To the Parents

If your child is starting the violin, first thing is of course to fit the violin that is appropriate for your child. To figure out the right size is of course most important. It is best you consult with your child's teacher, but the ball park figure is when a child put the violin under his/her chin, the end of the scroll reaches the wrist. You don't want the violin too big for him/her which makes it hard to handle the instrument. There are 1/32, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and finally the full size.

First time my son started, I rented one from the teacher with a 1/4 size, but soon I realized that since he was really into playing it, it was better for me to purchase one. I bought it from the internet. Luckly, it was decent and he used it without any trouble until he moved on to a 1/2 size. If you have stores close by, I will highly recommend you take your child and have him/her try several different ones.

I will also recommend you get a ebony fitting which means that the fingerboard and pegs are made of real ebony not other wood material painted black. To my understanding, that the ebony is hard wood so it last longer without being scraped through repetitive fingers shifting back and forth.

It is also important that you tune your strings. There are four strings. The thickest string is G and the next thickest is D and then A and E. You can use a electric tuner or pitch pipe to tune it. After awhile, a child should be able to tune it without the help of the device.

Another thing you may want to get is a shoulder rest. Some people prefer not to use one, but if your child's neck is long, you might want to consider getting one. It is a device you hook under your violin so that the violin is comfortably held under your chin.

My son used Kun Collapsible which you can fold the legs to fit into your case. You may want to try a few different brands since they all have slightly different settings.

After my son moved on to a 1/2 size, he started using Wolf Forte shoulder rest. He liked it a lot. Then when he moved to 3/4 and a full size, he started using Kun Bravo which is lighter than the former and he continues to use it as of now.

The bow usually comes with a violin if you are purchasing an outfit. But if you are buying separately, make sure the bow hair is made of horse hair. There are also different types. Brazil wood bow, Perambuco bow and composite bow.

When your child is young, you may want to consider composite bow since it is very durable.

Then finally the last but not least you need is a rosin. This is a must if you want to make a sound out of your violin. You need to rub this ample of amount when you use your bow for the first time. This makes the bow make friction with the strings and the sound comes out of your violin. My son uses Andrea rosin and he swears by it. I saw a video clip (3:17) of Anne Sophie Mutter using it.

Now You have everything your child needs to start to make some music!

To the Parents

I just started thinking. What could I contribute to the parents whose kids are studying music? As a mother of three children who studies different instruments, it may be small but I can share some insight, I think...

The reason I started my kids to learn instruments is that I love music, and I wanted my kids to love it, too. I was working at the day care my children attended and was not satisfied with the music education they were receiving. They sing and listen to CDs the teachers play. That was it. In Japan where I grew up, we had at least once or twice of music class and started to learn how to play harmonicas at 1st and 2nd grades and move on to recorders, xylophones and other instruments at the upper grades. By the time you are 5th or 6th grade, you can at least read some easy musical notes (do re mi). This was not even at a conservatory. This was taught in regular public schools.

Then my quest for the private music lesson started. First, I asked my two older children who were around 6 and 4 at the time which instrument they wanted to learn. My youngest was still a baby so he didn't start until he was 3. My oldest said "violin" my middle one said "piano".

I have never really listen to classical music at will growing up. I took some piano lessons for about 5 years when I was about ten until fifteen, but really never was aware whose music I was playing. I just enjoyed what I was playing. That was it.

So my son wanted to learn how to play violin. I have seen a violin, but didn't even know how many strings there were on it nor you have to tune it to play, but first thing first, I started to look for a teacher.

I went to a local music studio where they teach many different instruments. I asked the guy at the front who was the owner of the studio, if they were teaching violin. His reply was that kids, especially young children, think playing the violin is cool and start the lesson, then realize how hard it is to play and drop out in most cases. So he recommended my son started from piano and later when he is old, he can learn the violin if he is still interested in.

Not knowing anything, I took his words and signed both children for the piano lessons. They had different teachers since I wanted both of the take lessons at the same time every week. My daughter was doing fine, but my son hated it. The teacher wanted him to read the music, but remember he is 6 years old and just started to read English. He was so confused and felt he was not smart. I tried to help him, but he just started getting angry each time he practiced. My instinct kicked in and had him withdraw from the lesson within two months. I loved piano and I didn't want him to hate it.

