In Retrospect - Fifth Quarter

I feel that I have been rather different this quarter compared to this time last year.  Or any quarter last year, in fact.  When compiling a list earlier today though, I was a bit stumped.  I'd been meaning to compile this list on the go... Hopefully, I'll be better at that in the next 3 months.

New Year Resolutions.  I'll admit it - I'm not doing fabulously well on this front.  My running goal is just not happening.  However, I'm hoping the holidays, as well as the proximity of my next running event, will get that going again.  The other goals are doing moderately well (see below).

Food.  Apart from the Easter eggs, I'm doing really well with the No Pre-made Chocolate thing.  Giving up sugar for Lent possibly helped, but I didn't really crave a block of chocolate.  Making my own - and knowing exactly what went into it - satisfied any chocolate urges I had.  Okay, not 'any' but 'all of the'.  I haven't made as many new recipes as I would have liked, but the recent dip into a recipe book has rekindled that little flame.  (Looking forward to dinner tonight!).

Students.  I have been much better at communication with parents this year.  I used to let things slide, and intend to contact a parent about something but then not get around to it.  Sometimes this doesn't really matter, but sometimes it does.  This year, I have been good.  I didn't realise just how good until I was sending out next term's invoices (on time - go me!).  Except for a boarder, whose parents live overseas, I had made email contact with every parent during the term.  I've sent photos of posture, music, recordings, checked lesson times, rescheduled when I've realised before the parents have informed me that their child will be unavailable during their lesson time, and organised music exams.  So now I'm feeling on top of things, as well as rather virtuous.

Outfits.  Amazingly, these are still going.  I have started slipping in slightly more daring pattern mixing without being howled down by the 8-12-yr-old Fashion Police.  The bigger change (in my head, anyway) has been to pick a theme for the week.  The last week of term was 'pattern'; the week before that, floral; and 2 weeks before that, stripes.  I have a few more ideas, but feel free to pitch your idea to me!

Trivia.  Not every week - but many weeks - I've been part of a team for trivia at a local pub.  So much fun.  We normally do fairly poorly - but we have had some good bits too.  Like when the last round theme was 'vegetables'.  So, kale is European, but I got every other answer.  And I'm reasonable at working out the Who Am I (always someone born on that day).

Movies.  After the dodgy experience (Bulletproof Monk), I've been unenthusiastic about watching more movies.  Except for Star Wars, that is.  Episodes IV, V, and VI (review pending) have been very much enjoyed.  Now that holidays are on, I'm feeling like my brain can absorb some more though.

Breakfast.  Except for the mornings with eggs, or with parents (eating the former, eating with the latter), breakfast is now in bed.  I love it.  I get the fan during hotter weather, and the snuggliness during cooler weather.  And Wednesdays are now smoothie mornings as they're also gym mornings.  I'm loving this new schedule.

Photography.  I'm still enjoying Instagram.  I only rarely share them on Facebook, preferring to see them as different bits of my life (mostly).  However, I started taking more and more photos of the cathedral.  As I'm one of the cathedral Facebook page administrators, I decided to share my photos of the cathedral through that medium.  I'm pleased to see they are 'seen' by hundreds of people, and they get so many 'likes' I am quite chuffed.  This is my favourite - looking up in the northwest are of the Narthex.

New Places in Brisbane.  This is something I am so glad I started, and wish I had started long ago.  Although I am a little embarrassed there are so many parts of Brisbane I haven't seen yet, just taking a couple of hours to visit somewhere new is such a good thing for me.  I can tick a few more places off my list, take photos of different aspects of Brisbane, and enjoy some time out in the process.  Big win.

Music.  This has been such a full-on term.  Such a fabulously full-on term.  On Australia Day, there were 6 of us - a non-muso, and 5 string players.  We realised we were a quintet, so had a quintet night.  As we were playing, I was thinking "It would be so nice if we performed this" - then someone else said what I was thinking, so now we're doing a concert.  We're also doing a quartet, so this is a whole lot of Schubert.  A whole lot of fabulous Schubert.  And a whole lot of rehearsing.  I'm loving it. 

After so much socialising though, I am needing to hibernate for a bit.  And to practise.  And weed my garden.  I should emerge in a couple of days.

The Grade 3 Approach

I can remember learning how to read, but I can't remember learning how to read music.  Although this is great in some respects, it does put me at a slight disadvantage when it comes to teaching students how to read music.  The Colour Strings method is fabulous for this, but I have limited opportunities to teach this - many of my students also learn violin in a class situation.  When this is the case, I have assumed their class teacher is teaching them how to read music.

However, one of my current grade 4 girls is really resistant to the whole reading music thing.  Which surprises me and frustrates me as she is quite a bright child, and plays beautifully, but will work out all the notes before playing.  Imagine the problems we are having now that we have full page pieces instead of 2-phrase pieces.  I started teaching her at the start of term 4 last year, and it was honestly only at the end of the most recent holidays that I realised why she doesn't read music.  And not just her, but many of the grade 4 children in my ensemble.  The strings teacher teaches them how to play strings.  And with a whole class of about 25 kids all at once and 4 different instruments and 3 different clefs, I don't blame her! 

This term, then, with the start of private lessons for the current grade 3s, I am taking a different approach from before.  I'm focusing less on bowholds and more on note reading (not neglecting the bowholds though!).  They get to write more music - both writing the songs they already know how to play as well as making up a song for me.  And I'm using the Colour Strings/Kodaly method as much as I can.  The school at which I teach is a Kodaly school (this is such a blessing, my work-load is halved) so the students already know so many good songs, and the music teachers have the same approach that I would use with the strings method.  One of the principles of the Kodaly method is spiral teaching, revisiting known material to learn knew elements.  For my grade 3 students, then, I have them write out the songs they know from strings class, and we are learning to play songs they already know from music classes. 

The drawback of this, though, is that once they know which song they're playing, and which finger to play first, they stop reading the notes and just go from memory.  Phase 2 begins tomorrow.  I'm printing a sheet of short songs for them, some that they know (or should know) and some that I'm just making up.  This week they get to read the notes without me spoon-feeding them which song is which.

As an aside... One of my semi-colour strings girls at home is also in grade 3 and learning through school in group classes as well.  Last week I tried her on singing a song we already know (like Mister Sun) and then playing it on the violin, starting on different fingers and strings.  Not a problem.  This week we tried a slightly more complicated song (Look, Lamb, Look) - still not a problem.  Then we did the G major scale in 2 octaves - still not a problem.  If you're not a string player, this involves 2 different finger patterns and (when I teach scales anyway) keeping on thinking for much longer than normal.  Her dad doubted she'd earned a sticker but I think it was justified!

Today's photo:

I had lunch at Jeannie's today (yummy buckwheat pancakes) and sitting on the deck, the sun came through the clouds and back again enough to make this photo exciting in the taking.