Arpeggione Teaching Assistant: Madeleine Pickering  

Madeleine Pickering            Arpeggione Teaching Assistant Bursary

Intermediate Course            April 7 – 11, 2019

Arpeggione is a unique course that focuses solely on viola playing. However, the students are taught about viola playing from a huge variety of different angles. They experience chamber music in various sized viola ensembles, play in a viola orchestra (!), improvise jazz together, improve their technique in daily warm up sessions, and also have opportunities to perform their solo pieces in master classes given by experienced viola players and teachers.

Thanks to ESTA’s Nannie Jamieson Nutshell Fund Bursary sponsored by Hidersine, I was allowed to attend the Intermediate Arpeggione Course 2019 as a student teacher. My main role was to observe everything that went on during the course and gain knowledge and inspiration that I could implement into my own teaching.

The daily warm up sessions, led mostly by the course director, covered technical aspects of viola playing including how to hold the bow, how to use the whole bow, how to play staccato, and how to play with a good vibrato. These are all techniques which are difficult to learn, and that I have found difficult to teach. I have been told about various ways to teach these techniques, but seeing someone teach them to a real life group of children, and watch how the children respond to the teaching methods was more helpful than any lesson on string teaching I have had before.

Each day I also watched the master class that was given by a visiting or resident tutor on the course. Watching these taught me so much about how to problem solve on the spot and how to teach musicality in an interesting way. I was particularly impressed by how the tutors managed to spot a problem in a child’s performance, but approach it from another angle so that the child goes away encouraged, having had a positive and interesting learning experience.

I was also given the chance to do some chamber music coaching myself, which was brilliant experience for me. My own regular teaching doesn’t include a lot of chamber music coaching, and it is something I was quite afraid of before the course. Being shuttled around 7 different chamber groups each morning on Arpeggione more than took that fear away! These chamber sessions allowed me to try out different ideas and methods, and work out what works well for each different age group and level of ability. It also turned out to be a lot of fun!

In the breaks and at the end of each day I was able to ask questions to the course tutors, who were all very generous in answering and giving me advice from their own experiences, that I was able to put into practice on the course, and that I will also put into practice in my own teaching back home. I feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to go on Arpeggione, and learn all that I have done from the course. Thank you ESTA NJNF and Hidersine!