Achieve more with your students in less time with my time-saving tips!
It’s the New Year — the perfect time to have your students focus on establishing better habits! Last year, I posted a bunch tips on how to achieve that with your students, starting with the 5 Secrets to Replacing Bad … Read More
An interview with Jennifer Stampfl for NSPTO Month 2023! Today’s conversation is with Jennifer Stampfl, a vocal major in her first year of teaching middle school orchestra in Pomona, California. Jennifer, what did you study in college and what was … Read More
An interview with Andrew Brown for NSPTO Month 2023! Today, we will be talking with Andrew Brown, a band teacher from Markham, Ontario in Canada, who recently started an orchestra program at his junior high and high school. What was … Read More
Non-String Player Teaching Orchestra Appreciation Month! I would like to do something special today. I would like to declare April 2023 as the very first SST Non-String Players Teaching Orchestra Appreciation Month! Let’s celebrate our BTTOs (Band Teachers Teaching Orchestra), … Read More
Smart String Teacher ASTA Special Conference Page Booth #603 Enter the Draw! Join my mailing list and enter to win a $200 scholarship towards Teaching Strings Made Easy! Winner will be drawn at 1:00pm on Saturday, March 24. I’ll also … Read More
Here’s one last, thought-provoking post to end this series on helping students correct their technique problems. It can be frustrating to keep telling the same students to fix the same bad habits over and over again. It can be frustrating … Read More
… Here’s the next post for the new year on the theme of getting our students to correct incorrect technique, an important aspect of your job as a string teacher, and an essential part of my teacher training. In the … Read More
… Here’s another post on the theme of correcting technique, something I’m sure most of us regularly struggle with in the classroom. Correcting technique is such a big part of our jobs as string teachers, and that’s why it’s also … Read More
Since it is the beginning of the year, a great time for making fresh starts, I want to continue with tips that will help your students correct their string technique. Do you make up fun names for incorrect technique as … Read More
Another New Year! It’s the beginning of another new year, and the perfect time to get your students to focus on correcting one or two of their bad habits. I shared my ideas for this in my post, New Year’s … Read More
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National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Today is Canada’s very first National Day for Truth & Reconciliation. As music teachers, we can play a small but vital part in the work we need to do to honour the … Read More
Have you ever wondered how to incorporate relevant indigenous content into your string classroom? As part of this week’s posts celebrating Canada’s first National Day for Truth & Reconciliation on September 30th, I want to introduce you indigenous string … Read More
This is going to change the way you start your beginners. Chances are, you’ve probably started bow hold on a pencil or some other object before introducing the actual bow. This is a crucial step in teaching bow hold … Read More
Today’s post is all about YOU! It’s been a tough year. Some of us are done. Some of us have a couple of weeks left to go. I want to take the time to tell you, YOU ARE THE … Read More
Are you wasting time online trying to get your string students to move this way or that so you can clearly see what they are doing? Are you often confused by which way to ask your students to turn? Maybe … Read More
Teach bow hold exercises the smart way! You probably already teach bow hold exercises when you teach beginners, but do you know how crucial bow hold exercises are to the foundation of your students’ technique? I often find that … Read More
It is time for a new string pedagogy. There’s a lot to learn from the great violin pedagogues. But applying violin pedagogy to a heterogeneous string classroom isn’t enough. As well, many teachers find themselves suddenly teaching strings without any … Read More
You know those students who really aren’t listening? The ones who never adjust their finger patterns from string to string? The ones who are totally unaware of how they actually sound? How do you motivate these students to play the … Read More
The nice thing about teaching strings is, unlike band instruments, all the instruments are the same… almost! The double bass is somewhat of an oddball, being played standing, only able to play two notes per string, and tuned in fourths … Read More
It’s winter, it’s dry, and… it’s the season for slipping pegs. Or it’s summer and humid, and pegs are stuck. You try to start class, and you are regularly interrupted by peg problems. It is such a time-waster! So … Read More
Have you been winding your strings properly on your violin, viola or cello? It’s not just about aesthetics or neatness. Properly wound strings create forces that can prevent pegs from slipping. If a string is not wound properly, the … Read More
