Oona is 6 and she's one of my online pupils. She lives in Edinburgh and, since her brother studies violin, she has always wanted to play it as well. She's a musical child who also loves singing, and she has a nice singing voice and a quick ear.
Oona also has a motor disability : she can't walk independently and she has to use a walker or a weelchair. She wears splints and she also has some issues with her upper limbs, expecially on the right part of her body, and with speaking, due to some muscular tone problems.
Her mum, Eleanor, called me because she was looking for a violin teacher for her child and, since I had just started to teach online during the lockdown, we agreed to try and started with Oona's lessons in June.
Oona's is an incredibily enthusiastic pupils, she's bright and lively and she shows an exceptional internal strength, determination and willingness to learn. She loves to be challenged and she never takes a step back, she always wants to try everything and she's not scared by her own difficulties.
She's open and talkative and she immediately got along well with me and started to tell me lots of things about her life right from the first lesson... in fact sometimes I have to stop her in order to make her play !
Since her main issue was to hold the bow correctly and to move the right arm quickly and with a good control, I started with asking her to play Twinkle Variation A rhythm on E string as many times as possibile in 35". Her baseline was 10 times so I asked her to challenge herself in a "race" I'd had put in a graph to show her her progress. My final goal for her is to repeat it 24 times in 35".
Today she can play it up to 18 times in 35" and she's so proud of this achievement!
Another issue was to keep her pinky in the right place on the stick, so we worked a lot on this goal, and in October her pinky was on the stick almost 100% of the times we evaluated it.
Oona is also a veery serious student, she practices daily as she strongly wants to improve. Her mum takes part in every lesson and practices with her, and her borther supports her too, so these progress are the results of a fantastic team work.
To improve her fingers' independence and dexterity we are using Children's Music Laboratory songs. She's fond of them and, even if I'm translating them in English, shealso wants to learn them in italian!
Here she sings Brush and Comb (Spazzola e Pettine per Fido) by Elena Enrico :
Oona is also working on string crossing from E to A string and on some duets both with me and with Ivory based on Suzuki Book 1 repertoire.
This amazing girl is also a runner, a model and she loves swimming and reading.
If you want to know more about her you can follow her mum's Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/littleredwheelchair) and Instagram profile (Little Red Weelchair).
Oona's next violin's step will be to start playing with left hand fingers. She can't wait for it and I'm sure she will make big progress with this new skill as well.
Her story proves us that when you really want something, nothing can stop you!
Determination and will can make great things happen, so keep going Oona!
