No strings attached: All Ursuline 3rd & 4th graders learn how to play the violin

Above, at far right: Lulu Reeks, the strings instructor at Ursuline Academy, leads her third graders in a recent concert at Sunrise of Metairie Assisted Living. (Photo by Beth Donze; more photos – including vintage images of Ursuline students with their instruments – can be found on the Clarion Herald’s Facebook page)

By BETH DONZE
Clarion Herald

The instrument widely perceived as one of the more difficult to put into the hands of a child was being played flawlessly by Ursuline’s third-grade class at a recent service outing.

Last month, in anticipation of the Jan. 27 feast day of school patroness St. Angela Merici, the youngsters went to Sunrise of Metairie Assisted Living to entertain residents with a soothing repertoire of violin pieces that included “Clair de Lune” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
 
Their skilled performance, conducted by Ursuline’s strings instructor and veteran violinist Lulu Reeks, is part of a curricular focus in string instruments that stretches back to the 1800s at Ursuline. In third and fourth grade, every student is given her own school-issued violin for the school year for a weekly, 50-minute violin class in addition to their weekly class in general music.

“When you play violin you feel like you’re floating away to the sky. It just whisks you away!” gushed third grader Kendall Cawthorne. “Ursuline is the bomb! I love how they teach you how to do so much stuff!”

Step-by-step learning

By the time they finish third grade, Ursuline students can play about 10 simple songs on the violin, Reeks said.

“The first couple of weeks we go over the do’s and don’ts of the violin – for example, don’t turn the pegs or touch the horse hair on the bow,” she said. “After that, we learn the violin’s anatomy – so they can know what I mean when I say, ‘Place your bow under the fingerboard above the bridge and make a straight line with it from one F hole to the other.’”

They subsequently learn proper holding and playing positions, she said.

“Once they learn to balance their instrument on their shoulder and can play the open strings pizzicato, then they are ready to learn to hold the bow,” Reeks said. “Once they can hold the bow, they start learning how to place their fingers on the fingerboard to produce new notes. I incorporate the Suzuki method with other methods and my own compositions as well. As soon as they can play just a few notes, they are making music and getting hooked!”

Solid practice instruments

Students pay a small fee to cover rental and maintenance of Ursuline’s stock of 160 violins of various sizes, the majority of them made by the respected Romanian company Franz Hoffmann. Although a violin can last for centuries and “sound amazing,” it inevitably will need new strings, a new bridge, a new case and its bow rehaired, Reeks said.

“There are some very cheap violins you can get at Amazon now for $40, but they sound horrible. The instruments we have can produce a tone that makes the students want to keep playing!” she said.

Strong musical tradition

Music has always been a vital part of the curriculum at 1727-established Ursuline, especially after the Spanish assumed control of Louisiana in the early 1760s – a change that prompted an influx of orchestras and music ensembles. String orchestras and violin classes were taught at Ursuline from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, dwindling over the subsequent decades due to wars and economics.

In the 1980s, Dean Angeles, who went on to conduct Loyola’s orchestra, “breathed fresh air into the string program and made it what we have today,” Reeks said. Other past leaders of the program were Marta Jurjevich, now orchestra director at the city’s Willow School; Stanis de Montredon; and Dr. Kent Jensen, a cellist in the LPO who also conducts an ensemble in the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestras.

The baton was passed to Reeks, a Suzuki-certified teacher, in 2017.

“In the 1980s and ’90s (Ursuline) tried starting students on violin as early as first and second grade but realized students didn’t have the motor skills or focus it takes to learn violin in a group setting,” Reeks said.

Ursuline follows national standards for music education in its curriculum and lesson planning. The school’s babies do lots of learning through music – the days of the week, months of the year, counting, the alphabet, etc. – while early childhood students dance and sing in their music and art classes.

Music students in kindergarten through second grade engage in structured learning, including ear and rhythm training, with Sign Language sometimes added to the pieces they are working on. Beginner-level solfège – “do-re-mi” scales and sight-reading – is begun in first and second grade.

“After COVID, we did away with recorders and focused on an Orff general music classroom setting,” said Reeks, noting that students play on percussion instruments, xylophones, metallophones and hand bells.

In fifth grade, once students can read music and have had a taste of both Orff and the violin, they must choose whether they will continue in general music or strings, Reeks said.

“They have the option of continuing to refine their violin skills or learning other instruments in the string family, such as viola, cello and bass,” she explained. “It continues to be a mandatory part of the curriculum to be in either orchestra or general music in fifth through seventh grades. Once students reach high school, orchestra becomes an elective.”

Performance opportunities include audition- and non-audition-based choirs, private piano lessons (high school level), a hand bell choir and the campus’ annual Bach competition, which now welcomes string players and ensembles in addition to its traditional focus on pianists.

“It’s held during Bach’s birthday, and musicians of all ages from all over can come compete,” Reeks said. “The only rule is it has to be the music of Bach!”

Benefits galore

Reeks, who began studying violin herself at age 9, said music provides a break from computers and teaches the valuable lesson that  “practice makes progress.”

“No one sounds good on the violin in the beginning, but by the end of the school year they start developing a strong tone and confidence to perform,” she said. “It teaches students to work together. In their other classes, some kids take pride in finishing their work first and surpassing their classmates to brag about it. You can’t do that in an orchestra! No one ‘wins’ if some kids can play the music faster than others. It sounds like chaos unless we listen to each other and play together. It teaches kids that it’s not always their time to shine. Sometimes, they have to play softer to let other sections of the orchestra have their moment. It teaches (them) the beauty of taking turns.”

In addition to seasonal concerts, Ursuline’s violinists play at school Masses and tie their repertoires to different observances. For example, Masses this month are focusing on Black composers (for Black History Month) and on female composers in March (for Women’s History Month). During National Hispanic Heritage Month in September and October, all Mass music is sung in Spanish and draws from music commonly played at Masses in Latin America.

“Before Mardi Gras, our fifth graders always play a gratitude concert (featuring Carnival music and a Second Line) for the staff members who cook their meals every day, the cleaning staff who keep our school beautiful and the security guards who keep us safe,” Reeks said.

Ursuline’s violinists present concerts that tie in with what the babies and pre-K students are learning, while sixth and seventh graders recently got to play with the LPO. Next year, Reeks hopes to set up performances in the Children’s Tent at Jazz Fest and at the Louisiana Children’s Museum.

Enthusiastic players
 
“They are very competitive and love playing music with their friends,” Reeks said. “They learn that this is not instant gratification. Musicians work hard to get good results.”

Third grader Belen Nehrbass likes playing songs she has sung forever – such as “This Little Light of Mine” – but can now playon the violin.

“When you first put a violin on your shoulder it can kind of hurt, because you don’t know how to hold it,” Belen said. “It’s a really pretty instrument, and I like playing it for my family. We get to take it home.”

Third grader Samantha Hernandez said she loves watching professional violinists perform.

“It’s been my dream to perform in an orchestra,” said Samantha, who has played the piano since kindergarten and hopes to take cello – her “second-place string instrument” – when she gets to fifth grade.

“The hardest part is playing the right notes when you’re doing the fast-tempo music,” Samantha said. “But the most important thing you need to know about the violin is to make sure you tune it.”

[email protected]