Then I consulted his homeroom teacher. I told her he wanted to learn how to play violin, but was told he was too young at a music studio. She told me that she knew a friend who teaches violin and her son was the same age as my son and has been playing the violin since he was 3. She promised me that she would contact her on our behalf. Next thing I knew my son's teacher arranged the violin teacher to come to school and whoever is interested in could sign up for the group lesson!

I am forever grateful to her for that.

I don't want this post to be too long, so I will continue with the next post where I left off, but sometimes you have to trust your motherly instinct when it comes to a right fit. Does he/she really enjoy it? Especially when they are young, if they don't like it, it won't last and will be a battle to have him/her practice.

Balancing Act

This is to express my opinion and hopefully to help others who are in the similar situations. When your child gets some performing opportunities which my son did quite a lot for the last two years and he was fortunate to be able to experience performing with some great orchestras and people. Said that if I could go back in time, there are some changes I could have made.

When your child is still in the process of learning it is sooooo important that the performances will have less impact on his/her current instrument studies. In other words, if he/she is preparing for the performance, everything is focused on that and put a stop to his/her current repertoire studies. Therefore, my son has smaller repertoire than I would him to have. He should've had more by now, but because of the performances, he would revisit the pieces and practice those he had to perform and that gave him less time on the pieces he was working on.

It is an opportunity hard to pass on when the orchestra calls you and want your child to perform, but we as parents really need to pick and choose if it is a right timing, right opportunity and sometimes we need to have courage to say "No" if it is too much for a child. This is a fine line and different with every child. Only you know your child the best and I have to tell myself at times "There will be another opportunity." I'd rather give my son some time to develop his skills right now and we'll go from there when the time is right.

Where is my son??

My son left for the 6-week summer camp up north in mid June. This was the first time he participated in a camp by himself. I've been always with him till last year. A couple of mini vans were to pick up the students at the assigned location in the city and drive them to the camp sight. We decided to get to the pick-up location bit early just in case we got lost, but about 10 students were already there chatting away. It seemed like everyone knew each other. One boy whom my son met at a competition was there and he greeted my son with a big smile, then went right back into the conversation with others. My son on the other hand, usually a social guy, but shy in the beginning, can't seem to get into the conversation. I tried to nudge him into the group, but he wouldn't go for it. Then a older boy approached me and introduced himself who turned out to be one of the teaching assistants. (He wasn't a boy, he was a grown man with a baby face:)) He assured me that he was going to take good care of my son. I was somewhat relieved knowing that even if he doesn't make friends, at least he has his counselor by him. Soon everyone started boarding. Of course my son was the last one to get in and all the way in the back by himself.....

My heart was aching worrying if he's gonna be ok without me......

I was completely wrong. That night, he called me to let me know he safely made it to the camp talking to his roommates in between like they've known each other for ages.

Then..... he stopped calling us. I tried to text him - no response. I left him a message - no response. Finally, guilt trip texting paid off. "I don't hear from you any more. I don't know if you are alive or dead. r u ok?" He responded "fine". That's it!?!?

After a few days of that very detailed:) text response, I finally got to talk to him. I could hear his roommates in the back ground laughing, talking loud, etc. My son said "Mom, I am having so much fun, I don't wanna go home." He said they've been watching a lot of Youtube videos by many different classical artists at night, talking about chamber music pieces they were working on. He sounded tired, but happy. No wonder I don't hear from him. He is having a life of his time sharing the love of music with his new friends who can relate to one another:)

It's gonna be so hard to track him down, but at least I know what he is doing when I don't hear from him.

