Shannon has some great ideas for keeping those cello bows straight. The ‘crazy pencil game’ works, and we discussed the pros/cons of having them watch themselves in the mirror.

Brittany has developed a system of silly sounds she makes to quickly correct posture in lessons. This way the students can fix the problem on their own without the teacher having to stop the lesson.

Colleen K. gave us a great analogy: “BEST” stands for bow-hold, elbows, sit up straight?, and thumbs. (I might have missed one of these). You can work on this in a one on one setting.

Colleen D. showed us her trick for fly away fingers (hold your hand over her fingers so that they can’t “pop” up)

Rob shared some of his rhythmic inspiration from the violapalooza workshop.

And I reminded everyone to work on reading and a good healthy, ringing, staccato sound in their lessons.

Have a great break everyone, and don’t forget to keep blogging!