Maple and Spruce Violin and Viola Studio

Welcome!

Hi, I'm Anna. Welcome and thanks for your interest in violin or viola lessons. I've had the pleasure of working with students and families for more than twenty years and look forward to answering any questions you may have about taking lessons.

To get to know me a bit and learn some of the basics for starting out, please check out "Anna's Instructional Videos" below.

Please click on other buttons below for learning more about music history and famous musicians as well as other helpful resources.

Bio

Anna holds graduate degrees from Michigan State University including a D.M.A. (Doctor of Musical Arts) with a focus on the violin music of American composer Amy Beach. Her primary violin instructors have included Herman Straka, Prof. Lee Joiner, and Prof. Walter Verdehr.

While pursuing a Bachelor in Music at Wheaton College, she performed as a member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra, the training orchestra of the Chicago Symphony. She received fellowships to perform with the National Repertory Orchestra in Breckenridge, Colorado as well as the National Orchestral Institute in College Park, Maryland. Before moving to Michigan, she performed with the Annapolis Symphony, Annapolis, Maryland. Anna has been teaching and performing in the Lansing area for more than 20 years. During this time she has performed with the Lansing Symphony, the Jackson Symphony, the Midland Symphony and with the Great Lakes String Quartet for weddings and events. She holds certifications from the Suzuki Association of the Americas and has taught with several Suzuki programs.

Her students can be found performing in the community and in local orchestras including school orchestras, Mid-Michigan Youth Symphony, Home School Music Association, and Mason Symphony. They perform recitals in the community, compete in annual Solo and Ensemble festivals, attend Blue Lake Music Camp, perform with the Michigan Youth Arts Festival, perform Senior Solos with their high school orchestras, go on to study music or enjoy making music as a hobby.

Kind Words

I love Anna’s instruction. She’s always so nice and encouraging, displaying all the parts I still need to improve with great patience. And I really love the stickers and gift idea.

My daughter is very lucky and happy to be Anna's student - Anna is the best teacher one can imagine, she is highly professional, kind and helpful, an expert in her field and a gentle and wonderful person. We moved to another state, yet my daughter keeps taking remote lessons with Anna, she doesn't want to have any other teacher!

It has been a pleasure for us working with you for E.’s violin lessons! She has learned a lot from you from past 3-4 years and she has become very comfortable with violin. And I must say that you are so passionate with music that you bring this passion among your students.

Thank you for teaching me this summer. I’ve enjoyed our lessons. I’ve learned a lot in just a couple weeks. Thank you for everything!

Thank you so much for helping me for these past three years. I’ve learned so much from you and without your guidance I would not be where I am today.

Thank you so much for the information for I.’s violin lessons. I. is very happy about the lessons with you. She says the fingerings helped her a lot.

The reason why I like studying the violin is because the sound of the violin can be very calming.

Thank you so much for being such a great teacher for our kids.

Teaching Philosophy

From any age, learning to play a musical instrument is an incredibly rich journey of discovery and enjoyment. It's a pursuit that each step of the way enriches lives and connects people. Music study is also a window through which to appreciate musical masterpieces and to find our own expressive voices.

As with most things of value, learning to play a musical instrument requires sustained interest and commitment. Investments of time and dedication, however, yield benefits that extend far beyond the ability to appreciate music, express emotions, and enjoy playing masterpieces. As students and families enjoy music together, family bonds can be strengthened, communication and study skills can be enhanced, and long-term relationships can develop with other students, families, orchestra members, and instructors.

My goals as I work with students and families include:

building a life-long love of music and music-making,
success while learning using skill-by-skill resources,
a structure to establish healthy and effective patterns of individual practice, and
a supportive community of learners where students can motivate and inspire each other.

Music Study and Brain Development

Build your Brain-Study Music

Hundreds of recent peer-reviewed research studies show that music study benefits:

· Memory storage and retrieval

· Attention span

· Lifelong neuroplasticity

· Executive function

· Socioemotional development

· Language acquisition

“Music literally ‘lights up’ the brain like no other human activity.” Dr. Anita Collins, University of Canberra

“Music provides a tool to study numerous aspects of neuroscience, from motor-skill learning to emotion. Indeed, from a psychologist’s point of view, listening to and producing music involves a tantalizing mix of practically every human cognitive function.” Dr. Robert Zatorre, McGill University

“Musical experience early in life imparts lifelong neuroplasticity.” Dr. Nina Kraus, Northwestern University

How are studies conducted: Researchers are using fMRI and PET scanners in real time to monitor brain activity while participants do different activities.