Cello Lesson

My younger son has been taking cello lessons for about two years now. He tried violin when he was three or so, but realizing that he can never outdo his older brother, he just lost interest in it. I suggested to him to consider other instruments like cello. He liked the idea of having a bigger instrument than his brother:) We found a local teacher upon recommendation from one of the staff at a youth orchestra. She is very gentle, kind and patient. My little boy just zipped through the Suzuki books, but the more difficult the pieces gets, more puzzled he got. I mean, to me, he had no directions. He was basically leading the lesson. He would start playing whatever he wanted to start the lesson with. Sometimes it could be a scale, another time, it could be a piece he is working on at the moment. I just started feeling he was not getting the most out of the lesson. He didn't know most of the scales. In two years, he only knew two major scales by heart. I even asked her if there were any scale book she could recommend he could use. She said she would show me, but never happened. He never had an etude book. He can't read music. I started to supplement note reading at home. I like her as a person, but I didn't feel she was really passionate about teaching my son cello.
I went back and forth thinking, if I should stick with her or not. Deep in my heart, I knew it was time for me to look someone else. Last month, I finally did. I knew about this teacher who is very respected, but I also knew he wouldn't teach young beginners because when I first met him at a social gathering a few years ago, he told me so. But now my son's been playing for two years, he is not a complete beginner. So I contacted him and he agreed to see him. I took my son to his first lesson with a new teacher. Let's call him Mr. S since I don't know if he wants his name published on the Internet.
First, he had my son play what he was working on and some scales. Then he went on to the basics of left hand (my son's fingers collapsed when he pressed on the strings and he told him to keep it round) Aha! Then the bow grip. Even I knew his bow hold wasn't right. He told my son to watch the thumb and pay attention not to let it slip) This was night and day! Now I know what to look for to ensure the correct posture and arms, etc.
Then he explained to him that he will divide one hour lesson into four segments. First, scale, second, exercise (bowing, finger strengthening, etc.), third, etude and fourth, piece of music. This was exactly what he needed!!!! STRUCTURE! I am so glad that I made a choice.
I emailed the old teacher and politely told her that I was switching the teacher and thanked her for the past two years. I just wished I acted sooner...

Moving on Up

Time just flew like crazy. I've been very busy with three kids and their music lessons. They all play different instrument now. The oldest one, violin, the middle one, flute and the youngest, cello. I feel like I am living in my car.
Anyway, my oldest's teacher told us that it was about time for him to move up to the full size violin at last lesson. Unfortunately, we just can't afford thousands of dollars to purchase a good quality violin right now. His teacher kindly offered one of his old violin he used to use when he was a teenager which he warned me it was a poor quality violin, but sounds pretty good to me. It hasn't been played for nearly twenty years and missing some strings, so after receiving it, I took it to a local luthier for fixing it up. At instant glance, turning all the way around to examine, he, too, said that it was of poor quality, but he changed the tail piece, adjusted the sound post and it is playable now. However, I just wanted to investigate the option of purchasing less expensive violin. One is to rent. But most of the rental violins are of entry level violin. Second is a loan from one of the foundations. This, I am still thinking about it, but will take some time to even be considered for a loan. I don't even know if my son is good enough violinist to qualify for it. The third...... Ebay. I took a chance and looked into several Ebay merchants. There are several Chinese handmade violins up for auctions. After reading reviews and profiles, I purchased one from a Beijing maker. The violin, bow and case plus shipping costed me around $280.00. I said if this is a crap, I'll just use it for me to start learning how to play violin. It arrived within one week without a scratch. I am going to take it to the luthier and have it check it to see it is a decent quality and make any necessary adjustments if it needs them. I will write the outcome of this violin when I come back from the luthier.

Christmas Music

Last night, my son was invited to play violin at our neighbor's church Holiday party. He had a week to prepare a few songs including "Silent Night". I searched the web for free download for sheet music. At Virtual Sheet Music, you can Download Christmas sheet music instantly, too. They have some free music to download. He played "Jingle Bell" and "First Noel" and ended with "Silent Night". It was beautiful even though he didn't have a pianist to accompany. He enjoyed playing them. It was more of a joy of just playing without the pressure of competition or recital where you worry so much about making mistakes:) Everyone there was to enjoy the moment together and share laughter. This morning, of course, he started his day with practicing scale and getting ready for his next lesson:) Happy Holidays to you all!

Emergency!

