If you’ve already read about practice expectations, you may be wondering what, exactly, to DO during a home practice session.
If you’ve managed to carve out your fifteen minutes in a day, here’s a way to structure the practice to get the most out of your time.
Sing, Pluck, Play
1. Sing the tune first to learn the notes
2. Play pizzicato (plucking) to practice the left hand fingers
3. Add the bow last
Sing, Sing, Sing!
Singing is the best and fastest way to get kids to learn and remember a tune. If they can’t sing the tune there is no way they can play it on the instrument.
The nice part is that you carry your voice with you everywhere so you don’t need to limit singing time to “violin practice time” (although you should include this in a practice). Try singing your pieces in the car on the way to or from school.
For each piece we are learning:
- Start by holding the instrument in rest position.
- Sing the tune together (on Do Re Mi or using the note letters or lyrics).
- Encourage your student to try to hit the right pitch or close to it (rather than mumbling a monotone). It doesn’t need to be perfect but it’s important to give it an honest try.
They can *all* do this but some like to pretend they can’t if they aren’t enthusiastic singers. - Challenge your student to sing solo to see if they can remember it all by themselves.
If the whole piece is too much right now, you can break this down into bite-sized chunks. Try a few bars. For example “Hot Cross Buns” could be tackled bar by bar.
Pluck, Pluck, Pluck!
Plucking the tune (pizzicato) allows us to practice our left hand without having to coordinate the bow. Once the left hand knows what it’s doing, adding the bow will be much easier.
- Put the violin up (leave the bow on the table)
- Parents – check the posture and make sure everything looks right — make any adjustments necessary before starting
- Students – try pluck the tune while the parent sings
Don’t rush – keep it nice and slow, or a speed you can manage without mistakes.
Play, Play, Play!
Last step is to add the bow. By this stage the left hand should be pretty confidently doing what it needs to do so all you need to concentrate on is keeping the bow straight.
- Put the violin up with the bow on the string
- Parents – as before, check posture and bow grip and make any adjustments necessary
- Students – try to play through with the bow — check that the bow is nice and straight. Correct and guide where necessary.
Every few minutes put the violin down and shake arms and shoulders to relieve tension (little arms get tired quickly).
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
Aim to do all of the above three times for each piece.
The goal is to reinforce the motor skills we’re trying to develop and to weed out the little habits that trip us up.
Challenge mode
I like to use a ‘rule of three’ as a challenge during a practice. The goal is to execute a skill three times in a row without a mistake. The skill might be a whole piece (we are ony playing things that are a few bars long) or it might be one small part of the piece that your student finds a little trickier.
- Pick one skill or piece that they *can* execute correctly at least once
- Start at zero. Each time your student executes the skill correctly, add one to the count.
- If they make a mistake, first correct it and make sure they understand what happened, then reset the count to zero.
- Try to get to three
If it doesn’t happen after a reasonable number of tries, or if you sense a bit of frustration creeping in, leave it alone and try again another time. It might take a few sessions to get to the magic “3 in a row” but it’ll feel like an achievement when they do.
That’s it! If you’re doing this four or five times per week I can nearly guarantee it won’t be long before they’re playing and asking for new things to play.