Our descriptive words matter

Teacher trainers talk about this all the time. We are being more careful as a Suzuki community about how we describe technique to our students and parents.

Your violin hand is a “gentle hug” between the knuckle and the thumb.

Your bow hold is a “hold,” not a “grip.”

The tone we are going for is “clear” in the beginning. Not “pretty.”

It is so cool when we find descriptives that work. For instance I saw an IG post of French teachers using the words “push” and “pull” to describe the feeling of moving the bow up and down across the string.

I used “push the bow” and “push, push” to describe each movement of the bow with a child today. It worked so well! Her crunchy, scratchy sound transformed with the proper suggestion.

I love that teachers have settled upon “sticky” and “pokey” to describe styles of bowing. Another one that I have found myself using is “gooey.”

Even more fun is describing bowing expression as “pulling back a big rubber band” when we are building in a rubato feeling or pulling the rhythm as in _Witches’ Dance_

Check out my post _Modeling Technique_ on how teachers use nonverbal learning techniques as well!