Practicing Can Be Hard

I Get to Bring Them In

What is community? How do you find it? Join it? Build it? It’s more than just showing up to a bake sale with brownies from a box, then taking off (though I’ve done this many times). Is it bowling clubs with awesome matching shirts? What about hot but festive street fairs where you spend too […]

Practicing Can Be Hard

Music practice has its highs and lows. Sometimes we reach a state of bliss and flow as we find the perfect balance of competence, challenge, and creativity with our instrument. Or, sometimes we can feel like Sisyphus; over and over pushing up a hill a huge… grand piano …or something. Mastery requires effort, and I […]

Greater Than We Would Be on Our Own

Margaret Watts Romney: Gail Johansen and Daniela Gongora are both violinists and teachers, but they’ve made music in vastly different areas.  Gail Johansen lives in Fairbanks, Alaska… Gail Johansen: Right now since it is almost the winter solstice, we have less than 4 hours of daylight. So, it’s dark most of the time. We’ve have […]

We’re All Performers of One Kind or Another

Welcome back to season two of Building Noble Hearts. I’m Margaret Watts Romney. Here, we take a look at the learning environments in which children, parents, and teachers gain new knowledge, and are also encouraged to become fine individuals. Throughout this series, we speak with members of the Suzuki music community inspired by humanitarian violinist […]

Matsumoto Memoir—Sarah Hersh

Music Sun Up Transcript Margaret Watts Romney:This is Building Noble Hearts, a production of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. I’m your host Margaret Watts Romney.  Today, we are looking at just one environment created by one teacher, and finding themes that can be applied to good teaching everywhere such as humor, analysis, and artistry. […]