“Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don’t waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.” ~by Og Mandino

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Is She Truly Qualified?!

I always have the problem about getting my bow straight when drawing it over the strings. I will draw my bow slantingly into a curve angle throughout my playing. It happens unknowingly everytime and I have no idea how can I keep it as straight as possible.

My violin teacher will correct me when she discovers my mistake, but not everytime. She merely adjusts my bow position and keeps reminding me not to slant my bow, make sure it is placed so that both of the bow and string will against each other to produce a plus (+) sign. Gosh, how can I judge if the bow and the string are producing a plus sign from my point of view?! *ridiculous*

I sought her further advice for improving my weak point. Disappointingly, she had nothing to show me but with a very general and unspecific verbal answer - “You can only improve it on your own with a mirror in front of you.” I expect her could suggest me some useful hints or guidelines that can particularly work on my mistake. Or may be she can also share her learning experience about the right bowing technique to me so that I could be inspired at the end. But now, I realize that I could be expecting her too much.

One more thing that worried me so much is she seldom emphasizes and focuses on the essential violin techniques that we suppose to adhere before proceeding to the advanced piece. She intends to go through the lessons very quick in spite of we have really picked up the skill or not. I doubt the teaching attitude of her. Does she know that violin basic studies are the most critical in the foundation stage? What habit we develop today may contribute to our advancement tomorrow. Perhaps, earning tuition fee from us would be her main aim.

Frankly, she is disappointing. I would say that she is not a QUALIFIED violin TEACHER even though she might be a good violin performer. I truly do want to establish good habits from the start. Therefore, I will definitely quit my current lesson if I could find a better tutor even if I have to fork out extra dollars and cents.

4 comments:

frederickgam said...

Try Cremona, you might find your answers there !!!

Jenjen said...

Hmm... I will consider about your suggestion seriously... (^^)

frederickgam said...

If you still prefer Kelvin, then you can still book his class at Sutera Mall Yamaha, but it's RM90 per month (30mins per lesson), one-to-one. Yamaha doesn't conduct group lessons.

At Cremona, violin lessons are RM80/month (30mins per lesson) if one-to-one. The good thing about them is they also do group lessons. Each group lesson is 1 hr. For 2 students, the rate is RM80/head. For 3 or more students, the rate is lower. And in Cremona you can choose to use Strictly Strings or Suzuki books (come with CDs containing the violin performance so you know how the pieces should be played). Both books are sold there. Suzuki 1 is RM30+ if I'm not mistaken.

Jenjen said...

Fikar, thanks for your useful info. I will take them into consideration too.(^^)
I think I would temporary stick to self-study at home first, by reading through the articles of those violinists provided in their websites in order to improve the weaknesses of my current violin skill. *wink*