Second Week of Beginner Class

We worked pretty hard today. Those fingers were plucking with the thumbs on the finger board (pizzacato we call it in Italian, or pizz for short). One student thought it meant pizza!

We practiced tuning the strings with the tuners. I helped some and they did some. If they are in drastic need of help tuning sometimes music stores will tune the strings for you. On Mondays I have a high school orchestra rehearsal at Community Presbyterian Church. I am at Seltice after school on Tuesdays till 5pm, at the Post Falls Middle School on Wednesday afternoons, and Prairie View till 5pm on Thursdays.

We started on page 6 and did pizzacato on open D and A strings looking at notes on the staff and rest marks to make our plucking turn into music.
Then we worked on identifying the notes on the D string when we put our fingers on the tapes. For violin and viola it is three fingers down for G, two for F#, one for E, and no fingers for D. For cello it is four fingers down for G, three for F#, one for E, and no fingers for D. It was hard for some students so I had them write in the finger numbers next to the notes to reinforce that knowledge. I encouraged them that they would get faster at reading the notes with time and practice. We sounded pretty good as a group. A few kids forgot their books in class, so other students will deliver them to their classrooms so that they can do their homework!
Yes!

Homework is playing pizz. (plucking) page 6,7,8,9 all the songs 13-22. That should keep you busy practicing all week! They can practice this with the CD if they want. We had time to learn how to hold the bow. I observed everyone bowing and helped them use their index finger and wrist to move like a paintbrush straight and with even tension on the D string. They can practice this after they have tightened their bow slightly (righty tighty the adjusting screw) and rosined it a little. When they are done they need to loosen the bow (lefty loosy).