Every Child Can!© An Introduction to Suzuki Education

Sponsored by Arizona Suzuki Association

Date: February 12 and 19, 2023 (Sundays)

Time: 1:00 – 5:00 pm

Location: University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, 1017 N Olive Rd, Tucson, AZ 85719

Teacher Trainer: Alice Vierra

Course Description:

Every Child Can!© (ECC) is an introduction to Dr. Suzuki’s philosophy and its application to Suzuki education. For parents, teachers, prospective teachers and others, this course provides an inspiring, in-depth look at the Suzuki approach to teaching and learning. In addition to exploring the elements of the Suzuki approach and its far-reaching goals, it includes an introduction to learning styles, history of the development of Suzuki education, the role of parents, the importance of Suzuki pedagogical training, and an overview of the SAA’s role in supporting teachers and parents. A fast-paced, engaging and inspiring program, ECC includes video materials and SAA-developed courseware, and provides each participant with useful reference materials (manuals) for later study. For teachers, ECC serves as the first course in the Suzuki Association of the Americas’ Teacher Development Program.

Qualifications:

High school graduation completed or within 6 months of graduation, plus age 17 or older. There are no instrument proficiency requirements. (No audition is required.) There will be no auditor status for this course.

Schedule:

Every Child Can!© is a 8 hour course. Alice Vierra, SAA Trainer, will teach the course.

Sundays, February 12 and 19, 2023, (1:00-5:00pm)

Alice Vierra, Teacher Trainer

Alice Vierra has the perspective of a performer, teacher, teacher trainer, and a
Suzuki parent. She is an SAA registered teacher trainer and has taught students
and teachers at Suzuki Institutes and Camps across the country. For 38 years, she
was a sought after cello teacher in the Washington, DC area. Her students have
gone on to study at Boston University, Hartt School of Music, Indiana University,
Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Oberlin, and Yale. After re-
locating to Tucson, she continues to teach both children and adults and works
with string students residing in the Catalina Foothills school district. Her students
have appeared on the TV program, The Morning Blend, and she led them in a
performance with the Tucson Repertory Orchestra. As a performer she has played
with the Washington Bach Consort on their tour to Germany, with the Fairfax
Symphony, Arlington Symphony, and in various chamber groups at the Corcoran
Gallery, Wolf Trap, Kennedy Center, and Washington Cathedral. She served on the
board of the Kindler Cello Society and helped organize the seventy-piece cello
orchestra led by Yo-Yo Ma which honored Rostropovich at the Kennedy Center
Honors event in 1994. She now serves on the board of the Arizona Suzuki
Association and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Arizona. Alice holds
a BME from the University of Iowa, and a MM in cello performance from the
University of Wisconsin She studied with Carol Work, Charles Wendt, and Lowell
Creitz and at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute with Kenneth Slowik.

Instructor: Winifred Crock

January 21 (Sat) and January 22 (Sun), 2023 Online via Zoom

Schedule: January 21 (Sat), 12:00-6:00pm and January 20 (Sun), 1:00-5:00pm (Arizona Time)

Location: Online via Zoom

Fee: $200 for 2 days, $125 for one day (Sat only)

Registration deadline: Jan 20, 2023

10 hour SAA Enrichment course option, 100 percent participation required to be registered with SAA. Participants must be an active SAA member to register the course.

Course Description:

The umbrella of skills that determine literacy for musicians includes aural skills, translating notation, sight reading notation and an understanding of applicable music theory. The sequential pedagogy involved in teaching these skills is detailed and important. Join Winifred as she explores new concepts, sequences and materials for teaching literacy skills to string students. Discussions will include reimagined detailed learning sequences that foster all aspects of literacy for the studio or classroom student including teaching aural skills, transition to visual notation, developing fluent sight reading and teaching applicable music theory as it relates to string instruments.

Including…

• understanding sequences of aural skills as they apply to literacy
• exploring the preparatory skills necessary before visual notation is introduced
• sequencing the preparatory stages of visual literacy
• understanding issues with the music notation system
• teaching the feel of meter change
• teaching triple and compound meter
• understanding issues with rhythm and how they relate to success or challenges in reading
• understanding definitions of reading sight reading and their important to sequential growth
• understanding strands of learning as they apply to Suzuki philosophy and literacy
• challenging the easy reader and assisting those that may have issues
• understanding technical study and its relationship to reading fluency
• developing sequential teaching of music theory for strings

A variety of materials will be used and referenced during the class. Multiple handouts will be available to you through a shared google drive online several days before the class begins.

The following materials will be used in this class. I encourage you to have them.

You will better be able to interact with us in the activities that we do and understand the sequence and concepts we cover with material examples in front of you.

Suzuki Volume 1 for your instrument

Learning Together: Sequential Repertoire for Solo Strings or String Ensemble Alfred Music

            Volume 1 and 2 for your instrument

            (Alfred Music will provide a violin Volume 2 for you for this workshop)

Pattern Play Teacher Volume and Student Volume 1 and 2.

Pattern Play Flash Drive 2020 Projections for Classroom Use, Forrester Press

Pattern Play materials are available at Southwest Strings https://www.swstrings.com

            and at Midwest Sheet Music at www.midwestsheetmusic.com. 

All participants will need to have their instrument for the class. 