Well, it happened a week ago. My son was trying to eat one of those noodle soup in a cup. after pouring the boiling water, he tried to take it to a table and spilled it on his hands! He immediately ran the cold water and cooled it, but I can see the right wrist and the left palm are red. I put the Vaseline and bandaged him up. The next day, the palm looked OK, but the right wrist developed a huge water blister, so I broke it and took some of the dead skin off of it. He still has some pain and can practice but 15 minutes. I just beat myself up for letting him carry that darn cup:(
It should heal up soon though. Meanwhile, he is taking it easy and enjoy a little bit of lazy week:) Hopefully, by the time he is good to go, he miss his beloved violin (he named her Melody Rhythm) and pay extra attention to her:)

Perfect Pitch?

At the last lesson, my son's teacher, Mr. K and my son worked on A minor 4 octave scale. He's been working on it for awhile. However, at shifts his intonation has been unstable. Then Mr. K asked him "Do you have a perfect pitch?" My son replied "I don't know." Mr. K asked again, "Can you name a note when someone plays it?" My son said "Yeah, I think I can." I wasn't sure if he was really able to do that. Anyway, Mr. K said "If you can, why do you let it get away with out-of-tune notes when you play scales?" My son didn't say anything about that:) While they were working on the scale, I was battling with my camcorder. It is not working. I tried to pop the tape in and out. Every time I did so, it made a sound "Pe, po, pa, pe." Mr. K asked my son, "What were those notes?" My son was like "That sound from the camera? They are e#, b flat, c# and e#?" Then Mr. K exclaimed. "See, you do have a perfect pitch! Use it!!! Don't be lazy. Use it when you play! By the way, your mom has a perfect pitch, too." I was confused. "Me?" He explained to me, "Yes, see, every time your son plays out of tune, you make that face. That is because you have a perfect pitch." I said to him, "Oh, so that's what it was. I just get really uncomfortable feeling every time I hear a note out-of-tune. So, I just don't know the names of the notes." Mr. K said "That's correct." Now, it is true my son's been neglecting to fix those out of tune notes. It was an eye opener for him. Now, he needs to open his ears and listen to the notes he plays and correct one note at a time. Mr. K suggested to work on just two notes at a time to fix it. For example, if he has a hard time shifting from one note to the other, he needs to work on those two notes only until he gets it. Then put them in to the rest of the phrase. If he messes it up, he needs to repeat the process again. In matter of five minutes, he was able to fix one area he had been struggling with. By next lesson, he should be able to play A minor scale in tune, I hope:)

Power of Violin Strings

I am not talking about the projection here. (Maybe in some way?) Last night when my son was practicing, he came to me and told me his strings didn't sound good. They were sort of scratchy, so he said. I was just thinking about changing strings a few days ago, but I decided to wait until the strings were noticeably getting bad. It's been a few months since I put the Warchal Amethyst strings on his violin. I liked them, but I've been trying all kinds of different strings on his violin for some time to find the "IT" strings. I bought Pirastro Evah Pirazzi and never put them on. They've been in his case for a few months. Last time I tried it when he was still in 1/2 size violin, it didn't work very well. So I was hesitant, but I read so many positive feed back on them, I decided to give them a try one more time. OMG!!!! What a difference! After tuning the strings, my son played a few tunes and when he played one of Bach Partitas, the church echo sound came out of his violin when he hit the chords perfectly in tune. Both of us looked at each other in disbelieve. The projection was almost as twice better than before. After playing for an hour or so, he put the violin down and said to me. "This is really good, Mom. The strings makes me conscious of good intonation cause when you here that ringing sound, it makes you wanna here it all the time. In order to do that, I have to play in tune all the time." Hallelujah!
This is a reassurance of how important the strings are to one's violin study. Now, he is excited about playing again and he found what kind of sound he wants to produce. I think this will be the strings for my son's violin.

