A is as fresh as a lettuce!

I guess it all boils down to a better planning of our time and energy.

Today's practice was fun and a little more improvised. Big A stil had to practice a couple of pieces but he was very interested in experiencing the piano on a different level. He played a remix of all the tunes he know making up new songs. It actually was fun! Little A joined him with some drums and then they switched spots.

I am excited for Summer, but I know we will have to make a TOP priority practicing piano before we do anything else.

We are still on the 100 Days of Practice challenge, currently on day # 28!

Thanks for reading and until the next time!

Getting Creative

Big A has been getting creative lately whenever we practice at home. He has found ways to keep himself interested and motivated.
Yesterday he was trying to play the "Imperial March from Star Wars, ( he is a big fan of the movies). At some point he felt a bit frustrated and he decided to do something else. Then, one day he started to play a 'new piece', it actually sounded very good, and he was taking his time practicing it and correcting himself. I was very impressed in the beginning, he seemed to know what was he doing. When I told him "That sounds beautiful!, where did you learn that song?", he told me "It is Cuckoo, but played on backwards!". Wow! I never imagined that a piece could even be played 'backwards'!
But kids are that way, they find a thousand different possibilities to play with the same toy, or with the same game. I imagine big A started to feel a bit bored to be repeating every practice the same pieces he has memorized, even though there is still room for improvement.

So since then I decided to give him some time (like a free choice) to do what he wants to do at some point after we are done with our practice or before, so he can choose to play whatever he wants without my intervention, unless he asks for it :).

Today, at the end of our practice he explored the Suzuki book and tried to play a few songs that are more advanced, he tried, and sometimes he got a line or two right. But what I appreciate about this the most, is the brand new enthusiasm and motivation he is showing.
Then after his bath, he requested to play a few flash card games from the Puppy Packet, he was truly immerse in the game, but I had to end it as he still has to go to school tomorrow.

Little A is my youngest daughter, she is almost 17 months old. I do not mention her that much in this blog because she is not taking Suzuki lessons currently, however she is always present when we listen to the CD, or when big A practices at home. My plan is to have her start Suzuki lessons when she turns 3 years old. So far, she can hum some of the Suzuki songs from the CD, which I find very interesting and cute. She would love to take part of the fun when big A is playing the piano, she always wants to go to the piano and play.

So the other day when big A was still in school, I sat little A on the piano bench and let her do whatever she wanted. "Go ahead", I said "play as much as you want". She was so excited that in the beginning she could not do anything but smile, then she took off. She played the keys with both hands open, then she played with one hand at a time, then she tried to use one or two fingers to play. It was very interesting and I felt very happy to see she is already loving the instrument :).

Now with Summer break getting so close, we will have more time to practice piano and play games (I hope). Is hard to stay inside the house sometimes when we finally are getting nice and warm weather to play outdoors.

This is it for now. Thanks for reading and please feel free to share your games and tricks to keep at-home practice fun!

Happy Practicing!

Activities and Materials

 "Monotony is the enemy of music"--Shin'ichi Suzuki.

I would like to share with you some of the materials we are using at home to make our practices more interesting for big A.

Our Books:
- Piano Suzuki Book 1
- The Music Tree 'Time to Begin' Book.
- The Music Tree 'Activities' Book.

As you can see in the picture above we also work using a 'Homework chart'. This chart was designed by our teacher this previous semester and let me tell you that it has made a big difference in the way that we have organized our activities. Thanks to this chart we can keep a consistent routine, our teacher can see what did we do at home the previous week and follow up on that or give us a new challenge. Big A gets to see the chart as well and see all the work he has done at home, so it becomes 'real' for him, and he feels good about it.
Here is a close up to our "Homework chart".
 

The activities that this chart includes are:

1. Listening to the CD. As you know this is very important in the Suzuki method. Children must listen the CD at least once a day, or more. I have a copy of the CD in our car so whenever we are in the car we listen the CD. Sometimes I play it while the kids eat breakfast or dinner, or while A is doing homework or drawing.
2. Technique. This means some warm ups exercises. There are several that we have learned and we try to vary the 'menu' so big A doesn't get bored.
3. Note Reading. This is an assigned page(s) from The Music Tree book 'Time to begin'. It contains music reading exercises and I usually just mark in the chart how many times did we practice certain page (3X= 3 times).
4. Songs Review. The name of the piece is listed so we can note which hand(s) did we practice with and how many times.
5. New Piece. We have special homework whenever we are learning a new piece, for example, work on certain line, or make sure to keep the finger positions in certain way, etc. This is more specific to the piece we are learning.
6. Other. This is for a different activity we did, such as music games, or a 'dessert piece', this means a piece that is not in the book but the child is interested in learning. For example, during the Winter semester we did 'Jingle Bells'.
And I like to add at the end of the page a 'smiley face' to show to the teacher and to big A the mood we had when we were practicing. It seems silly but somehow 'smiley faces' and stickers have a very powerful motivational effect on kids :).

