Friday, March 12, 2004
Benny had an AWESOME violin class on Thursday. He missed his Monday class because Sadie was having her hospital trip, and he missed the previous Monday because he himself was having the plague, so I was getting all anxious that he'd be behind and ruined and as I am reading Dr. Suzuki's book right now, I have become very inspired and motivated, not that I wasn't before, but EXTRA inspired and motivated -- it is a beautiful book by the way. It's called Nurtured By Love and it's all about how practicing the violin and learning to play beautifully makes you a better person. ANYWAY, so we were trying to keep up with practicing at home and he was learning the bread/butter/jelly/bread method of learning the parts of Twinkle, and he was actually practicing RATHER diligently.
So we went to the lesson, which Mrs. Ford very graciously snuck in during a cancellation of another student. HE PLAYED ALL OF TWINKLE. It was rather halting and not entirely perfect but he concentrated and played all the way through. We just sat and watched him until he was done and it was, if I may say so, RATHER MOVING to see him earnestly pick his way through it -- a very good job. He has a lot of work to do on his bow hand -- when he thinks about his violin hand his bow hand tightens up into a claw, but Mrs. Ford gave us lots of things to do to rectify this and she commented that his violin fingers were very round and correct and that his concentration on the music was marvelous! HOORAY! He is very enchanted with the fact that he can play all the way through a whole song and he says, "My song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That's my song." :) :) :) DEAR BENNY! He has definitely GOT the idea of putting his fingers down all the way to the fingerboard and how to make different notes and he understands the structure of Twinkle and it's looking good for us. YAY! It was very nice to have that happen, and to have it be so Benny-motivated. Gives me strength to go on with the practicing, which hasn't always been... harmonious. In more ways than one. :)
So we went to the lesson, which Mrs. Ford very graciously snuck in during a cancellation of another student. HE PLAYED ALL OF TWINKLE. It was rather halting and not entirely perfect but he concentrated and played all the way through. We just sat and watched him until he was done and it was, if I may say so, RATHER MOVING to see him earnestly pick his way through it -- a very good job. He has a lot of work to do on his bow hand -- when he thinks about his violin hand his bow hand tightens up into a claw, but Mrs. Ford gave us lots of things to do to rectify this and she commented that his violin fingers were very round and correct and that his concentration on the music was marvelous! HOORAY! He is very enchanted with the fact that he can play all the way through a whole song and he says, "My song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That's my song." :) :) :) DEAR BENNY! He has definitely GOT the idea of putting his fingers down all the way to the fingerboard and how to make different notes and he understands the structure of Twinkle and it's looking good for us. YAY! It was very nice to have that happen, and to have it be so Benny-motivated. Gives me strength to go on with the practicing, which hasn't always been... harmonious. In more ways than one. :)
