Technical issues in beginning violin: an exploratory study in the classroom with 4-5 years old preschoolers

Abstract

Knowing the student’s technical mistakes in musical teaching can be very helpful for planning beginning instrumental teaching. This is particularly valuable with preschoolers. This study explores this idea by means of an action research design carried out with eleven volunteer students between the ages of four and five. Throughout 30 individual thirty-minute sessions, the professor of a Municipal Music School collected data by means of participant observation, comparing two didactic approaches to beginning violin study. One approach focused on the use of the right hand (MD approach), gradually introducing the employment of the left fingers. The other focused on practice with both hands simultaneously (AM approach). The results demonstrate that differences exist in favour of one or the other, depending on the guidelines in use.