Tripod. Love.

Melbourne Symphony musicians, take note: professional development component 101 is here!

Yes, located in the upstairs theatre of Melbourne's own Forum, you must catch Tripod's latest creative fury.

Not only will you learn the beauty of developing individual characterisation, but the importance of audience rapport. Your ensemble skills may also benefit from observing these four musicians watch, listen, and work WITH one another, while multi-tasking (yes, this is for those who whine about page-turning and the fine art of pizzicato WITH bow in hand) gains a new dimension; try shadow puppetry while maintaining four-part harmony. Yeah. A GOOD four-part harmony.

Elana Stone is a dream in a red dress; we bought her album your anniversary and I will be grabbing In the Garden of Wild Things when I finish this blog post. Just go and do it, especially if you're a fellow Australian. And if you're not, take note: we have the COOL people, y'all. 

Monkey see, monkey do.

This year I seem to have a clump of students hitting high school. And adolescence. I keep overhearing some parents saying to others;
"Seven days! How do you get your child to practice seve days?"
The answer, of course, has varied for everyone, but one theme has emerged.
"We've always done it."

You reap what you sow.

I don't know that missing a day of practice here and there makes THAT much difference to skill development. Two days, yes. One day, not SO much. When you consider that I will accept (on a practice challenge mission, which is all about achieving a certain number of consecutive days) the occasional day only a single twinkle variation gets played, it's obvious that this is not really about working through the list very day.

It's about establishing consistency. If mum will give in today, she might give in tomorrow, and then - hey, I've won! It's the eternal power struggle that every parent will face, and I've decided that how you deal with it defines the relationship you will have with your child.

There's a big difference between saying "Don't want to practice? Tough, you have to anyway!" and "Don't want to practice? Ok, how come? Let's have a talk about what we can do to make it easier."
Acceptance, validation, application of problem- solving and... affirmation that the practice is still going ahead but may need to have a different structure or level of support.

Of course, being adult and therefore believing ourselves to be in charge (ha! The arrogance!) many of us are inclined to button-push right back. (Isn't it funny- we are so quick to label other people's behaviour as button-pushing but don't look at our responses in the same light?)

So what?

Don't know. I'm certainly in a privileged position to see parents working with their children in many different ways at different levels of ability; some are absolutely inspiring in their patience, empathy and common sense. Big shoes to fill.

Behave.

Whose responsibility are a child's manners?

Well, being a Suzuki philosophy teacher, I am inclined to say that they're first and foremost the responsibility of the parent. However, as a child grows up and goes out into the great wide world, other influences on their behaviour and attitude will soon become apparent.

A classroom teacher's belief in manners as currency or tolerance of rude behaviour will do a lot for a child's attitude, as will the other adults in that child's life; grandparents, the parents of friends, dance teachers, instrumental teachers, football coaches, etc and so forth. The list is long, and the influence perhaps incremental.

In a group situation, whose responsibility is a child's behaviour? Again, I look to the parents. Surely they will tell their child what behaviour is and is not appropriate in a group setting. If they can't, won't or simply haven't, then the teacher is left with a larger responsibility: to discipline a group of children in such a way that they are safe, learning, happy and engaged.

Dealing with young teenagers is the hardest. How to come across as authoritative yet avoiding Nazi-ism. I don't mind being the bad guy, but I do embrace the idea of tough love. Some things are necessary for the good of the group, and eleven-fourteen is not a bad time to learn those lessons.

So, who am I really?

Supposedly you have the potential to tell a lot about a person if you can get a hold of a sample of her handwriting. 

Or so says Lora @ Fever, and I liked her writing so much I wanted to play too.  Now, what can you all tell me from my scrawl?

The Rules:
write the following
1) Your name/blog name.
2) Right-handed, left-handed, or ambidextrous?
3) Favorite letters to write.
4) Least favorite letters to write.
5) Write “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
6) Write the following words in capital letters:
- CRAB
- HUMOR
- KALEIDOSCOPE
- PAJAMAS
- GAZILLION
7) Write your favorite song lyric.
8) Tag people!
9) Any special note or picture.

Deja Sunday

Today we went barefoot bowling.
I've labored under a little deja vu all day; every movement seems to be the shadow of a predecessor, every line seems to have had a rehearsal.

Odd when I know today is not a day that has happened before, nor will it happen again.
Today a friend celebrated his thirtieth birthday.
His wife's birthday was yesterday. A couple on our lawn bowls team made their recent (Friday) engagement known.

