Swinging Strings Violin Teaching Project Completes Year 1 With Performance

Information note for parents;
The in school violin  programme has concluded for this academic year.   We are very pleased with the students' progress over the course of the programme .  It is proposed to offer an after school orchestra programme next year for students who would like to pursue study of a stringed instrument further and  details will be available shortly. There are many good local instrumental tuition providers available locally and I will be issuing a guide to what is available in the next few weeks.

Should you wish to purchase an instrument, I recommend the Stentor Student 1 available from local supplier Custy's Music Store , Most students will be ready for a 3/4  size at this stage  with taller students ready for a full size instrument. Mention you are a student of the programme.

I wish to acknowledge the  excellent work of  Fiona de Buitleir in coordinating this project, Ray McInerney and Tom Glynn for their support and encouragement.   The enthusiasm with which teachers Dara Blake, Liz Spring , Eamonn Corry  and support staff Deirdre Larkin engaged in the project was crucial to engendering similar enthusiasm in their students. I enjoyed working with the students and their teachers very much and look forward to the next stage.

Sincere thanks to you all .


Cathy Desmond  BA HDip LTCL
Director Stringschool   email cdstringschool@gmail.com

Swinging Strings Debut performance at Ennis NS Hall

4th class perform Foxtrot from Little Suite by Peter Martin  at debut concert .  Director Cathy Desmond  Backing Track prepared by Michael Hennessy

Bond with a Classical Twist

We started today  with finger warm ups , some Left Hand  pizzicato and strumming .
After some revision of open string tunes , it was on to first finger down on D string to revise  new note E . Ms Spring's class and Mr Blake's class went on to put 1  23  down on  D string . We had some fun with Old MacDonald .  We split into Blue and Brown squares and took turns to play and sing .
Mr Corry's class took the next step in bowing , non stop quavers .  No stopping ye now!
We played a game with  musical  cards . Here is a sample of four . Tempo;  Arco : Pizz. : Waltz
( Play with bow)  (Speed of music  )  (Pluck string ) (Dance  in 3 time)

Well done to our  leaders  today Maeve,  Leah and Patrick  who lead our ensembles today.     Ms Spring's students   Cadhla  and Sarah  were highly  commended for effort today. A special thank you to  Shauna , Aoife and Leah  for acting as practice mentors this week.  Great. Well done girls .  Ye did a great job!
Check out our two new clips. Vladimir Jablokov  who sends his best wishes to Swinging Strings  following his brilliant gig at Dolan's Limerick plays his  Bond/Mozart mix  on the LateLate Show and  a clip from the movie  by composer James Barry

Quiz next week on the website clips .
 Some questions

1 In one word describe  how Vladimir Jablokov is using his bow at the opening. 

 What instrument from the wind family also features in the clip?

2 Now You Has Jazz Clip 1 How many instruments can you identify  in the clip ?

3. Complete  the sentence  The Jaws theme is based on a   S_  __ _  _ _ _ _

4 What is a Toreador . The Toreadors song come from the opera    __ _ _ _ _ _

5 In The   Kerry Dances with fiddle players Stephane Grapelli and Frankie Gavin ;
  Describe how the tempo changes when the second fiddle  player Frankie Gavin  joins in .  _____________________________________________________
    _ _ _ _ _______ _____________________________________

Swinging Strings Ennis Trad Festival week

Ms Desmond and assistants  in  her Custy's T Shirt

Week 7 : Well done everyone , the class filed in and took their places very quickly and after our bow we practiced placing our violins in playing and rest position quickly without making a sound .  The class are really good at this now.   We raced through some of our repertoire from the last few weeks . We practised Vivaldi in G and used the same rhythm  for O Come All Ye Faithful.  It worked really well. 

We did two new things today .We did some left hand strumming playing all four strings like a guitar with our left finger 3 .   We jazzed things up with a new backing track for This is E putting our first fingers down firmly on our D strings.   Remember you have to press firmly to get a good sound . We finished with our down up Down Up  Rock You riff  to Jingle Bells .   

Thanks to Custy's Music shop for their donation to our instrument bank and for their designer teeshirt which I wore today .

Check out our youtube clip of trad fiddler Frankie Gavin  and jazz fiddler Stephane Grapelli?

 Can you remember what instruments used in traditional music were on my tee shirt ?

Is new note  low  E on a line or a space  ?  Counting from the bottom , which one?

Can you name all 4 members of the string family . Which member is found  in jazz bands . ( Hint : there is a picture in your music book of a jazz band)

Which one features most in Irish traditional music ?


Mentors and students dont forget Friday is official  practice day

Swinging Strings at Ennis National School Week 3

Swinging Strings at Ennis National School Week 3
It was a very important day today as we learned how to hold our bows. We played shadow bowing to Down Up to Queen’s We Will Rock You

We listened to the March of the Toreadors from the opera Carmen by Bizet and the we played along to the music using our D and A strings. We learned how to play pizzicato quavers to Old Mac Donald

Mr McInerney popped in to hear Mr Blake’s class and said they sounded terrific.

Bravo tutti!