First Lesson of 2009

I have been away for awhile due to my mother's illness, but my son's lesson still goes on:) At the end of January, we had a lesson. New Year, new start! He was given Bruch Violin Concerto, 1st movement. Paganini No. 16 which is his first Paganini Caprice! (That was given at the lesson before last.) He also was given one of the variations from No. 24 (The one you pizz all over the place.), and No. 9. What else? hm mm.... Oh, some Kreutzer etudes and B flat 4 octave scales, arpeggios, 3rd, 6th, octaves, fingered octaves and 10th. Out of all this, the scale needs to be put on most emphasis. This year, I think he needs to really buckle down and gain good bow control. He's been given a lot of good exercises for it. For example, detache bowing at the frog and at the tip for wrist flexibility, wind shield wiper exercise ( you swing your bow right and left like a wind shield wiper) and so forth.
One thing I discovered during the last lesson was that all this time I thought my son's 3/4 size violin was lacking projection although it has a very warm sound, but that was just my son's lack of bow control. When his teacher played on it, it had a beautiful huge sound! He really liked my son's violin. My son's elbow was too low when he played on G & D strings and he didn't apply enough pressure with his index finger when it was called for. He is working on those areas and I can hear the improvement day by day.
I will post detailed lesson story for each piece they went through next time.
Happy practicing till then!