My best friend's having another baby in July and people keep asking me how she's doing  in the same tone people ask "Are you still smoking?"

Tonight I - we, actually - got asked "So, who's least opposed? Who wants them more?" and once again justified our 'putting off' of children for more than the seemingly-standard year.

I'm a little scared of the loop that we find ourselves running. Baby showers, bridal showers, weddings, 30ths, infant birthdays and engagement parties. I'm not sure what to do about it but shrug, and accept that my students will grow up and head to high school, that I too will grapple with the issue of 'glamorous' maternity wear, that we will become the weary parents who say to their childless friends "Wait till you have kids".

I don't like it. I'm not sure what to do about it.
I think I may be having a mid-twenties crisis.

Sunday morning wonderings.

Having wandered into a cafe I'm intrigued by a back table. Composition: two couples, three little girls. The two-year old sits between her parents, a five or six-month-old in her mother's lap.

The remaining child - maybe two-and-a-half? - is in a stroller, at eye level with the table. It's not immediately apparent which couple she belongs to, but I guess the family with the baby and the - when she stands up - baby bump.

Miss 2 and baby are centre of attention, and the little girl in the stroller is relatively excluded from the table's interaction, althought she watches intently and smiles into the oblivious ether.

Once or twice Dad leans over to supervise drinking or pass fingers through her strawberry blonde fringe, but her mother doesn't look over until the table rises and begins their exit.

She gets towed out, while the baby takes her place in the phil & ted's. When she smiles at me and reaches for my dress- blue with bright red trim- Mum apologises and corrals her away.

I get down onto the floor, crouching so she can finger the large, shiny buttons and touch the red corduroy ribbon. She's fascinated by the texture and I point out the same trim - green ribbon- on her summer dress. My reward is a dreamy smile which crinkle the epicantic folds around her eyes and a muttered "Thanks." from Mum.

I wonder if baby was an attempt at making up for. I wonder if she's had or plans to have amniocentesis of her current pregnancy. I wonder a lot of things.

You can't please most of the people... any of the time.

Dear teacher, 
 blah blah on behalf of the Suzuki Music Violin/viola committee. Blah blah at Autumn Festival Mrs. Suzuki will take a session for all violin and viola teachers focusing on the 1st and 2nd movements (esp.2nd movt) of the Telemann viola concerto in Suzuki Viola Book 4. This is for all violin and viola teachers, whether you have played viola before or not. You are encouraged to study the piece in advance of Autumn Festival and play it in the session with Mrs. Suzuki. If you prefer to observe during this session, that is OK.


Uh, HELLO? There are FOUR viola teachers who turn up to Autumn Festival. They are all ALSO violin teachers (of whom there are more like FIFTY-four) and gee, aren't there some really HUGE changes (like an ADDED piece, several DELETED pieces and a whole lot of exercises) in the new VIOLIN books? 
We should totally study a viola piece. Clearly. It's for the common good. 

The violin/viola committee and the violin/viola teacher-trainers hope that in this session the following aims will be achieved:

·       Improving your tone production on viola and violin.

Of course, because tone production on violin and viola are SO the same. NOT. In fact, the viola teachers have spent several years bitching and griping that not just anyone should think they can pick up a viola and play because it's TOTALLY different to violin. Yah. Take that, violinist who thought they were going to jump the C-string fence. 

·       If you are asked to teach viola, you will be more familiar with the viola Level 4 graduation piece (2nd movt, Telemann Concerto in G major).

Because there are about ten viola students in Victoria who are at this level, CLEARLY we need all the violin teachers (who can't play viola because they're not trained violists) to be capable of teaching said piece.

·       We hope that some teachers who attend this session will then play with the viola group in the Grand Annual Concert this year, when the Telemann concerto movement will be performed.

Because we are generally a teeny tiny group who needs our numbers artificially bolstered by teachers playing violas they can't play. Awesome. 

I am helping to source instruments so that everyone will have a viola to play in the session. I hope that some teachers may already have access to violas, perhaps through their school. 

How about "I can't play viola because I'm not fricking big enough? Ok, get me a three-quarter size and that'll be dandy, but then I have to lug two instruments around Festival for five days, learn a piece of music which will have little or no bearing on the well-being of my students, (while I still have a mountain of repertoire which needs correction/alteration) and no, my school doesn't have any violas because it's a government primary school and I have to fight for the privilege of teaching there." 

Frick.