Here is big A working on one of The Music Tree books.

You already know the 'Hundreds Chart', we will be requesting a new one to our teacher, so far has helped us keep the mood up, so we'll use it as much as possible :).

Activities.

Some extra activities we do come from 'The Puppy Packet', which is a box with flash cards for different games to practice different things . This packet can be used by any student learning music, since is not exclusive for the Piano instrument.
Take a peek at our packet.

This is the packet open. I like that it comes with a handy dandy container easy to access and keep the flashcards organized. It has a book with the instructions on how to play the different games. The quality is very nice. We just added a dice to our package as sometimes when big A and I start arguing on how many times should he practice a piece, if we do not agree on a number, we agree on rolling the dice and practice as many times as he rolls. Is a fair resolution for both of us :).

To your right you can see the grand staff, it comes with some plastic, colorful, fun, BUT (the best feature of ALL) is MAGNETIZED chips, which makes the clean up after the game so much faster and attractive for the little ones to help!
Here is the 'Magic wand' (included in the packet), that makes possible such magic.

Now, I am not going to lie to you, this packet was NOT cheap. I waited a long time until I decided to purchase it, I tried to see if I could buy it second hand first but after months of checking craigslist and the local music stores, the opportunity never arrived. So I went ahead and bought it online at a website our teacher recommended.
I figured that little A could use it as well as she will be starting Suzuki in a year and a half or so.

And this is how the Puppy Packet is closed. Is nice that it was designed in a briefcase child size format so the kids can carry it themselves.
This box fits perfectly fine inside the piano bench.


Big A's favorite games are:

- Musical Scrabble
- Musical Go Fish
- Blue, Yellow flash cards.
- Rainbow flashcards.

Today we had a great practice. One of big A's friends just started piano lessons as well, he came to our house for a playdate and big A played Cuckoo for him, his friend was amazed and encouraged.
I am hoping that this also encourages big A to perform more for others. I bet is nice that one of his best friends is taking piano lessons as well, one more thing they will have in common :). And is nice because, up until now, he did not know anyone personally that had to go to piano classes, so now he knows he is not the only one among his friends :).

I hope you find this post useful, please let me know if you have any questions and feel free to share with us your child's favorite music games.

Happy practicing and until next time!

100 Days of Practice Challenge!

"Make black marks on white paper." -Mrs. Hartzler.

We started the 100 days of practice  challenge! And we are doing well, so far we have made it to the 20th day after big A's recital day. I know that 20 days do not seem like a lot, but please consider that the challenge is to do it consecutively, so no excuses, we have to practice everyday. Besides, for us this has meant a LOT of DISCIPLINE, we have not missed one day, even if we are too tired or too busy.
We have to plan accordingly so we are not out of time for practicing piano. So I guess this means we have moved piano practice to the first top three priorities for our family.
We have made it a big deal and even Dad gets to be an audience along with little A whenever big A and me are practicing.

Honestly, these 20 days of practice have made a HUGE improvement in big A's attitude towards piano, I can say that he has become more disciplined. Now we do not struggle or waste time arguing before or while practicing piano, we just know that it is part of our daily routine.

I wish we would have been more disciplined with him since we started our Suzuki journey, but now the circumstances seem to be more favorable for us, as he has longer attention spam, that we had to build during these past 2 years.

We also finished our One Hundred Cuckoos yesterday! Now we are thinking which piece should we practice next 100 times, he was so happy yesterday and showing off his colorful chart.

All this Cuckoo practice, has made big A more confident when playing this piece with both hands. And as a matter of a fact he has become more confident on facing new pieces.

We are currently working on hands/wrists position, curly fingers and understanding slurs. Our next piece to learn, according to our teacher is French Children and Lightly Row with left hand patterns.

What are you doing with your child?, are you experiencing any issues at practice time?, feel free to share your thoughts and experiences here with us!

Thanks for reading and until the next time!

Happy practicing!

The word of the day is: Consistency

"Repetition is the heart of learning"- Dr. Suzuki. 

