Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Giulia's Second Day - String Class

Our guest blogger and volunteer from Italy, Giulia Molteni, reflects on her 2nd day with the YOURS Project:


9/5/2012 

Today, my exciting second day at Monroe Elementary School, I took part in the string classes. What a wonderful experience! 
I observed Ivana Dudnik, a Brazilian musician who came to Chicago having worked many years with the El Sistema-inspired program in Brazil, Neojiba. Ivana worked with two groups divided by age: the first group had kids in 6th grade and below, while the second group was made up of 7th and 8th grade students.I really enjoyed her teaching method and I found it productive: before starting to play, pay attention to the body, sit tall like a hero and concentrate on what one is doing. These fundamentals are necessary to become real performers and as the weeks go by by I'm sure they'll get used to them!I was also fascinated by some useful games Ivana proposed to work on the fingers independence and flexibility, necessary to use the bow properly to produce each kind of articulation. I saw these young players have a lot of fun moving fingers up and down through the bow like a spider, or rotating the wrist like the wind shield wipers of a car.Can all these be an effective teaching tools? Sure, and it's also very entertaining!
-Giulia Molteni 

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