Mary's First Twinkles

Grampa Neil visiting from California and joining us for violin lesson

If I had known everything that a child must learn before even starting to play a song on the violin, I don't know if I'd have been brave enough to tackle the endeavor.

Mary has had five Suzuki violin lessons so far and has had to learn:

• the names of all the parts of the violin and bow
• the bow hold and bow positions
• the foot position
• a chin hold for ten minutes
• the names of the four strings
• the names and places of something like 64 finger positions on the strings

And, after all that, a child can start to learn her very first song, the first of several variations of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.'






Now that I've watched the learning process in its nascence, I am agog at children who can actually and beautifully play violin.