What instrument are we learning to play?
We are learning to play the Piano, we started with violin originally but after a year we decided to just have piano as our main instrument.

Where are we in the Suzuki program?
We are currently in book 1, and working on the Cuckoo song with both hands playing: Left hand the patterns, Right hand the melody. I have to say that we started working on this since January 2011 and big A is just nailing it now. However, I want to add that this past winter was a bit rough on us, we had rotating colds for every month of the year and unfortunately we had to miss several lessons.

That been said, I honestly believe that he made a HUGE progress just right before his recital this May when we started practicing EVERY DAY. That's right, we didn't use to practice every day, we sometimes had productive weeks and sometimes we just had not the time nor the energy to practice (did I mention we were sick most of the winter with a rotating cold?).
But when I noticed how much it paid off after we practiced every single day for 2 weeks, my eyes were opened. CONSISTENCY. I know I talked about this in my previous post, but here is where I make sense of the word of the day: Keep it consistent.

Now, what stopped me before from being consistent?, we have been taking lessons for a while, right?. Honestly I am not quite sure . But I can list a number of factors:

- Lack of information on resources on how to make a music practice appealing to a toddler/preschooler.
- Lack of previously organized materials/ideas on what to do at our at-home practice. So I do not have to spend one hour planning for what are we going to do today.
- I am sure that the age has made a big difference in big A, as now he is 6 years old and understand what is expected from him, has a longer attention span and can take challenges with a more mature approach.
- Since he has been showing such progress, our home practices had turned FUN for me too! Can you believe it?, yes, I was also bored sometimes when we had to practice, I admit it. But now is just like we have a play date at the piano :).
- Lack of consistency, and this sounds redundant but is actually a true case that you stop flowing as you stop practicing every day. You loose momentum.

And if you think about it, Consistency is such an important thing in life, you can apply it to your life as a parent or setting a different goal for your children.

How do we measure Consistency?

This was a breakthrough for us.
How do I show to my 6 year old how far have we come in our daily practice and why is important to keep going?
Kids have a different notion of time, and is hard for them to see the big picture, so how do I keep him motivated when he is not seeing rewards on a daily basis?
My solution: Charts. Sounds simple and not very innovative, but has worked for us so far. He loves big numbers, 100, 1000, 10000, etc. So we started with a chart that our teacher provided called 'Hundreds Club' , if you are not familiar with this chart you should ask your teacher (if you think this would help your child).

So how does it work? Basically you get a blank chart diamond shaped with 100 little squares that your child has to color for every time he/she practices a song. You must pick a piece and stick to it for 100 times. There is not 'expiration date' to this chart, you do not need to turn it in by certain date. You can do your 100 practices in one day or in a week, or in a month or in a year, is up to you and your child. Then when all the 100 squares are colored you take the chart back to your teacher and sign your name (the child) in a special poster for the "Hundreds Club" in the teacher's studio. Now your child is a proud member of this special Club :). And everyone can see it!

Our first "Hundreds Club" chart.

But knowing my own child, I had to come up with a plan to not overwhelm him with the number 100, but not take it so easy that it will seem like forever when we reach our goal

So I showed him that if we practice our piece five times every day, in 20 days we would have reached our goal. And he agreed to it! I can proudly tell you that by the end of this week we will complete our goal and we are so excited to show our colorful chart to our teacher next week when we go back to our class!


Thanks for reading, and until the next time!---Pictures coming soon!!---

Introduction--Hello Everybody!

"Every child talks in code, is every parent's job to break the code"-Peter Ruderman.

 I am excited to start a blog to share my experience as a parent with the music Suzuki method. My child, which I will call big A, has been taking Suzuki lessons since he was 3 years old. Big A is now 6 and a lot has happened since we started this journey on learning to play an instrument.

Why did I start this blog?
 I  love reading other parenting blogs because I have found this a useful tool on how to be a better parent. Reading what other parents do or how do they do things has always inspired me and, I believe, has helped me to be a better parent. And for my children, has helped them to be better children.
I love to read other people's experiences and learn other ways to do things. Parenting is something that I have become very passionate about. I have two little ones that set me up for a challenge every day, and I have decided to be two steps ahead of them and take on this challenge. And make it a great experience for both parts :).

When I tried to look for Suzuki method blogs before, I had a hard time finding any, or finding blogs that were more specific to the music method for little children.
There are some teacher's Suzuki method blogs, with helpful exercises and some tools on how to practice at home, but I guess I was looking for a blog from a parent's perspective, and yes, some real stories of families and their struggles making practice enjoyable while trying to juggle the daily life routine. So I decided to start one and share my family's experiences this time around, hoping that it will be helpful for other parents, just as reading other family blogs have helped me and my family solve other issues.


