Figured I should take a moment to talk about the change in Kevin's viola instruction. He's moved up to the full-size viola, so, the notes sound a lot better now. When he hits them right.
His instructor (and we've made the change this year to go from 30 minute to hour long lessons) has decided that he wants Kevin to...well, let me get the quotes from the email. He needs to focus on two things with this scale: 1) the finger pattern and 2) Tone Development. The finger pattern will be the quickest thing for him to master (where to put his fingers). The “tone development” (quality of his sound) is a gradual process for any musician and will take perhaps more patience than Kevin has at this point. To practice the “tone development,” Kevin needs to put a metronome at 60 bpm and then play each note of the scale as whole notes (four clicks on the metronome.) During each note he needs to pay close attention that his bow is parallel with the bridge (a mirror is helpful for this) and he needs to use almost the entire bow, listening for a clear sound. I went over ALL of this with him during the lesson; though I think he wanted to get to the concerto so badly that I am not certain he was paying close attention. I also wrote it on a post-it note (please tell him to bring his notebook to the next lessons.) Please follow-up with him on these details. He has a huge amount of musical potential and I want to make sure we give him our best effort."
Kevin had his first lesson focusing on this Friday, and he's been very clear that he doesn't like these type of lessons....he'd much rather be learning new music and playing it. Oh well....Kevin's very lucky to have someone (his instructor, we've discovered has a doctorate in viola performance!) that really is taking an interest in helping him achieve everything he can achieve. I'm very excited by the possibility of what he could sound like at the end of the semester, and at the end of the year.
Upcoming posts you ask? Well, we'll have some laundry-room before and after pictures by the end of the weekend, and I definitely have a few paragraphs about the soccer-monsoon combination this morning.....
