Violin education in middle childhood

Koosje van Haeringen

Abstract Title of Research: Violin education in middle childhood. Research Question: How can an optimal musical and violinistic development be achieved in the teaching of children in middle childhood? Summary of Results: In middle childhood (7-11/12 years) enter a new phase in the development of their cognitive functions, their motor skills and social behaviour. In this research I investigate how these developments should be understood from the perspective of violin teaching to children in this age group and how these developments can be used by the teacher to the benefit of their education to become all-round violinists and musicians. For this research I studied the relevant literature in the field of development psychology and the training of young talents and I compared the scholarly theories and insights with my personal experience as a violin and violin methodology teacher of more than 20 years. In this thesis I describe the great potential that violin teaching to children in middle childhood offers, provided that the teacher has a good understanding of the learning process of the child, a clear vision and long-term strategy for the teaching and tremendous patience. Central elements of this vision should be a clear overview and balanced approach of all the different elements that make an expert violinist and all-round musician, the flexibility to respond and adapt to the specific abilities and needs of each individual pupil and an approach that fully involves the child in his/her own learning process.

Preface

I am proud to present here the results of my master’s research on violin education in middle childhood. With this paper, based on study of relevant literature in the field of development psychology and the training of young talents and on my personal experience of over 20 years, I hope to contribute to a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges of our profession, music education to young people. I realize that many of the things I have written down could be open to debate. However, I hope this paper can be a source of inspiration for others, a building block in the study of music teaching on which others can build further.

There are many people to whom I wish to express my gratitude here. In the first place my parents, who gave me the opportunity to take violin lessons and who have supported me all through my career. Then my teachers, Piet ‘t Hart, Jaring Walta and Qui van Woerdekom, who taught me the profession of violin playing and violin teaching methodology, and gave me the tools for my further career.

I wish to thank the Royal Conservatoire for giving me the opportunity to become a teacher of violin and violin methodology and thus allowing me to discover and develop my real passion, violin teaching to younger people. Further to that, I thank my students, present and past, and their parents, for the trust they have had in me and the opportunity they have given me to develop myself as a teacher. In the last years, when illness limited my physical abilities, the support and confidence I received from the school and the students was a great help and comfort to me.

I thank my students for allowing me to use their pictures as illustration in this paper: Anna, Annabel, Adinda, Carmen, Ceder, Dette, Diana, Drummado, Hadewych, Job, Kaya, Kayra, Laura, Marcel, Merlijn, Pieter, Resa, Salome, Tove and Ysé. And I thank Casper Schipper for the technical support with the research catalogue.

I owe special thanks to my husband, Ab Vos, who has always supported me in my work and whose unremitting physical and mental support has enabled me to continue my work in spite of my illness. I thank Martine van der Loo for her kind willingness to act as supervisor for my research. And last but not least I wish to express my gratitude to my brother-in-law Dries van Loenen, without whose invaluable assistance I would have been physically unable to write down my findings in the present paper.

chapter 1. introduction

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