Midwinter Musings: Ariadne’s Book One Violin Recital

This summer Ariadne had her book one violin recital! A book one recital celebrates a ton of work and a major milestone for Suzuki kids--finishing book one. Most kids start between age 3 and 5, and most finish book one 2-4 years later. It also is an excellent way to solidify all those book one songs that may have gotten a little fuzzy. She finished book one back in the spring, but between AP tests and high school graduation, summer was a better time to have the recital. [Note: if you want to see some video highlights of the recital skip to the end of the blog post].

Below is Ariadne on the day she got her first real violin, the adult voice is her teacher (and she took the video too). It was mid August 2016.

Her she is with her box violin, which is how most Suzuki violinists start. The use it to learn to hold the violin without dropping it, and can learn parts of the violin and even basic bowing rhythms. It is a breakfast bar box covered in paper with a ruler for the fingerboard and scroll.

And the real thing! I believe it was a 1/10 size. She was almost four and a half.

Being so far from our music teacher and school (not to mention covid), we decided to have her siblings accompany her. They split up the book and I got to work finding duet parts for various instruments. Most we found in the Suzuki violin duet book. Charlotte listened to Nova play them on violin, then transposed them for cello by ear. We found an excellent (and original!) duet part to Minuet 3 by Bach. In the non-Suzuki world it is entitled Minuet in G and it is in the Anna Magdalena Notebook. Solomon and I found a Youtube video of a duet part for Gavotte by Gossec and he ended up doing a cross between that and something of his own invention. The Happy Farmer duet part was his own arrangement. Everyone joined in for Twinkle Theme.

Solomon and Ariadne practicing Gossec Gavotte

Ariadne decided she wanted dress up for the occasion. She found a beautiful blue dress Nova had worn when she was a junior bridesmaid for her aunt and uncle's wedding.

We dug out the dress black and whites for the older kids.

In order to make it feel like a real party, we decided to send out party packages to our guests. Round one was for the out of town folks. The house was turned into a cookie factory. We sent sugar cookies with treble clefs in pink royal icing and star sprinkles, treble clef napkins, a program, and musical coloring pages of violins, Bach, Mozart, and Schumann. In-town guests got Nutella cellos and eighth note jam-jams, along with the programs and coloring pages. Driving around town and dropping things off was the most contact we'd had with our friends in months, which was a surprise benefit of the recital.

After all the practice and baking, August 1st finally came and it was time to start the zoom call! The way the songs were split up, the older kids usually did a couple accompaniments in a row to minimize reshuffling time.

We had an intermission, both because an entire book is a lot to play in a row, and to deal with the 40 minute time limit on zoom. The songs probably would have made it just under the wire, but we wanted a few minutes to chat afterwards, and also knew there would be a little extra time switching out the cello.

Feeling good at intermission

Here we are at the intermission blowing off steam (and you can see our set-up with microphone and laptop). Charlotte and Nova are looking over the songs in her new Suzuki Cello vol 6. Solomon is playing some fast runs in the background and Ariadne is singing along. She has a flare for the dramatic.

I do not know what Solomon was thinking about here. I was thinking that in a few short weeks, he would be off at college, and life would be forever different. Not that we can stop these things, nor that we should. But sometimes I catch myself looking over a precipice of time, anticipating the leap.

Afterward we convinced the older kids that we did indeed need to take a couple group pictures, which ended in goofing around with the camera.

Below are a few video highlights from the recital. I put the last song first, because there is no song more quintessential to the Suzuki method than Twinkle Theme (aka Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). It also happens to be the only song with all four kids playing.

During the actual recital we started with the last song in the book and played all the way through to the beginning, breaking for intermission a little before the folk songs. The backwards order was Ariadne's teacher's suggestion, and I am so glad we did it that way. There's nothing as daunting a Gossec Gavotte when you're all tired out.