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When I started to teach by finger pattern, one of the first activities I had my students do was to draw the fingering charts for each of the keys they were learning. This is a great way to give students … Read More
This handy reference for note-reading on violin, viola, cello and bass is great to have to reinforce music-reading skills! The worksheets present note-reading in a logical order to help reinforce note-reading and fingering on all strings, and help students see … Read More
Tightening and Loosening the Bow Properly…. Tired of bows that are too tight and students who forget to loosen their bows? These posters are great for teaching beginners, and will give your students a visual reminder every time they get … Read More
Thank you for visiting Smart String Teacher at the ASTA National Conference 2022! See below for links to popular free downloads. And remember to take advantage of the special conference offers at smartstringteacher/asta! Your Free Downloads: Refresh … Read More
After the basics…. Once you’ve established the 6 Basic Finger Patterns for teaching strings, and how to name notes using the Note Circle, teaching students to play in different keys becomes easy. You don’t even have to teach them … Read More
Start your beginner strings playing in different keys right away with these easy-to-read first position fingering charts! Fingering charts help students easily understand and memorize fingering for different keys, and should be an essential part of any strings classroom. Whether … Read More
Using just six finger patterns can greatly simplify how you teach violin, viola, cello and double bass and help you achieve more in less time. I first wrote about The Six Basic Finger Patterns back when I started this blog. Since … Read More
It took me a few years to streamline my system of signing out and collecting the many, many pieces of music that we go through every year. My first few years of teaching, I didn’t even even bother signing out … Read More
Time to get organized! It’s the beginning of the school year and it’s time to make up some new seating plans. I thought I’d tweak my seating plan and share it with those of you who don’t have one, … Read More
The set-up of a string orchestra can be a bit bewildering to beginners. One of the first things I do in September is use this handout with my beginning students to illustrate how a string orchestra is seated. Through this … Read More
It’s Back to School! The new school year is upon us and it’s back to classes and lessons! Do you need some new ideas for teaching strings? Here are four great strategies you can use to accelerate student learning. … Read More
Have your students ever wondered why they should practice their scales, and what this has to do with mastering their instruments? Well, Smart Bowing Exercises for Strings will give them over 100 reasons why! This truly unique resource has well-organized … Read More
When people, as they often do, ask music teachers about how learning music benefits students, it is sometimes difficult to articulate. I often find myself tongue-tied because of the sheer magnitude of the subject. There are so many aspects to … Read More
Why do we practice scales? Have you ever given more than a moment’s thought to this? Sure, we practice scales to learn fingering, some rhythms, and to practice shifting. But there must be more to it, or the most elite … Read More
It always happens. Just when you think you’ve given your class enough time to tune, a student comes up to you with a loose string, or a fine tuner that is too low, or a broken string… and there … Read More
As I posted at the beginning of the year, one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to work on honing my classroom management skills. String students are generally great students and tend to do whatever you ask them to, but … Read More
It’s a fresh new year and I am so excited to be back at school! The holidays actually dragged on for me this year, not only because it was an unusual -20C out almost every day so we were stuck … Read More
We’ve all done it. And done it repeatedly. Out of the blue, we hit that nasty spot on the E-string that gives that mysterious high-pitched screech, also known as the ‘squeaky E-string’ or the ‘whistling E-string’. It happens just … Read More
Christmas Carols for Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass Finally, the Winter Concert is done! Now, what are you going to do with your string students for the last few classes??? What I do is send my students off with … Read More
Want to escape from an Escape Room? Better take a music student with you! Last week, we took the members of our Music Council for a team-building activity at the Escape Station, a local escape room venue. Little did … Read More
In case you haven’t noticed yet, SmartMusicTeacher has a YouTube Channel with (at this moment) over 50 videos that are free for you to use with your violin, viola, cello and bass students. And boy, did the videos come … Read More
Do you often wonder what students are really gaining from learning music? I think many of us have a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to music education because the benefits are less tangible compared to subjects such … Read More
