Flow Pedagogy for Strings Education

Chapter 4 addresses practical approaches of teaching and learning for string instruments to facilitate learners' flow experience throughout the learning activities. Contemporary string pedagogy is heavily reliant on traditional methods. In this chapter, the author proposes an alternative idea for teaching the basics of string playing (e.g., violin) by providing musical and teaching examples, environment, and episodes. The practice is constructed based upon observable flow experience of strings learners derived from the author's pedagogical practice both in the U.S. and in Japan. This chapter describes appropriate strings learning activities, content, and repertoire for children from ages 0 to 12 and can be easily adapted to suit older learners.

Intermediate-Advanced Level

The chapter provides several exercises that aim to refine left-hand technique in the intermediate-advanced levels of string playing. These techniques include building better pitch accuracy, tuning double stops, executing trills, producing both natural and false harmonics, shifting, perfecting vibrato, and performing glissando. Right-hand bowing techniques that develop phrasing as well as various sound colors and advanced bowing styles are discussed. The author explains how incorporating western music history and theory concepts in rehearsals help students gain a deeper understanding about a piece’s purpose, musical form, harmonic structure, and rhythmic principles so that students can convey a powerful and emotional performance.

WILLIAM MCGIBBON AND THE VERNACULARIZATION OF CORELLI'S MUSIC

ABSTRACTIn his 1720 poem ‘To the Musick Club’ Allan Ramsay famously called upon an incipient Edinburgh Musical Society to elevate Scottish vernacular music by mixing it with ‘Correlli's soft Italian Song’, a metonym for pan-European art music. The Society's ensuing role in the gentrification of Scottish music – and the status of the blended music within the wider contexts of the Scottish Enlightenment and the forging of Scottish national identity – has received attention in recent scholarship. This article approaches the commingling of vernacular and pan-European music from an alternative perspective, focusing on the assimilation of Italian music, particularly the works of Arcangelo Corelli, into popular, quasi-oral traditions of instrumental music in Scotland and beyond. The case of ‘Mr Cosgill's Delight’, a popular tune derived from a gavotte from Corelli's Sonate da camera a tre, Op. 2, is presented as an illustration of this process. The mechanics of vernacularization are further explored through a cache of ornaments for Corelli's Sonate per violino e violone o cimbalo, Op. 5, by the Scottish professional violinists William McGibbon and Charles McLean. The study foregrounds the agency of working musicians dually immersed in elite and popular musical traditions, while shedding new light on McGibbon's significance as an early dual master of Italian and Scots string-playing traditions.

A qualitative exploration of higher self-efficacy string students preparing for a competition

This study examined and qualitatively described the music practice behaviors, strategies, and thoughts of four high school string students who indicated a high string playing self-efficacy. Concepts of practice, motivation, achievement, and self-efficacy were linked together to analyze tendencies and summarize strategies. These students were chosen from previous research where eight high and eight low self-efficacy string students were narrowed and compared after 101 string students’ self-efficacy scores were determined and 65 of those correlated to achievement. Each of the four students for the current study was videotaped practicing, interviewed, and given a two-week practice journal. Triangulation was used for reliability. The participants in this study were higher self-efficacy students who had common elements that enabled them to succeed, such as studying with expert teachers, practicing outside of orchestra at school and home, and owning a quality instrument. Practice strategies varied and were qualitatively described, but all four tended to show higher order thinking skills and organization. Any differences were noted and the student who did succeed had unique approaches seen in past research as advanced practicing.