Summer Violin Study Plan

In a short period of time, a lot of things happened. Although we knew about it, it is still nerve wrecking. My son's teacher is moving back to Florida. (He already did.) So we started looking for a local teacher for my son. As of now, we are planning to send his once or twice a month to Florida to continue lessons with his current teacher, but we can't guarantee that we can afford doing so on a regular basis. Due to the rise of gas price, the flights are getting expensive. After asking around the people we knew, we decided that Ms. W was a good fit. She is over seventy years old, but still actively performing. My son's current teacher and she talked on the phone and seemed to be comfortable with working with my son together. Actual lessons with her won't start until toward the end of this month due to her recital schedule. At least he won't be left alone and stepping backward during this summer. That has been the case with past summer when he couldn't participate in any intense camp or continue weekly lesson while his teacher participated in a month long festivals across the continents.
This summer, since my son received a tuition assistance by winning a local competition, we decided to send him to Music in the Mountains in Durango, CO. for two weeks. One of the reasons we decided on this camp is the faculty. Vadim Gluzman and Philippe Quint (Yes, the gentleman who left 4 million dollar strad in a cab in NY.) are among them. Just to listen to them perform will be benefit in itself. My entire family went to Vadim Gluzman's concert a couple of years ago. We were very impressed with his intensity and sound. Even my then young children were totally in it. The other reason is you get private lessons every other day which he desperately needs.
Forgot to mention, my son will travel to Europe before the camp with his youth orchestra members for ten days. He can't wait to be independent. When he found out that I wasn't gonna accompany him, he jumped for joy! My feelings are hurt:( hehe.... But I will go to Colorado with him. Unfortunate for him, lucky for me:)

Have You Left Your Violin?

This is a story written by Jeffery C. Mays/The Star-Ledger.

It took 18 months for Philippe Quint to persuade a wealthy philanthropist to lend him a 1723 Antonio Stradivari "Ex-Keisewetter" violin valued at upward of $4 million.
Early Monday, it took less than a minute for the valuable instrument to disappear after Quint left it in a Newark cab.
The centuries-old stringed instrument sat in the third-row seat of the minivan cab as it was parked overnight on a Newark street. The next morning, it went along with a fare to Kearny, then to Queens and even through a motor vehicle inspection.
All the while, cab owner Mohamed Khalil was unaware that the violin was in his cab and that Quint was frantically searching for it.
When Quint was finally reunited with the prized instrument at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday afternoon, the violinist dropped to his knees and shed tears of joy.
Quint, 34, is a Russian-born, Grammy-nominated violinist. He defected from what was then the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now a U.S. citizen. He declined to be interviewed, but in a statement issued through his publicist, said he was "incredibly grateful" to Khalil.
Quint said he put his luggage in back of the minivan after arriving from Dallas, where he performed at a private fundraiser, and kept the violin inside the cab with him when Khalil picked him up at Terminal C at about 12:30 a.m. Monday. He was dropped off at Battery Park City in Manhattan. After collecting the $52 fare, tolls, an $8 tip and a handshake, Khalil drove off.
"Instantly, I realized my violin was still in the car," Quint said in the statement.
Quint, frantic to find the violin, called the Port Authority and Newark's Taxi Commission. At 9 a.m., he was in the commission office looking at photos of drivers. By then, the word had gone out to drivers to look for the case, said Hector Corchado, head of Newark's taxi division.
Khalil was at Newark Airport about to put the taxi out on another shift when another driver asked whether anything had been left in his taxi. Khalil checked and saw the case. Minutes later, Quint arrived.

I am so happy for Mr. Quint that he recovered his Strad unharmed.
Similar thing happened to us in the past, too. My oldest and the middle one had their youth orchestra performance that day. We've been out all day and after the concert, we decided to treat the kids to Sushi. (My oldest one is a big sushi fan.) It was Sunday and it is almost restaurant's closing time. There were no customers but us. So we asked the waitress if it was OK to put kids violins on the chairs behind our table. We ate and ate and chatted away. Finally everyone finished, paid the bill and off we go. After a mile or two into driving, I just thought about the violins and asked my husband "Did you get the violins?" His already big eyes almost doubled in size! "Oh Sh*$#!" Of course I reminded him to watch his mouth:) We called the restaurant to make sure they were still open and they had them. We made a rapid U-turn and retrieved their violins. From then on, I haven't been delegating violin loading to my husband. I make sure my child put it in the car and take it out of the car BEFORE we take off:)

Competition Result In!

