October 22, 2025 Homework Poco Players

ByVicky Bufano

POCO PLAYERS!

Poco: The biggest goal of book one is to learn how to play with good posture (good violin and bow hold) and a good sound. Everything else is a bonus
Listening: Every day 🙂
1) Clapping Game (mississippi hot dog rhythm)
2) Rest and Playing position: No violin.
*make sure the weight is balanced between the 2 feet “Sway like a tree”
*Practice the head turn with the hand on the belly button. The belly button should not move while the head turns to the left
3) Rest and playing position with the violin
-Sing the Rest Position Song
-Playing position: parent should place the violin for now.
Step 1:Feet and head turn should be good before attempting the violin placement.
Step 2: The child should open their chin while keeping the head turned, and the parent will place the violin on the left shoulder.
Step 3: When placed, the parents should tell them to close their head and rest it on the black chin rest.
The jaw should rest on the black chin rest and the head weight should keep the violin in place (test that they can let go of the hands without dropping the violin)
Step 4: Hold for at least 10 seconds, work your way up to being able to listen to a whole Twinkle variation (about 30 sec) over time.
4) Bow Hold: Feel free to use any of the activities we do in class, or create your own!
Bow holds should be assisted by the parents using the method we talked about in class. Some benchmarks to look for:
1) Thumb is bent (dot should be hidden) and on the silver part of the frog
2) Middle finger is right across from the thumb and touchin where the middle finger dot was today
3) Ring finger is right next to the middle finger (touching the dot on the frog)
4) Pinky is curved and on top of the stick (behind the other fingers)
5) Index finger is resting on the stick like cooked spaghetti
Once they are in place, make sure they hold it for at least 10 seconds. They may need you to help them bear the weight of the bow at first while they are developing finger strength
The 100 Bow Holds Prize still stands as well!
5) Dirty Doggy Scrub Scrub
Start with right hand touching elbow, scrub down to the wrist
“dirty doggy scrub scrub
put him in the tub tub
dirty doggy scrub scrub”
6) Shoulder bowing- can be with or without a tube
-make sure bow hold is still good
-start at a square shape, move to triangle
-if this is going well, try to do with dirty dogy scrub scrub or mississippi hot dog
7) Assisted Bowing:
Parent assist student playing on the E string. The student can take a turn every once in a while, but only if they can keep a good bow hold, good violin hold and good rhythm while doing so.
8) E string Concerto: 8 Mississippi hot dogs in a row
SLOW (great for play alongs): Twinkle Mississppi Hot Dog, skip to close to the end for Twinkle Theme

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Theory A: THSO Theory Book One_page 12_Notes

 

 

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