Jaron
– Reminder: most of your strings are out of tune so if you can, please bring your violin to school one day and have your music teacher there tune it for you!
– Recommended practice time: 15 min/day, 5 days/week
– Practice: G, D, and A Major scales (make sure to squeeze your second and third fingers together on the fingerboard and do your usual bow hold and posture check before playing), O Come Little Children (lots of improvement with the up bow! Keep it up and prepare for a final play-through!), and May Song (focus on dotted-quarter rhythms in the beginning and E-string crossing in the second line)

Olivia
– Recommended practice time: 30 min/day, 5 days/week
– Practice: review 2-octave scales (especially those with shifting, and continue to try to memorise fingering patterns for each scale), Avatar State (we will be wrapping this up soon but keep on focusing on shifting to third position at the end), and Mirror duet (with focus on second section and keeping those eighth notes even!)

Amaia
– Reminder: if you can and have time, please get your violin tuned! I know it can be difficult during the pandemic, so I recommend calling ahead to a music store like Long & McQuade and seeing if they can do curbside pick-up for tuning. Another option is to see if a music teacher at Amaia’s school knows how to tune a violin. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this!
– Recommended practice time: 15 min/day, 5 days/week
– Practice: G, D, and A Major scales (doing a posture and bow hold check each time before playing, and make sure to squeeze the second and third fingers together on the fingerboard!), Twinkle (theme and variations – especially with variation B, see if you can sing “bacon and” before playing), and Lightly Row (first line – play through slowly and learn the notes)

Hendry
– Recommended practice time: 20 min/day, 5 days/week
– Practice: G, D, and A Major scales (1 octave), C Major scale (2 octaves – and keep on doing your posture and bow hold checks each time you play), Minuet 2 (slowly play through and get familiar with the notes, and look out for up-up bowing pattern), Question (we are not playing this one as consistently but make sure to keep practicing this from time to time), and Starting the Case (practice E-flat Major to get used to fingering pattern for second section, and first two lines of second section – watch out for low first finger!).

Grace – congratulations on finishing your first song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!
– Reminder: if you can, please purchase Suzuki Violin Book 1
– Recommended practice time: 15 min/day, 5 days/week
– Practice: down-up-down-up bowing pattern using long bows on open strings, G, D, and A Major scales (doing a posture and bow hold check each time you play), and Lightly Row (with focus on half notes and using those long bows).

Thank you and happy playing!