Last Thursday, I received a call asking for my son. I thought it was from his school. I told her he hasn't bee home from school yet. The lady introduced her as a coordinator of the competition he entered the previous week. Since he wasn't home she told me that she had a good news for him. He was selected as one of the winners for this year! I was literally shaking with joy and excitement. I was so happy for him. He worked hard for this and it paid off. So he will get a scholarship for a music camp this summer and performance opportunity with the orchestra who sponsored this competition. He will have to keep up with his Mendelssohn since that's the piece he is going to play in October. They selected four winners this year. There were piano, french horn, harp and violin as winners. It is a nice mix of instruments. He will be able to play the piece with an orchestra for the first time. It will be awesome!

A Week of an Eleven Year-Old Violinist

My son's been very busy with his violin lately. Sometimes, I feel overwhelming driving from one place to the other, but he wants to do it all. After the day of competition, he was asked to play at a wedding that afternoon. He gets points towards his youth orchestra tour. He really enjoyed playing there. The next day was his regular orchestra rehearsal from 2-5pm, then off to another rehearsal from 6:30-8:00pm for the musical at the local high school. They've been practicing for several weeks. He really loves being among the older teenagers. I guess it makes him feel like one of them:) I don't know how he does it. One must really loves what he's doing. So this week, he hasn't been practicing his own stuff much. He's been putting about an hour for that. Last night was the first performance of the musical. We got there at 6:30pm and got home around 10:00pm. Today, they'll have two performances. This Saturday, he has his flag football game in the morning and in the afternoon, he will play for the high school musical production. Sunday is the last performance. Then he can take a breath and get back to his usual routine and I can spend less time in the car:) Sigh....

Competition... Finally Over!!!!

This past Saturday, my son's long waited competition day came. It was originally scheduled for March 8. However, due to a bad weather, it was postponed to April 5. He played Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, 1st movement.
This change of schedule threw him off quite a bit. The night before, he had to play with his youth orchestra for Martin Luther King, Jr's 40th anniversary of his assassination, so he didn't get to practice much that day. Then the morning came. I let him sleep a little longer and had some breakfast and he did some scales and ran through the piece. I read somewhere this girl practiced too much right before the competition and by the time she had to play, her fingers were too tired. So I let him take it easy. Around 12:30pm, we headed to the location and met up with the pianist and ran through once more, but slowly:) in the practice room. They were called at 1:40pm. I just stood outside the door and listened to him play. Some high notes sounded a hair line flat time to time. Other than that, he did well. He didn't forget the dynamics! My husband was watching him through the other door which had a glass window. He told me that after he finished playing he didn't even bow to the judges and walked out of the room. Oh, well, this is where the 11 year old comes out... All of a sudden, I felt so tired. I guess my anticipation for this was greater than I thought. Everything is over now. My son loves Sushi, so we decided to take him to a Sushi bar. Unfortunately, it was closed. We missed their lunch hours. Guess we ended up having late lunch....Tacobell!!:)

Finally, the Performance Day!

Yesterday afternoon, on February 17 was the day. My son's solo performance took place. When we got to the hall, many of his orchestra members were unpacking their instruments. They looked so good in their tuxedos and black dresses. I just dropped him off in the back stage and got myself situated in one of the seats in the back of the hall. They just ran through the pieces they were to perform including, Kabalevsky Violin Concerto 3rd movement (my son's piece), Lalo Cello Concerto 3rd movement, Hydn Oboe Concerto 3rd movement and Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto 3rd Movement, plus Franck Symphony No.2, 3rd movement. They sounded good. 3 o'clock, the show began. My son is the first up. He only practiced about an hour this morning. At this point, I didn't want to think about the unthinkable (blacking out in the middle of playing or anything like that), but I guess it's the parent's saga. You can't help it, but to get nervous. I'm sure he could be careless. Being young he has advantage of just having fun with it. He doesn't know what it is to be nervous yet. Although, I thought he started out quieter than I want it to be, he pulled it off fine. He looked thoroughly enjoying up there. His cadenza came out very nice and the orchestra did a fantastic job! I am very happy with tonight's performance and I'm sure my son's happy now that he gets to give Kabalevsky a little break until he decides to revisit when he's older:)

