Autumn is well & truly here and I was reminded that I hadn’t posted a blog since June! Summer term ended very positively with the first teacher training day. It went extremely well and I am going to be announcing dates for another soon. As a result of the June event, we have new teachers starting cello and violinbabies in their areas. Do check out the violinbabies website for news of who they are.
We flew off to Orkney for the summer, to the place where my good husband was born. Saw lots of neolithic sites, beautiful sunsets and ate lashings of haggis! The island of Hoy was stunning - I really didn’t want to leave.
Two days after my return I went to Aberdeen to introduce cello & violinbabies to the ESTA centre there. I had a great time: my string teaching colleagues there were warm, welcoming and very open to my ideas - feedback was really encouraging.
Violinbabies has received a favourable review in the latest edition of ‘News & Views’ (ESTA’s journal) and there is a wonderful article in this month’s ‘Music Teacher’ magazine about Exeter Young Strings, who are using cello & violinbabies as the core material in their programme. I hope to have both articles on the web soon……………
A lot has happened since my last post. I didn’t get to Aberdeen in May. The week before I was due to fly, my husband was rushed into hospital and spent a week there. Thankfully, I have been able to reschedule for August.
I was able to get down to Exeter and the workshop there was great fun. Amongst other things, I set the participants the task of composing their own ‘Cellobabies’ songs and the results were hilarious and hugely imaginative!
There has been a delay in getting the 1/10th cellos but I understand from Kirsty that the Whipton and Beacon Heath projects are getting under way now. She has asked me for a version for Viola now - my next task awaits me.
The first teacher training day (organised by yours truly) will be getting under way at the end of June and I am pleased to say that it has received sponsorship from Ackermans, the largest music retail suppliers in the county, who have been great supporters of cellobabies right from the start.
I have just finished a long season of festival adjudicating which has taken me up to Scotland, into Norfolk, Suffolk and the home counties. Well, I say finished but I have another one next week in Yorkshire before taking a well earned rest in the Yorkshire moors.
Things are getting very exciting here! I’ll be giving a presentation to ESTA members in Aberdeen on May 1st on Cellobabies/ Violinbabies and then zooming down to Devon just over a week later to help train the teachers at Exeter Young Strings. I am setting up a training day here in Sussex on June 28th - more details to follow very soon!
If you are about to go on holiday - have a great time!
A lot of things have been happening down in Devon recently - and especially for Exeter Young Strings. As well as getting those grants I talked about in my last blog they now have a lovely new website at www.exeteryoungstrings.org.
Do go and have a look, and see what they do.
BTW If you are a young aspiring cello, viola, violin or bass player in the Exeter area, then you could do no better then join!
Exciting news from Exeter Young Strings in Devon! Kirsty Hugill, the project director has just informed me that the group’s application for funding from Youth Music and Exeter City Council has been successful. Over the next few months Kirsty and her team will be setting up 2 projects in the Whipton and Beacon Heath Areas of the city for 4 to 5 year olds using Cellobabies and it’s violin counterpart, Violinbabies, as the core teaching material. as you can imagine, I am enthralled by this development and now have got to get busy working on the training programme for the first Cellobabies and Violinbabies teachers in Devon!
Happy New Year everybody! It’s been a good start to the year. Sales of the Cellobabies books are going very well and there are plans to start Cellobabies lessons in Taunton, Somerset. My colleague, Audrey Gullick is in the process of recruiting young players. Do get in touch with me if you live near Taunton and would like to be put in touch with her.
I started some more Cellobabies students this week; at Arundale School, 50% of the Reception class are now learning the cello! I wonder if this is a record! Trials on Violinbabies are similarly going extremely well; feedback has been very positive and encouraging. At the time of writing I anticipate releasing ‘Violinbabies’ in the Spring, with a website to accompany, courtesy of Geoff, my webmaster extrordinaire!
It has been an exciting couple of weeks. Firstly, I had 2 festivals (Worthing and Taunton in Somerset) where I heard some very fine and committed string playing from lots of young players.
Last Sunday was the ESTA (European String Teacher’s Association) National Forum day at the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey. Cellobabies was featured in a seminar given by Maureen Smith (Violin teacher at the Royal College of Music) on Beginner’s methods and I was also given the tell the delegates about how it all works. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to talk about my work to colleagues in the profession and it certainly has generated a lot of interest. If you have never come across ESTA before it is worth taking a look at the website www.estaweb.org.uk It is a fantastic organisation providing much support and information for the string teaching profession and I have been involved with it since my student days.
One development since then is Ackerman Music is now stocking my cellobabies books in all of their stores across Sussex.
I delivered the completed Violinbabies drafts to Judith & Sara who are trying it out for me. Sara reported very encouraging progress with one student who had difficulty with note-reading and who showed enormous improvement after being withdrawn from conventional reading for a short time to use my method, and then returned to her music and was able to read with greater security.
I now have the Violinbabies material being given a trial out there in the big wide world with real students. I’m particularly keen to find a few 3 to 5 year olds in the Horsham and Crawley area who would like to be amongst the first ‘Violinbabies’. Do get in touch with me if you want to know more. My colleague, Sara Stagg, who is the violin teacher putting the method through its paces has a limited number of spaces and we are keen to try it with the under 5’s, having already got some 6 year old customers.
Exciting time really……………..
In my last blog, I referred in passing to the recent upturn in interest in Cellobabies over the past few months. I have received queries from several parts of the UK as well as the USA and New Zealand. Cellobabies is now being taught in some Surrey & London Schools and one particularly exciting project is being formed in Exeter, Devon. Kirsty Hugil, the Director Of Exeter Young Strings ,is hoping to establish two music centres as part of an inclusion programme for children from disadvantaged areas of the city and is intending to use ‘Cellobabies’ and it violin version, ‘Violinbabies’ as the main teaching material.
This is tremendously exciting but the outcome is dependant on finding the funding. Kirsty is approaching some well known organisations but if anybody is keen to offer some sponsorship for this very worthwhile project, please email her at exeteryoungstrings@yahoo.co.uk
Well, a happy new academic year in the UK. After a much needed break taken with the family in Wales, I’m back at the coal face of teaching and feel like life is hitting me at 200 mph already!
The new edition of the Cellobabies book is ready to roll off the press and should be available in the next couple of weeks and I’m knuckling down to complete the violin version as soon as possible. I’ve been really encouraged by the marked upturn of interest in the method since the beginning of summer.
I notched up another birthday in August (21 again!). My husband made me a lovely cello bow which is just great to handle, It made its debut in 3 concerts at the Greenbelt festival (Cheltenham) at the end of the month. My better half is working on a cello for me, which is at the stage of having the purfling put into the belly and back sections. I certainly am a lucky old bird.