Hi All,
My husband and I have been struggling with my son and his violin lessons. He’s okay with the lessons, actually it is a small step up from tolerating it, but he refuses to touch the violin at home. I (we) really think it will be a good instrument for him to begin his musical education with. Given his age and attention span, his teacher gives him about 7-10 minutes of violin training and 5 minutes of piano once a week.
Tonite we came up with the idea (kicking ourselves for not thinking of such an obvious idea before!) and wondered if we could find some DVDs of violinists playing. Immediately I thought of Nuttin But Strings, but questioned the lyrical content of some of their music. Then I thought of the Corrs, but also don’t know enough of their music.
I want my son to see people happily playing music - not a teaching DVD. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you in advance!
I don’t know about DVD, but you can get some awesome video clips on youtube to watch.
My daughter got really inspired about singing and music after we made a habit of watching young talented children playing different instruments.
Here is out favorite violinist:
Akim Camara, just search on youtube, here are some of the links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN2SQ4m7M04 – I think it is his first big performance at the age 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DreyVZ49_mA&feature=related – this is beautiful and fun, dance of the fairies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnGrrs6Nvus&feature=related --Richard Clayderman & Akim Camara - Ave Mari
Hope it helps! Good lack with your music lessons, looking forward to hear more on your son’s progress!
What a cutie! Love those videos!
Be cautious with ZinZin Violin. I only watched the first 5 mins or so but I won’t let my son watch it because the kids in the violin choir are holding the violins completely wrong. It makes me want to scream to be honest LOL. It wold be different if they were 2 or 3 years old, but these children are much older. To be honest it looks like they took a bunch of random children and said, “Ok pretend to play the violin for the cameras!”
Just get some good DVDs of soloists/orchestras that you might like, for him to watch. My 2yo in particular LOVES to watch a DVD we have of Itzhak Perlman with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He also likes watching the Gil Shaham DVD. We also have some ballet DVDs - he likes the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker the best.
Thank you for your suggestions! I’m open to any ideas!
Teaching my Toddlers & Waterdreamer - thanks for the suggestion and heads up on Zin, Zin
Skylark - thank you for the YouTube links. I’m sure they’ll be come favourites of ours, too!
Karmie - great suggestions - would you mind PMing me with the official titles of DVDs you’re recommending?
Do any of you have experience with the Corrs? I’ve only seen random videos of them (YouTube) but haven’t seen enough of them to know what types of songs (lyrics) they have.
Oh, another thing that I Just remembered, my daughter loved watching some of the Celtic Woman performances, and they had some beautiful violin solos there as well. I am not very familiar with Celtic Woman, but my MIL loves them and always had my daughter watching some with her 
I found them good for her learning harmonies and unusual musical arrangements of songs she heard before, which is good for her musical ear. But also they have some neat violin solos there a I mentioned. I think you can find some of them on youtube as well. Hope it helps.
Another one I would recommend – some Yani performances. In general they are focusing on different musical instruments, and different ones take solo roles, but if you search you can also find a longer pieces featuring violins. They are beautiful, fun and outstanding.
Hope these help!
Skylark - thanks for the extra tips
Waterdreamer - we watched Wesley’s “performance” twice, then two of little Akim. When walking away from the computer his only two comments were: “Dat was nice of Wesley to send his movie. It sounded nice.” And, in reference to Akim, “Dat was a neat water trick.” Maybe I should just have you record and send more videos of your son!
Kizudo- Oh that’s so sweet. Wesley would be happy to record the other “song” he knows. LOL but we are very limited right now with material. Your son and my son need to get together one day this summer.
This is so sweet, melt my heart!
