Problem with DD violin teacher

[MarkyMarky]

DD 7 started violin lessons in sept and I don’t feel she has made much progress. I encourage her to practise most days but the noise is atrocious. I contacted the violin teacher to ask why it’s so bad. The violin teacher basically said in not so many words that we must be patient and the violin takes time as it’s a very difficult instrument and implied that maybe she needs to practise more. This rubbed me up the wrong way as we are already practicing.

however DH is an accomplished cellist and said it must be the teacher as he’s musical and knows how to played stringed instruments. He said DD should be using her left hand fingers by now and making a ‘half decent’ sound.

I contacted the teacher again and said I’d appreciate more detail as what is covered in lessons as I wasn’t satisfied. She has ignored me so I contacted the local music service who basically said it’s down to the teacher to liaise directly with us, I explained that she was ignoring us.

I spoke with the school who said the same thing, the teacher needs to speak to us as there’s no-one else who will be able to help us.

AIBu to now make a complaint as we are not being listened to and we are paying a fortune for lessons?

accomplished cellist here. you're a complete peasant....

How incredibly middle England to trash music teaching in the rest of the world, despite the fact the U.K. don’t produce a huge number of world class musicians.

Of course a straightforward point about the fact this teacher isn’t giving the OP the advice she should, or that any starter musician should be able to pick up Twinkle by ear, would be turned into cringey jingoism.

The vast majority of people who start an instrument in this country give up never to touch their instrument again - and no small part of that is a poor standard of teaching.

I am not trashing teaching in the rest of the world nor am I jingoistic. There have been a number of world class musicians from the UK as you well know. There are world class musicians from other countries. I was fed up with you continually saying how much better music teaching is elsewhere in the world. There is good and bad everywhere, including the UK. I was merely pointing out that giving up an instrument for whatever the reason is not solely something that happens to the UK. I also strongly feel that hothousing is not the best approach for most people. My approach works for me and for my pupils.

*in the UK, l should have said.

Oh, and for your information, I play a lot by ear as well as from music. Aural skills are very important.

In a list of the top 20 greatest violinists the world has ever seen the U.K. would not figure.

We’re not going to agree: you think an amateurish approach is fine, I think it’s a bit dismal.

Twinkle twinkle goes 3,2,1?

Do you know a different tune?

It goes: 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 3 3 2 2 1 1 0 in first position.

Any 7 year old that can play that with a nice sound, in tune and rhythmically on the violin after 8 weeks of group lessons is a prodigy and the teacher a genius.

Also, you don't move in tones, there is a semi tone in there between the 3rd and 4th scale degrees

When your husband says she “should be” playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by now, I wonder if he was thinking of a child being taught through the Suzuki method? I think this technique uses tunes more immediately - maybe another poster would know more. These lessons often start to y children off. If your DD had Suzuki lessons though you would need to go to all of them and learn a lot yourself and be with her for her practising.

That's right. Suzuki method works on imitation and they go from open strings to twinkle twinkle and other simple tunes much quicker than other more traditional methods. They are still very hot on stance, bow hold and violin grip as get off to bad habits with those and you're at a huge disadvantage

Even with Suzuki (which she won’t be doing if she is starting at 7), she would still be pre-twinkling 2 months in. Rhythms, bowhold, position of feet etc, bowhold again, more rhythms, etc would be first. Then the Monkey song. Oh and did I mention more bowhold?

OP has unsurprisingly gone v quiet! But I’m surprised at those saying the little girl should be twinkling by now - I think it unlikely with a good Suzuki teacher anyway.

@Mirabai do all children in those countries start violin at that age or just those from wealthy families

Maybe some people just want their children a fun introduction to learning an instrument not expecting them to be a world leading maestro.

Of the OP thinks £68 is expensive they aren’t going to fork out for private lessons too

Nothing to do with wealth, if anything talent may be seen as a route out of poverty. Not particular to those countries either - same is true in Western Europe and the US, but in those countries there’s more of a mix.

If you don’t get the right basics even an beginner level it’s not a fun introduction it’s just a dead end (and a waste of money).

So how do they afford the lessons?

I'm from Russia and I can confirm that music is taught a lot better there than in the UK. It still depends on the teacher of course, bit it's taken a lot more seriously than here.

