Starting another year of violin

Every week Haley's fiddle teacher plays a new song that I record for Haley to listen to during the week for the next lesson. Every week Haley figures the song out in her spare time and her teacher is amazed. Well, the latest song she gave her for this week was full of slurs and after Haley played it for her, she told me that Haley is by far the youngest child she has ever seen understand slurs and how to play them. This week she didn't give her a new song because she wants to teach her "ornaments" (I think she called them) which are the little sounds in Irish music that makes it sound really cool (I don't know how else to explain them). She said she has never tried to introduce them to a child under 10 or 12 before but she thinks Haley will be able to get it so she will show her.

We also got in touch with Haley's Suzuki teacher and had a wonderful first lesson for the new year. She was impressed with a lot of the things Haley had been working on and is having her play a mini concert next week with all the songs she knows to "graduate" her to the next level. She said after this she will speed her through the rest of Book 1 and get started on Book 2. She said that if Haley was with another teacher, she would be halfway through Book 2 by now but she wants her to have perfect technique rather than just be able to play the songs.

I was a little nervous about telling her about fiddle lessons because you never know how a teacher is going to react to you going to someone else too. She said it was a brilliant idea and she even had Haley play some of her fiddle songs for her and is allowing her to play fiddle songs for their first concert at the retirement home next week.

I really love Haley's Suzuki teacher. She always seems to have Haley's best interest at heart and though she is strict on a number of things like technique (things she must be strict on for proper playing), she also allows Haley the freedom to be creative and try her experiments.

Her fiddle teacher is not used to teaching little children so she also is really experimenting and goes with Haley's flow which is wonderful for the fun aspect of her instrument. I am just so happy with the way things are going right now.