How did we get in this?
A wonderful coincidence! Actually is hard to recall the details right now, but I knew that I really wanted my child to learn to play an instrument. When I was a child, I remember I always wanted to learn to play the piano, but I was never able to take formal lessons. So I browsed in my city for music programs for kids/toddlers, I did attended a few music classes where the little kids have fun playing with several musical instruments, and dance and parents are part of the fun as well. But even though they are great classes I just didn't think it was what I was looking for: I wanted my child to learn a formal instrument.

So, somehow I saw this add on a newspaper for this school that offered Suzuki music lessons for kids as young as 3 years old, and I called them to set up a "Meet and greet" lesson with the teacher. I have to say that I was a little confused on how things went, the teacher seemed to be very serious, and formal, and somehow strict. That is not a bad thing, but most teachers who teach toddlers (3 year olds) are usually 'sweeter', you know with the big smile and high pitch tone of voice, trying to appeal to the child. This teacher was polite but is almost like it was talking to my, then 3 year old, as a big person. I found that interesting.
Anyhow the meeting lasted about 15 minutes and then I had to sign up for a waiting list that took about 6 months to get in the class.
Since I was very determined to get my child in music classes I decided to sign him up for a different instrument that a that time had openings for lessons. So we were enrolled!

Why Suzuki?
To be perfectly honest I did not know anything about the Suzuki method when we started our lessons. Is not like I read about it before and looked for a school or a teacher on this. As I said, I just wanted my child to learn to play an instrument and this method seemed the right approach for us while I was reading about it in the waiting area of the school before our "Meet and greet" lesson.
If I were to do it again, I would, only I would inform myself better on this method so I could get more and the best of it for and from my child and myself.
I have to say that I was very impressed to learn in the beginning that 3 year olds could be able to play the violin and other instruments, and I was a bit skeptical but excited to see if my child could be one of those little tikes playing the violin.


What is the Suzuki method? 

According to Wikipedia:
The Suzuki method (スズキ・メソード Suzuki mesōdo^?, also called Talent Education, mother-tongue method, or Suzuki movement) is an educational philosophy which claims to be able to create "high ability" and beautiful character in its students through a nurturing environment. Its primary vehicle for achieving this is music education on a specific instrument (most often violin). It is modeled on factors which Shinichi Suzuki observed in native language acquisition. The term "Suzuki method" is also sometimes used to refer solely to the Suzuki repertoire of sheet music books and/or audio recordings which have been published as part of its music education method.

But if you are reading this blog, you probably know this already. However if you are a new parent on this and do not know much about it I suggest you to inform yourself as much as possible. I think that other 'Suzuki' parents are usually a good source of information when it comes to experience (wisdom), practicing at home and spending more time with your child and the instrument than the teacher does. After all an average Suzuki lesson is about 30 minutes long and once a week only. And a home practice should be a daily session and it takes 30 minutes to an hour, depending on what's going on that day with your family.

According to me: The Suzuki method is a BIG commitment, and a LONG TERM commitment. You won't see 'fruits' in a month, nor in six, and perhaps not even in 1 year. But to avoid being disappointed is best to know this from the beginning and, in my opinion, it has more weight if it comes from a fellow Suzuki parent than from a teacher.

What have I learned so far...
 You need a lot of discipline to practice Suzuki, as Dr. Suzuki originally intended, especially if you are not familiar with it.
I am not a musician, I love music, but I have not knowledge or training on how to read music or play an instrument. And this is OK for the Suzuki method, you as a parent learn during the process along with your child how to play the instrument.
Consistency is vital, you need to schedule the at-home music practices otherwise are left behind and when you are ready to practice the child is tired, or cranky, or there is no time anymore for it. So, since practicing at home is crucial, consistency is very important.


My goal with this blog...

To inspire, share, and vent (if you wish) about our own personal process in this wonderful music method called Suzuki :).

----------------------
Thanks for reading my new blog and can't wait to share more of what we are doing. Big A has been doing incredible progress lately and that has inspired me to start sharing with other parents, I am finally seeing the 'fruits' of our hard work!

Also, I am currently reading this book called Helping Parents Practice by Edmund Sprunger. I will be happy to share with you my reflections as I read this book and how this applies to our family, you might find it helpful or just curious :).

I welcome comments and questions, so please let me know what your thoughts are :).

Until next time!