Manga & Classical Music

I grew up in Japan and if you've lived there you should know people there read comic books which is called "Manga" like there's no tomorrow, young and old. It is amazing to see long shelves dedicated to Manga here in the U.S. now.
Last year when I was watching AZN television (network for Asian American), I came across a Japanese Comedy drama series called "Nodame Cantabile". It is about a young aspiring pianist in conservatory who is surrounded by her funny but music loving friends. This is based on a comic book Nodame Cantabile. TV director must've been a classical music fan because he wanted to expose young gengeration to the world of classical music, and he succeeded. After the drama aired, there were more people joinining community orchestras and attending classical concerts. The main characters in the drama was very attractive to the audience (the guy was very handsome! and the girl was cute and talked like a little girl). The fact it was a comedy helped, I think. It is not all square like a lot of people who are not familiar with classical music would imagine. I wish there were a subtitle with that drama. I have no problem comprehending what they were saying, but other viewers who doesn't understand Japanese will have a hard time following the story. They may be better off reading the comic book version which is published in English. I hope something like this will be created here in the U.S., too. Maybe some TV producer can come up with American version of Nodame Cantabile?

Disney World Vacation

We are finally back from Orlando vacation. One of the main reasons, of course, was to enjoy Florida weather and Disney World & Universal Studio, but the other reason was (for myself) to listen to Disney Orchestra's Christmas performance at Epcot Center. My son's teacher and his wife play in this orchestra every year. They told us we didn't have to stay and listen, but I wanted to! I tried to take a picture of the orchestra to share with you guys, but this is how it came out. That's why my husband never let me be in charge of taking pictures:) The orchestra performed three times a day. The line was long to be seated, so we just listened from the back of the rope. It was comforting to see people took time to listen to the orchestra inspite of long waiting. We definitely would like to come back next year. I will line up so I can have a better seat and maybe, just maybe able to take a better picture than this! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Seattle Symphony is in trouble!

I just read an article on NY times yesterday about the terrifying situation inside Seattle Symphony. According to the artcle, its music director/conductor, Gerard Schwarz and the several musicians have been having problems after problems for some time. I have no experience or involvement with any professional orchestra, but I can tell this is not a place where you can concentrate on making great music. The fact musicians' majority votes are totally ignored by the board members, it certainly seems like a dictatorship is present. It is almost sad that it got to a point where everyone in public knows what's been going on. All we can hope is this eruption of volcano will be over soon and calmness sets in place.

It's not as easy as it seems!

Well, this is somewhat violin related, but mostly may not be...., but it's is good for the sake of classical music. My son was asked to participate in the production of a public broadcast announcement to promote classical music/instrument study among local children and youth. He was one of the five who agreed to be a part of this. We took him to the location yesterday. After everyone checked in, the producers explained what they had in mind and showed the illustration of scenario. Each kid starts by listening to ipod and enjoying whatever they are listening. He/she tries to find another song to listen to, but it is getting boring, then they pick up their own instrument and start playing music themselves. Easy enough, I thought. Boy or boy, was I wrong. You can't move too much because that will make him/her out of the screen. You can't be too little in motion then people won't know what you are thinking. Acting part is no easy job, I'm telling you. I peeked into a few kids' takes before my son's turn came. Everyone was struggling with ipod listening part. The performance part seemed most comfortable to them of course, although each kid only played their instrument for mere 10-15seconds at the most.
In a way, I think instrument playing is like acting without words. You have to try to understand the composer's intention which probably will be the author's message in the actual acting. You have to convey the story just as the composer/author wanted, but you still have to maintain yourself in it. I know the kids (at least my son) are not thinking that deep yet, but every little experience like this, I hope, will make them realise what they are studying is a wonderful form of art and everything is intertwined. After all, acting and playing instrument have more things in common than differences.