Summer School 2019: Sharon Griffiths

ESTA Summer School 2019 Report

Sharon Griffiths

I am very grateful to the ESTA Nannie Jamieson Nutshell Fund Bursary sponsored by Pirastro for enabling me to attend the ESTA summer school. This was the second time that I have attended the summer school and, just like last year, I came away inspired and full of new ideas. In fact, it is only when you return home and review your notes, that you realise how many ideas you have been exposed to and everything that you want to try out. I find myself super excited to incorporate my learning into my lessons.

For me, the stand out sessions were the absolutely wonderful Paul Rolland Basics sessions delivered by Joanne May and Joanne Erwin. I couldn’t get enough of them! I already use some of Paul Rolland’s ideas in my lessons but everything made so much more sense once Joanne explained and demonstrated them. I shall be tweaking how I use the familiar concepts and including many more. Everything focuses on teaching students to be relaxed whilst playing. I especially enjoyed the talk on teaching vibrato and I shall adapt my teaching to use this approach.

Using bi-lateral movement whilst playing was very interesting. In Joanne’s first session, it seemed incredibly complicated to move in the correct direction but by the end of the week we were all doing this, almost without thinking about it, and it felt completely natural.

Mark O’Connor is an incredible musician and it was a privilege to meet him. I look forward to trying out some of his suggestions on how to use a single piece of music in many different ways to promote creativity. These included varying rhythm, section order, adding chords or double stops and improvising around the basic melody. The possibilities are endless and I hope that they will encourage both me and my students to think and play imaginatively.

Continuing with the theme of improvisation, my eyes were opened to the world of electric violins, looping and effects. This was new and exciting to me. I have come away desperate to try this out with students. I hope that I will be the owner of an electric violin by the time this review is published!

There were many other useful sessions. Paul Harris gave us lots of practical advice for getting the best out of pupils and Sarah Upjohn gave an informative session on injury prevention – something we all need to be very aware of.

The evening concerts were a complete joy; each one being entirely different to the others.

Finally, a massive thank you to Sheila, Julia and Nataly to all their efforts beforehand and throughout the week. It is very much appreciated.

Thank you again and I look forward to attending future summer schools.