Children are growing up in a world where most of the time, the violin is the most important thing in their life.
They learn to play the violin and, even more importantly, they are taught to understand it.
This is the crux of a new book by John Giddens, a former child musician who now teaches violin at St. Joseph’s Episcopal School in California.
In this article, Giddes tells the story of how he taught his own children to play violin and why it is crucial that parents take the violin seriously.
Giddens started teaching his own kids violin as a child and then as an adult, but never before had he given them a formal instruction on how to play a piece.
The first lesson was given by his wife, whom he met when they both volunteered to teach in a child’s hospital.
“They had never played the violin before,” he says.
“I said, ‘Well, you should give them this lesson.'”
So, he did.
And they were able to learn how to pick up a violin without a teacher.
After he taught them how to do so, they were playing their first songs.
And it was only the beginning.
In 2006, Gaudens moved his family from Texas to San Francisco, where he is now the director of music for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
His son, Joshua, and daughter, Ashley, now 21, have also moved to the Bay Area, where they are learning to play piano.
And Gidders wife, Susan, is now a violinist herself.
In his book, Geddens describes his journey from the humble beginnings of the violin to becoming an accomplished educator and composer.
He describes how he came to realize that there was no one right way to teach children to sing, and that there were multiple approaches to the subject.
“There are lots of ways of teaching children to do it,” he writes.
“But the key is to have a child learn the music in a way that he can really enjoy it.
If you want a child to listen to music, he should really feel that he’s learning something.”
In the years since the first book came out, Gaddens has developed a curriculum that is structured around five core principles: “To the extent that the child learns the music to be able to sing,” he explains, “you should also teach them how not to.”
The book also includes a chapter on teaching children how to perform a “fancy tune,” a phrase that is used by contemporary composers to describe a particular song.
And while he doesn’t explain exactly what it is, he writes that it is “a way of getting a child really excited about something, so that he actually performs it.
It’s not a teaching trick, but it is a way of teaching something about the child.”
In a recent podcast, Gidens discussed the value of teaching in a quiet place.
“In the old days, when we used to sing or play, it was a lot more important to have someone in the back of the house listening to us than it is now,” he said.
“That was a really important thing to learn.”