Beekman Violin, Inc.
1058 Kingstown Road
Wakefield, RI 02879
Hours
Wednesdays 11-3
Thursdays 12-5:30
Fridays 12-5:30
Saturdays 10-3
Appointments are strongly recommended. To make an appointment, visit our booking website or give us a call at 401-284-0265.
3 Ways to Play This Summer
/in Violin Shop/by Stephen BeekmanThe more students play, the more likely they are to keep playing! Teachers know that students who stay committed to their instrument over the summer months are more likely to stick with it into the following fall and beyond. Regular playing experiences, whether in private lessons, orchestra rehearsals, or just practicing at home, keep students motivated to continue.
How to keep them at it?
While simply holding onto the instrument and setting up a summer practice routine is a good start, having friends to play with and/or a performance to prepare for will keep practice interesting. And students who are interested in practicing are more likely to stick to a routine on their own, allowing parents to sit back, relax, and enjoy the music!
3 WAYS TO PLAY
1. Private lessons
Benefits:
Best for:
Everyone! Especially students who have begun to plateau and aren’t sure how to progress.
Things to keep in mind:
For any enthusiastic string player, private lessons can make a big difference. However, some students are particularly motivated by group-playing experiences, and for these students its a good idea to look into small-group lessons or to supplement private lessons with participation in an orchestra or small ensemble. (Check out our current Friend’s Lesson Special, which might be just the right fit!)
Local teachers: contact us for a teacher referral or to schedule a lesson!
2. Summer orchestra programs
Benefits:
Best for:
Things to Keep in Mind:
Playing in an orchestra is much different than playing alone or even in unison with others. In an orchestra, different groups of instruments play at different times and students have to learn to keep track of the music in order to play the right notes at the right time. Prepare your student to expect a challenge at his or her first rehearsal, and encourage him or her not to give up if he/she feels lost at first – things get easier quickly and he/she’ll soon find him/herself having a lot of fun.
Local programs:
South Kingstown Summer Strings
Thursdays, 6-7:30pm @ Broad Rock School, June 29th – August 17th
Fee: $72 SK residents, $82 non-residents
Applications available at the shop!
3. Strings camp
Benefits:
Best for:
Things to keep in mind:
As when picking a private teacher, look for a camp that fits your students interests, ability level and learning style. If your student already has a private teacher, he or she can provide valuable advice on what programs to look into.
Local Camps:
URI Strings Week, July 10th – 15th
More info available at the Strings Week website!
The End of the Trip
/in Violin Shop/by Hannah BeekmanIt never seems we’ve had enough time at the end of these trips. In the last few days, the energy among the volunteers becomes tangible – we can all feel the end coming, and want to get everything done that we can before time runs out.
In our last week, I finished up as much of the instrument maintenance and set up work as I could. I rehaired bows, replaced pegs, changed strings, and cut and installed bridges and soundposts. I prepared larger instruments for the “littles” (our youngest students) who were ready to move up in size, and updated our inventory records and instrument assignments.
While I was working on instruments in the mornings, most of the rest of the volunteers went out to bike maintenance/repair visits for girls who have received bikes through the RPS Bikes for Girls program. These were led by Jane and Steve Ewashkiw, yoga instructors and long-distance bicyclists, who joined us for the last week and a half of the trip.
We also held two Eyeglass Giveaway events, in which we gave away reading glasses to elderly members of the local community, and we paid one last visit to the village of Son Tan to lead another weekend art class.
On weekday afternoons, we continued teaching art and music in Cam Duc. With our music students, we were preparing for a final concert to be held at a local café for family and friends. All the kids were working hard, practicing a lot at home and coming to long lesson/rehearsals. When the time came the concert went off without a hitch – everyone from the littles to the teachers performed, and we even had two soloists: Vy, one of our older students, and Huy, originally a student and now one of our local teachers.
After all was said and done, it was time to say goodbye – and no one says goodbye like our students in Cam Duc. I’ve never felt more appreciated than I do at the Cam Duc farewell party at the end of every trip. There is always singing (songs about saying goodbye and meeting again), gifts for everyone from just about everyone, a giant, beautiful cake, and all kinds of improvised games. And of course, there are always some tears. After a month working with the music and art students, it’s hard to leave them behind, and hard for them to see us go. But eventually, the trip has to end. Early on Thursday morning we gave our last hugs, waved our last goodbyes, and got on the plane to Saigon.
Thanks again to Rich and Wesley, and also to Cathy Jorin, for the photos I used in this post.
Music Lessons and Camp at Son Tan
/in Travel/by Hannah BeekmanA 5-day trip to Hue and a brief bout with food poisoning have delayed my most recent post, and there’s a lot to catch up on!
STRINGS CLASSES
In Cam Duc, we’ve been holding strings classes every other afternoon. Each volunteer is assigned to 2-3 students, whom we work with for about an hour and fifteen minutes before gathering as an ensemble. I have been teaching three girls about 10 years old: An, Anh, and Thu. They have been playing for 2 years, and are working their way through Suzuki book 1. All three have a lot of energy and personality – they love to chatter and laugh and tease. But they also have a great deal of focus, and will practice with me as a group for as long as an hour and a half. They love to play and to learn new things, which they pick up quickly. They’re a lot of fun to work with!
After our small group lessons, everyone gets together to play as an ensemble. The younger students will play the pieces they have been working on, then the older students, and then we all play a Vietnamese song called Trong Com to wrap up the day.
The older kids will usually stay for a while after class, teaching dances to the American volunteers and playing games. Sometimes we’ll also go out for sinh to (smoothies) or sugar cane juice. We must be quite the sight on our way to the café, there are so many of us, traveling all together on motorbikes and bicycles and on foot.
CAMP AT SON TAN
Last week we held our second arts and music camp in the village of Son Tan. Son Tan is a smaller community than Soui Cat and RPS has a year-long presence there through its weekend art classes, so this second camp was much more manageable than the first. Instead of 300 kids, we had only 100 on the first day and about 150 by day 3.
We followed the same daily format as the Soui Cat camp: a concert, music activities, an art project, and parachute games. As part of the music section this time, we performed and taught a dance that our Cam Duc strings students had been practicing with us. We also had a new art project: we found out that An’s mom makes gift boxes to sell at book stores and gift shops, and had her make 200 blank boxes for the kids at the camp to decorate with magazine cut-outs. Everyone really enjoyed it – even the moms got involved, decorating boxes for their babies.
HUE
We spent the weekend and the beginning of this week in the city of Hue – a one hour flight from Nha Trang airport. Unfortunately, much of our plans there were waylaid by a rash of food poisoning. Nearly everyone was sick for at least one day, and unfortunately I was still in bed during a scheduled art show by the students in the Hue art program. However, I recovered in time to participate in a visit to a local orphanage, where we played a short concert and made pipe-cleaner sculptures with the children. Laurette and Rozanne were also able to meet with Phoung, RPS’s program director in Hue, who will also soon be the violin teacher for the new music program. Together they went over the basics of teaching beginners, and will be in touch with Phoung through skype whenever he needs help or advice.