It has been a hard semester on the violin teachers. Both Corwin’s school teacher and the boys’ private teacher have had health issues this winter. Thankfully both of them seem to be on the mend.
Corwin is making the transition from first position to second and third positions. For those of us non-string players, the n-position refers to where you place your hand on the neck to finger the strings. Higher n means hand closer to the body of the violin. Corwin’s teacher had been working hard with him on intonation of the first position scales for the last year before launching off on the higher positions, and I can see (or hear) why. Corwin has been playing slowly through the 2nd and 3rd position scales, and he is able to adjust to get the note in tune (for the most part, when he’s paying attention). According to his teacher, once he gets some other positions under control, he can start playing some “real” music. Should be interesting.
Charles is up to Perpetual Motion, about half way through the first Suzuki book. So far everything has been in the A major scale. The next song is the first one in another scale. It is interesting to see the differences in playing style between Charles and Corwin. Charles is very particular. When the teacher asks him to do something during the week (say work on stop bowing), Charles will do that very diligently. Charles is also very twisty. He will turn his body to try an look at the strings until his left arm is pretty far behind him.