Smart Scales for Strings makes playing scales on the Violin, Viola, Cello and Double Bass look easy! Laid out in a clear and natural progression, it is the only comprehensive scale book for the beginner to intermediate player. It is … Read More
We need new scale books for Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass…. I know I haven’t posted at all in the past while, but that’s because I have been working on finishing Smart Scales for Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass … Read More
The Perfect Violin Backpack For years I’ve been commuting with my purse on one shoulder, my backpack on my back, my violin on the other shoulder, and my music stand poking out of my bag, which couldn’t zip up … Read More
Creating an Authentic Aural Traditional Music Experience Fiddle tunes are short, catchy and pretty easy to memorize. When you put a fiddle tune in front of students, they just can’t wait to play it, and the violas, cellos, and … Read More
The Learning Potential of the Humble Fiddle Tune When I first moved back to the big city and started teaching string classes again, I wasn’t sure how I was going to approach teaching fiddle tunes to my students aside … Read More
The Practice of Celtic Music This is Part 2 in Fiddle Tune Season, a series about how to teach Celtic fiddle music to your violin, viola, cello and bass students. Many string players are curious about Celtic fiddle music and … Read More
It’s January and that means… it’s Fiddle Tune season in my classroom! Every year at this time, in all my classes, we get out the fiddle tunes. I choose this time because it tends be down-time from school performances, so … Read More
Looking for fiddle tunes to teach the class? Need tunes transposed for viola, cello and bass? Did you know that there are many, many skills you can teach through fiddle tunes? Read about all the great reasons to teach fiddle … Read More
Wouldn’t you like a simple way to show students how to set up their left hand without, well…. their instrument? You know how it goes…. Once you put an instrument in their hand, they get all nervous and confused and … Read More
You’ve chosen to play a pretty huge instrument! Believe it or not, the double bass is actually not very hard to play. The most important part of playing the bass is to make sure you set yourself up properly with … Read More
So you’ve committed yourself to playing the world’s biggest instrument. How are you going to get around with it? More importantly, how are you going to carry it home? Watch this video to see how easy it is. … Read More
I’ve watched many a student struggle with packing and unpacking their cello, and carrying them in awkward positions. Packing a cello is actually very easy, and carrying it properly actually makes it feel really light. After watching this video, you … Read More
As a string teacher, or a bass student, have you ever been intimidated by packing a bass? Does it take you a while as you fuss over how it goes on and how to get it off? Do you find … Read More
The Shoulder Rest Experience It’s always a heated debate out there, whether or not to use a shoulder rest, and I am not intending to go there. I can only speak from my own experience which is, shoulder rests didn’t … Read More
How would you like to make teaching scales and fingering super easy? This lesson is going to transform how you teach scales and fingering to your string classroom, or your private violin, viola, cello or bass students. And it is … Read More
It is very common for string teachers, whether they be classroom teachers or private violin, viola and cello teachers, to start their students off playing by ear. This sets up a foundation for intonation and listening. Because playing a stringed … Read More
So, what’s an Asian chick doing posting on St. Patrick’s Day about Irish music? It’s a long story, but the short version is, I got lured away by Cape Breton and East Coast music many years ago, I abandoned classical … Read More
Here are two quick activities that help string students get to know the notes on their instrument right away…. 1. The Note Circle Becoming fluent in the notes can be awkward for students. This simple activity is fun and easy, … Read More
When starting a beginner on a stringed instrument, whether it be violin, viola, cello or bass, it is important to set them up for success. On a stringed instrument, this can be daunting, what with the bow, the instrument hold, … Read More
Okay, I’m about to dive in to my favourite topic… teaching string students fingering, shifting, and how to play in tune! “What?!” you are saying? “THIS is your favourite topic??” For many teachers especially those just starting out, this is … Read More
Smart String Teacher’s Smart Fingering Charts for Strings is a must-have for your intermediate to advanced violin, viola, cello or bass students, and yourself! A good set of fingering charts should be an essential part of a string player’s resources. … Read More
Are you a violinist who plays without a shoulder rest? Do you feel that even though you don’t want to use a shoulder rest, you would still like a little something between your collar-bone and and your instrument? After … Read More
