Scotia Suzuki School of Music

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE pumpkin percussion activity download You can also Watch / Listen to the Live HERE Who doesn’t love pumpkins and what is more fun than a cool rhythm? When my children were younger we attended a few African dance and drum workshops. At one of these workshops, we all learned a beat on the djembe. It was so fun and catchy! We enjoyed it so much that we still frequently use it at our school

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE download about hoop dancing You can also Watch / Listen to the Live HERE September 30th marked a new Canadian national holiday in 2022 - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Please take a short moment and listen to the message about this important holiday from Sasha, a member of the Nova Scotia Youth Ambassadors. (Sept 2022) .- CLICK HERE See Blog #50 for 10 ways to teach yo

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE download about Hoopdancing You can also Watch / Listen to the Live HERE This week marks the first of a new Canadian national holiday - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Both the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day take place on September 30th. Orange Shirt Day is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day to recognize and raise awareness surrou

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE download activity for teens. You can also Watch / Listen to the Live HERE Starting a second child in music lessons in the same instrument with the same teacher? When you have a second child: Remember your first baby - recording by photo and video every cough, every step and cheering on every “first time” doing anything. Second child? It’s so easy for them to learn from the first siblin

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE download activity for teens. You can also Watch / Listen to the Live HERE This summer, I went on an adventure to an incredible place in Nova Scotia called Cape D’Or. WOW - it was amazing! A friend of mine was moving to a tiny community in Nova Scotia about 3 ½ hours away from me. I wanted to see them and bring them a housewarming meal. I just so happened to have a few days that I coul

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE and get your FREE download activity for teens. You can also Watch / Listen to the Live HERE Last week we talked about teens and the two things that THEY would like to change about music practice, as well as nine ways to help teens have successful practicing this coming year. If you missed it, it's #46 Success with teeneir Music Practice - you can read the Blog or watch /listen to this episode from th

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Read the Blog HERE Watch / Listen to the Live HERE Let's talk about teenagers and how to help them start the year off with their best foot forward in their music studies - whether they're at the beginner, intermediate, or advanced level. Last year I interviewed a lot of teens about practicing. I asked them the simple question - If they could change anything about practicing, what would it be? Can you guess what they sai

By Christy | the Practicing Pro w ww.ScotiaSuzuki.org Make an easy BOX KITE - to celebrate summer music practicing The end of summer is coming and the frequency of music practicing is DOWN. When you know that listening and reviewing is SO IMPORTANT, this can definitely be frustrating. You want to return to lessons excited and feeling ready to "learn" instead of "ready to get the rusties out", right??!! Let me help make it much easier for your practicing child or for all of yo

By Christy | the Practicing Pro w ww.ScotiaSuzuki.org I’ve seen it so many times before: summer is almost over and despite your best efforts, that summer music practice goal just didn’t get met. The beach was calling, and so was summer camp and that bbq you got invited to. The camping gear was packed up and the piano keys got dusty. Life seems to speed up when it’s nice out. Many student musicians are on “vacation” from their regular weekly lessons until they head back to the

By Christy | the Practicing Pro w ww.ScotiaSuzuki.org Is my child too stressed? How can I tell? Stress is an important part of life - all children are stressed from time to time but how much is too much? What should you look for and what do you do when you see signs of stress in your child? Having conversations about stress with our students and our children can be a tricky and sensitive task when it’s constant and related to doing too many activities. Having a busy schedule

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Let’s talk about “seaming” When you learn a piece of music, there’s a method of practicing that you can use called seaming . This is a very effective way to learn a song! Seaming is when you split a piece of music into different sections to practice. BUT what’s special about seaming is that when you split the piece into parts, you include the first few notes of the next section. This allows you to learn each section separ

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Wouldn’t it be nice if you could relax a little instead of having so many things on your to-do list this week? What if your player's review pieces or RCM scale review are easily checked off for this week with no complaining or struggles? Well, now you can check one thing off of your list! Something FUN right in your hand to make your home practicing more fun and more effective! Imagine this - You will be the “fun parent”

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Are you a super productive practice parent? Is your to-do list never-ending and every spare moment you sit still, you feel like you could be using it for something more important? I know I’ve definitely felt that way especially as my player got older and their pieces became longer! And though being productive and able to multitask are also really important skills, your child’s practice time is NOT the time to be thinking

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass...it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” As you know, spring means new outdoor sports and spring schedules. This can really make it harder to find time to practice, and then when you do, the kids' brains are still outside or tired out from being outside. It's great to make the change to spring but ALSO it can feel like the monsoon season, with so much to schedule and jugg

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org We learn the easiest and the fastest when we review and repeat. Learning music is like learning a new language . When you learn a new word, you keep saying it, even the simpler words like milk, mom, and water. You add and add to your vocabulary over time, eventually adding harder and more complex words. You don’t stop saying your first words though. Everything just goes into the mix to create a fluent language. Repetition

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org This Mother’s day and for spring, I have made you a fun SPRING FLOWERS practicing activity. CLICK HERE This will be a fun way to review. It will give you a week of easier review where practice will be more FUN leading up to Mother’s Day. Great! Here are some ways to use the activity specifically for Mother’s Day! Not only are you giving your special Mom / or Mom figure, in your life a beautiful homemade craft but it’s ma

Want to guess what one of my favorite things about Easter is? That’s right… chocolate! Also, hunting for eggs! Last week's blog was about “getting to know your child better” with my open and closed-ended questions in plastic Easter eggs. Check it out HERE if you missed it! Every year, Easter has me thinking about the small family traditions that I had with my own children when they were young. Do you have a special hunt prepared every year? I sure did and even tried a few d

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org I love this fun Easter Activity. A great way to get to know your child or your student better is by asking them fun questions. Better yet inside of easter eggs. Who doesn't like to choose an easter egg and open it up! There are two kinds of questions you can use for this activity. The first kind is open-ended “get to know you” questions that require a full answer. The second kind is “would you rather” question s that requi

By Christy | The Practicing Pro www.ScotiaSuzuki.org Using Feelings Sticks in Practices Does your child come to music practice “grumpy” as a habit? Do your kids regularly have a negative attitude about practicing before they even start? Sometimes it’s a HABIT how you approach something. I’d like to share with you a personal example. I have anxiety whenever I go to the dentist. But it's every time and even when I go to my bi-yearly cleanings. But what am I afraid of? Well, t

If you are new here and do not already know, I am a Grandma! I have a sweet little grandson named Daniel who lives far away and in another country, so right now I can’t see him at all! We talk on Facetime every few days. It kills me to not be able to hold him and hug him, and giggle and play with him! I am worried about having a relationship with him as he gets older so I had an idea. I made him some “feeling sticks”. They are faces that represent: Happy Sad Mad Weird Ang