Present on the Call: Andrea Cannon, Joe Pecoraro, MaryLou Roberts, Seth Himmelhoch, Bill Kossler

Absent: Mychal Gendron, Andrew LaFreniere, David Madsen

Connected at 6:52pm

Call ended at 8:12pm

Agenda Items

  1. International Conference in Matsumoto
  2. Revisions
  3. Have the SAAGC on the SAA as a Discussion Board Item
  4. Book 1 Dynamics

1. International Conference in Matsumoto

  1. Zeah Reardon is taking a group of her students to perform. Shun, who lived in the US but has moved back to Japan, is going, as well as a Japanese piano teacher who is interested in guitar and asked Zeah to bring the volumes and CD’s since she cannot find them in Japan.

  2. Zeah has also compiled a folio of information about Suzuki Guitar to present to one of the ISA Officials in Japan. Hopefully, these articles, photos and videos will spread the news and create interest about our Instrument.

2. Revisions

  1. The Revisions discussion began with the suggestion that we treat the appearance of dynamics the same way we plan to do the fingerings.

  2. The Committee agreed on the last meeting to include a default set of fingerings to reinforce core principles, but also left room for teachers to be free to decide.

  3. New discussion considered the questions

    1. to what extent are the fingerings for the parent, teacher, or child?
    2. does having more fingerings discourage the student and parent from listening to the CD to learn the notes
    3. does having more fingerings encourage use of finger numbers w/ the child?

  4. Another concept discussed is whether the absence of 3 on the D would leave it too unclear that we are attempting to establish the centering the Left Hand around the 3rd finger? Some teachers might take it as being acceptable to begin with the 4th finger on D.

  5. The decision was made to use fingerings on introductory phrase and key places afterward. No fingers on repeated notes.

  6. So, Variation A – leave as it is now. Variations B, C, D, E would have no LH indications. The Theme will strike all repetitive fingerings.

  7. The Tonalization in G will stay as is in terms of LH fingerings.

  8. The discussion around Lightly Row revealed three ways of thinking among members present:

    1. CONCEPT 1 favors using very minimal fingerings. Our text would indicate only the new featured items for each piece. Only marking the obvious, ‘mission-critical’ fingerings. This keeps the text very minimal and does not give a feeling of the book looking ‘cluttered’ or like a do-it-yourself book. Include only the minimal reasonable fingerings that make it crystal clear what the fingering or the intention is of what we are trying to do. [EXAMPLE: Lightly Row would not need any fingerings indicated as all notes are the same as when they were played in the Twinkle Variations ]

    2. CONCEPT 2 suggests that in addition to the ‘mission critical’ fingerings, each piece needs at least the first note or possibly phrase. Perhaps only the first note of each line needs to be there, but no note needed when note is repeated. [EXAMPLE: Lightly Row would have fingerings for at least the first two notes.]

    3. CONCEPT 3 suggests that in addition to the ‘mission critical’ fingerings, we indicate the first note of each line. Then the parents/students figure out the rest by ear. [EXAMPLE: Lightly Row would need fingerings indicated for the first note of measure 1, 5, 9 & 13.]

    1. Seth, Bill and Joe will write the rationale statements representing the three camps of fingerings and put them in Drop Box in a new folder titled: “LH Fingering Rationale”

3. Have the SAAGC on the SAA as a Discussion Board Item

The Committee felt this was too general a forum for our needs, however, MaryLou explained that it could be private. In that case everyone agreed that she could ask Jenny to set it up and put a test thread in it and see how we like it.

4. Book 1 Dynamics

Tabled until the fingering concepts are decided.