 In demand as a clinician, lecturer and conductor, Winifred Crock has lectured at Midwest, NAFME, ASTA and SAA conferences and has been the featured string clinician at universities and conferences across the country and internationally. Mrs. Crock was the Director of Orchestras at Parkway Central High School, Parkway School District, for over 25 years and has maintained a private violin studio in suburban St. Louis, Missouri for far longer. Mrs. Crock holds music degrees from SIU-E and Kent State University. She is a graduate of the Suzuki Talent Education Institute in Matsumoto, Japan under the tutelage of Shinichi Suzuki, is a SAA Teacher Trainer and is a certified Kodály method instructor. Mrs. Crock has been named the Missouri ASTA Private Studio Teacher of the Year, the Missouri ASTA Secondary String Teacher of the Year, the St Louis Symphony Educator of the Year, St Louis Arts Educator of the Year, the NFHA Outstanding Music Educator of the Midwest, and the ASTA Elizabeth Green National School Educator. She is also a recipient of the Singer Prize for Excellence in Secondary Education. She is the author of publications including the Pattern Play for Strings Series, and with Laurie Scott and William Dick, the Learning Together Series, They have also been the recipients of the SAA Community Learning Award.

What Musicians Can Learn About Practicing From Current Brain Research

This presentation focused on what neuroscientists have discovered about how our brains learn and how to apply these insights to practicing and teaching so that practicing becomes more efficient and effective, leading to enhanced performance ability, enjoyment, and confidence. Topics included: how to get rid of bad habits, how to make things automatic/reliable, the role of sleep in learning, the power of mental practicing, how to use the metronome to greatest effect, and the benefits of random practice for enhanced performance.

Violist Molly Gebrian has distinguished herself as an outstanding performer, teacher, and scholar throughout the US and Europe. Her love of contemporary music has led her to collaborate with many composers, often in premieres of works written for her. She has worked closely with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and Pierre Boulez for performances at the Lucerne Festival and she spent the 2011/2012 academic year in Paris to undertake an intensive study of contemporary music with violist/composer Garth Knox. Her other principal teachers include Peter Slowik, Carol Rodland, and James Dunham. Molly completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in viola performance from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and also holds graduate degrees in viola performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, and Bachelors degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, in both viola performance and neuroscience. She served as the Assistant Director for two interdisciplinary conferences on music and the brain while at Rice, has published papers dealing with music and neuroscience in the Journal of the American Viola Society, Frontiers in Psychology, Flute Talk Magazine, and The Strad. Her background in neuroscience gives her unique insight into how the brain learns and how musicians can best use this information to their advantage in the practice room. Given this expertise, she is a frequent presenter on topics having to do with music and neuroscience at conferences and universities in the US and abroad. During the summer, she is on faculty at the National Music Festival and Montecito International Music Festival, and has also taught at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival. After teaching for five years at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, she joined the faculty at the Fred Fox School of Music at the University of Arizona in the fall of 2019.

Pictures from the Sept 26, 2020 class.

ASA held a Fall Round-Up on September 26, 2020 on Zoom. There was also a Teacher/Parent session with Dr. Molly Gebrian. Violin, viola, cello, guitar, flute, and voice students of all levels joined. Students had a morning class and a Grand Finale Concert in which all students will performed Suzuki repertoire together. The Round-Up was free for ASA members (family and teacher memberships). Thanks to the 100 participants who attended the event, it was great playing music together!

Grand Finale Concert

Violin Class

Special guest violinist, Sylvia Pine leads the violin class.

Dr. Louise Scott leads the violin class

Laura Tagawa leads the violin class

Chris Dorsey leads the guitar class

Teacher/Parent Workshop with Dr. Molly Gebrian

Happy practicing!

Summer Practice Challenge Details

Download and print the 100 Day Practice Chart HERE

Students who attend the Fall Round-Up (Sept 26 in Phoenix) will get their certificate in person. If you are unable to attend the Fall Round-Up, your certificate will be sent by email as a PDF attachment.

We want everyone to have the chance to participate! Students also have the option to complete 50 or 75 days and get a certificate.

Instructions for completing the challenge

Students who have practiced 50, 75, or 100 days by Sept 20 will get a PDF certificate. Students who completed the challenge will be acknowledged at the Fall Roundup Grand Finale on Sept 26. In order to be included in that, please submit form no later than Sept. 24.

Please fill out the form and submit. https://forms.gle/kuZrbjeWujhZH5Fz5

ASA will then email you a PDF of your practice challenge certificate.

Tips for Success

Remember that when starting the challenge, less is more. Dr. Suzuki said that 3 minutes, 5 times a day is ideal for a beginner.

Focus on tasks completed, rather than number of minutes practiced.

Celebrate milestones!

Guest teachers, Winifred Crock (violin) and Mary Beth Tyndall (cello) taught classes and led a workshop concert at the end of the day.

Students had repertoire, master class, fiddling, and orchestra (advanced) or enrichment (Books 1-3).

Taylor Morris taught fiddling and also led the Gilbert Town Fiddlers for a lunch-time concert.

Winifred Crock taught a teacher workshop on Oct 18.

Gail Acosta leads the violin groups at the final concert.

Kristina Beachell leads the orchestra

Diana Parmeter and Cello Choir

Wesley Skinner gives a cello master class.

Patrick Clark and Fiddling

Patrick Clark and Fiddling

Patrick Clark fiddles under the trees.

Kari Weldon teaches the singing class.

Mary Wilkening at the Desert Botanical Garden.

Diana Parmeter at Jun Kaneko exhibit at Desert Botanical Garden.