Community and language in string teaching
We have a tremendous responsibility toward the community to be loving and caring toward our students' perceptions, experiences and needs.
Violin in musical theater live orchestra
Violinist at the College Light Opera Company An educational experience which has shaped me into a better person, was playing violin in the pit orchestra at the College Light Opera Company. The College Light Opera Company, CLOC--still running today--is a live musical theater company in West Falmouth, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the US. It …
Living the high-life in Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP)
Living the High-life in SIP by Bonny Buckley Nearly five years ago, my husband and I moved to SIP from Böblingen, Germany, when he accepted a new position to work in Changshu, a suburb of Suzhou. Once we arrived, we quickly found a bright apartment on a high floor in the compound Linglongwan Huayuan to …
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A hypothetical, historical, energetic journey of a violin
A conceptualization of the path of energy involved in the transformation of a violin, something I wrote in 2016 as part of a course on Energy with Eann Patterson in a MOOC at the University of Liverpool. Thanks to Cheri Noble for reminding me of this! I have deliberately composed this looking at the journey …
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Why seek string teacher coaching?
String teacher coaching is something we string teachers can use to help us in our work, and indeed, all kinds of teachers can benefit from being coached. Why? The main purpose of string teacher coaching is to help us realize and act on our own solutions, with guidance and perspective from our position in life …
Friendly string teacher
Are you friendly as a string teacher? Well, of course you are, I hope. Why do I ask, you may be asking yourself? The reason is, we often have skewed views of ourselves and the way we interact with our students and colleagues. The real question to ask is, “Am I friendly toward myself?” …
Fun lessons
As string teachers, it's always great to reflect on our teaching practices from the point of view of someone in the student role. Take this little quiz to consider how fun from a student's point of view might impact our teaching.
Strings and the pandemic in Suzhou
Being a strings teacher in China during the pandemic - playing and waiting and online teaching and we still aren't done
Why learn music? Why should someone learn to play strings?
Why should a person learn music, and in particular, why should somebody learn how to play a stringed instrument?
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Tone III
There is another aspect to tone that heavily influences and even overshadows the previous two essays. As a string teacher advocate, I will now focus on how we can nudge ourselves into becoming better teachers by becoming aware of the tone in our life. There is a way in which we go about our day-to-day …