Nature or Nurture? Do the people who excel in music study do so because they were born with more interconnected brains? "Randomized studies using participants with statistically similar levels of cognitive function and neural processing at the start of the studies showed enhancement in multiple brain areas of participants who were exposed to a period of music learning as compared with those who weren’t." Dr. Anita Collins

“Given that there were no differences among the groups at baseline, before the onset of music and sports training, our findings provide strong evidence that the observed differences favoring the music group are probably related to the music training rather than to pre-existing biological dispositions for musicality.” Dr. Assal Habibi

What is it about playing a musical instrument that builds brains? "This activity engages practically every area of the brain at once, the visual, auditory, and motor cortices. Music practice is disciplined, structured, repetitious, which means the brain functions are strengthened during each practice session or rehearsal." Dr. Anita Collins

What is taking places that actually builds the brain? "Playing an instrument has been shown to increase the volume and activity in the brain’s corpus callosum (the bridge between the two hemispheres). This results in faster transfer of information from faster signals within the brain, more routes, and more diverse routes." Dr. Anita Collins

Key Takeaways

When: Earlier is better, early elementary age most effective

How often and for how long: weekly 8 weeks – 15 months changes the brain, Sweet spot – two or more years of private, one-on-one music lessons

What kinds of lessons: instrumental music lessons

Benefits: What is “The Music Advantage”: Improved speech-in-noise perception, executive function, memory storage and retrieval, social/emotional development

FAQ: nature vs. nurture – differences in pre-existing abilities vs. training, studies are designed to rule out pre-existing differences

How about art and sports: music training influences speech training to a greater degree than other forms of enrichment (Slater, et. al. 2015)

Lessons and Rates - In-Person, Online, Individual, Group

Most students find that weekly, individual, in-person lessons work best. Lessons, however, can be individual or group, in-person or over Zoom, or a combination of in-person and Zoom.

In addition to lessons, throughout the year, we meet in small groups for Book Parties (where students who are at the same level play songs from the book they are working on), for repertoire classes (where students of all levels play meet to play for each other), and for studio recitals.

Private lessons vary in length from 25, 40, to 55 minutes. The length of the lesson is determined by the age and interest of each student. Lesson rates are $30 for 25 minutes, $35 for 40 minutes, and $40 for 55 minutes. Please contact Anna for reduced rates for group lessons and for siblings.

Before the first lesson for young beginners

Book and Recordings: We will be using Suzuki Book 1 with recordings of songs and following the Suzuki approach, which aims at helping students learn music as they learn language, supported by lots of listening.

Some music stores offer a free book with instrument rental. In this case, please request Suzuki Book 1 and begin listening to the songs with your student. It's helpful to listen in many ways: listening to the whole book while coloring or playing at home, or while driving. Another way that helps students make a connection between the name of the piece and the melody is to call out the name of a piece before listening to a piece.

Instruments: For young beginners, having a violin and bow isn't needed until about week 3. In the first few weeks we'll be using some props to train bowing, bow holds, violin holds, and balance.

Props and materials:

Stuffed animal rabbit (just if your family already has one) or book with rabbits or picture with a rabbit. (The bow hold somewhat resembles a rabbit, so it's nice to have a visual to help students make this connection.)
A thick (unsharpened) pencil or thick marker (better yet a set with lots of colors) works well to introduce the bow hold. A rubber band or two that can be wrapped around the pencil or marker to support the fingers.
For the beginning violin hold, we use a smallish box (size of granola bar box) and tape a ruler to it or a wooden spoon. Using a Box Violin allows students to practice bowing, balance, "rest position", and other positions feeling more relaxed than if they were holding an actual violin. (See photo below.)

Lesson and Practice Space:

It's helpful to designate a place in your home for practice and, in that space, to choose a spot for students to stand while they are practicing. It can take some experimenting with different locations to find what seems to work best. As students get comfortable with a consistent place to stand and direction to face, they can position themselves consistently for reliable violin and bow posture, which makes playing so much easier. It all builds from consistent stance and direction that they face.

Likely the practice space will be slightly different from the space for our Zoom lessons. For the lessons, your student will face the computer, but for practice they will face you or later, their music on a music stand. With this in mind, please set up a space in front of the computer screen (tape a rectangle of about 25" x 20" on the floor, big enough for your student to stand and sit down in). It would be great if your student could help with this, listen as you explain that this is where they will stand and sometimes sit during lessons, and try out before the lesson. Position a chair for the Practice PartneParent slightly to the side of the rectangle, but visible on Zoom.

Box Violin

Lessons for Solo and Ensemble

Some students appreciate meeting with an instructor for just a few lessons before the annual Solo and Ensemble Festival. Please contact me to set up a few lessons to polish your solo or duet/trio/quartet for performance.

A bit more about S and E:

Solo & Ensemble Festival is an opportunity for individual students and ensembles from member schools to perform a selection of their choice for adjudication. District-level festivals are held in late January through mid-February.

www.msboa.org/Events/SoloEnsemble.aspx

Recitals

Recitals are usually held twice a year. A mid-year recital at a local senior residence provides a chance to share pieces with the community as well as giving students who are preparing for Solo and Ensemble performances an opportunity to polish their pieces before performing them for the judges. Our year-end recital in the Spring often includes chamber music, which provides ensemble-playing experiences as students perform together. This is also a time to celebrate progress over the previous year and to congratulate high school seniors who are graduating.

Regular repertoire classes are planned throughout the year providing valuable performing experience and studio community building.