Losing My Marbles

Paying attention to one violin technique at a time during practice is challenging. I want to focus on everything all at once and the boy would like to focus on sunlight reflections, farts and dust bunnies. After a bit of squabbling and crying Tuesday, we came up with a marble game.

Our marble game involves point scoring and defeating opponents; both very motivating factors for young violinists of the 21st century.

How to play:

1. Get a bowl of marbles and two cups. (one for the student and one for the parent)
2. Work through each practice item with one agreed upon “focus”. (our list is below)
   
3. If the piece is played with successfully with the chosen focus, the student gets a marble.
4. If the student loses focus at any point, the play stops and the parent gets a marble.
5. After the parent takes a marble, the play resumes at the beginning of the piece.
6. The person with the most marbles at the end of the practice wins.

(Given the architecture of the game, the parent should always technically “lose”: the true goal is preventing the parent from getting any marbles at all.)

The game had some frustrating moments… I’m not going to lie.  It has also provided some of the most productive practice we’ve done this year. (I’m not kidding.)

Naturally, the game will grow stale in a week or so, and we’ll have to invent something else to keep our interest, but I recommend this for any Suzuki parent with a younger child who needs to mix things up a bit.