YABVU
The teacher’s reply was completely reasonable. It sounds like an excellent start to learning the violin. Unless your child already plays another instrument, there is a lot to learn initially. Your expectations are unrealistic and I find it hard to believe your husband has much musical knowledge from his take on this. Get a new teacher and give this lovely one a break…

@Mirabai, we can agree to disagree but please do not accuse me of being amateurish. I have an extremely professional approach to my teaching and my pupils, their parents, local schools, examiners and anyone who has heard them in concert would concur with that.

Musician here. Several musical hats, but I teach piano/woodwind. Not strings, but my children have both chosen to play stringed instruments (probably so I can nag them less!). I can play the basics on both to pick out a tune, mainly to demo them when I run general musicianship sessions for younger children.

I can confirm that stringed instruments are incredibly hard to learn, and that there are a lot of open strings to begin with - you have to get used to holding the instrument, bow hold, and getting the bow to sound right on the strings!

Violin automatically is harder to sound nice at than the cello because of the frequencies involved. I can attest to this as I've had beginners in both!

All the other elements of general musicianship that you've mentioned are an incredibly important part of lessons, be they one to one or group lessons. As is having fun - at 7 their teacher needs to engage them via musical games (where they don't realise they're learning!) etc too. Very frequently you find a student who has been pushed ahead without learning these fundamentals has huge gaps in their learning which others of us have to plug later...

If you read my post more carefully I didn’t accuse you personally of being amateurish - I’ve no idea what your teaching is like.

My comment was referring to your apparent endorsement of this teacher’s approach - which no more than a form of general introduction. She should have advised the OP that if her DD is genuinely interested in learning the violin, there is no substitute for individual lessons.

My dd is 6 and started violin 4 months ago one to one. She is still playing tunes on open strings. However the notes she does play on open strings all sound pleasant to the ear.

Her teacher has her practice the same tunes until she gets the bow hold correct, posture correct, tempo and rhythm correct as well as ensuring she is looking at the music and not the violin, and then they move on.
I do not play violin, but piano, but there’s so much more that seems to go into learning simple sounds on a violin. She seems to be really enjoying the challenge of perfecting something before moving on and there’s no screeching or horrible sounds. Looking at her music book the next song starts to introduce finger position.
In her lesson.
she also does music theory in her lesson and is currently learning about more complex time signatures and dotted and barred notes so I think it also takes time for theory to catch up to practice as well to be able to read he music and understand what she is seeing.

As an aside we did make sure to get our violin from a professional shop where they swapped to better strings for her on a decent 1/4 size (although a 1/4 size is never going to sound absolutely fantastic) and it was worth the extra money and I imagine contributes to the nicer tone.

Of course if she's having group lessons than her progress is going to be slower.
I don't get why you think her being taught to read music, develop her ear and a good playing technique is somehow wasting time. £68 a term seems very cheap even for a group lesson. In the private market, £68 would likely only get you an hour to 90 minutes of 1 to 1 tutoring.

I've known a few peri teachers with a long list of teaching qualifications and degrees and diplomas who frankly sound shit when they play. They're technically procifient but never mastered making a decent sound and their intonation is poor. I learnt to play a few wind instruments as a kid and everyone (including the teachers who taught me the other instruments) agreed I was much more confident and sounded the best playing saxophone. That's because I was taught by a highly experience musician (with zero formal teaching qualifications) who would often spend entire lessons focussing on how to produce a great tone on each note of a scale.

I played a different instrument in school (and had all the enjoyment sucked out of it by an overly pressured approach to learning, sadly) but know several people who played the violin and found it very difficult. Others on this thread with experience of string instruments have attested to the fact that they're difficult and need time to learn.

But in any case, whether I play/ed it or not is irrelevant to my point, because my point is that all this pressure to get good at an instrument (any instrument) within a short space of time feels like too much pressure for a 7-year-old, together with (what's really getting my goat) a sense that the OP is more interested in being able to show off her DD's 'accomplishments' than what her DD is deriving personally from the lessons.

The fun and pleasure comes from being able to play a tune well, but the catch is that to do that takes practice and good teaching.

’Just have fun’ doesn’t always lead to fun. It can lead to a feeling of never getting anywhere and getting bored.

I asked whether you played because your original comment seemed rather naive.

Seven is not particularly young to start a stringed instrument, so lessons need to be focused from the start even while lessons are fun. It does take time to learn, so you don’t have time to waste.

Why? Is there a deadline?

Yes, giving up.