Red Desert Violin Suzuki Book 4 offers inspiring repertoire-driven learning
Digest and Apply!
Book 4 uses familiar, enjoyable repertoire to stretch your ability while also providing a rich opportunity to apply the skills you learned in book 3 and train yourself to execute on auto-pilot. (We piled on the skills in Book 3, now in Book 4, we digest, apply, and habitualize them!)
Repertoire!
You will be learning some of the most beloved pieces from classical violin repertoire. Students look forward to learning these pieces YEARS in advance, and book 4 is a huge arrival point!
Stretch!
You won’t just be in “park” for this class. Your abilities will be challenged and stretched with faster tempi, longer pieces, complex finger patterns, advanced bowing techniques, double stops—all with a spoonful of sugar to help it go down!
Deluxe Book 4 Membership
$US$57/Month for 11 months
- Video-based lessons take you systematically through Suzuki Violin Book 4
- Mini-course “Introducing the Positions” by Harvey Whistler
- Mini-course “Melodious Double Stops” by Josephine Trott
- Playalong videos to practice along with in slow, medium, and fast tempos
- Red Desert Violin’s unique “Practice Coach” optimized your practice time and teaches you HOW to practice
- Access to three new units per month until you finish Suzuki violin book 4
- Watch as often as you like on any device
- Access to your videos for two full years after your final payment!
- FREE downloadable piano accompaniment audio files to keep your practice time sharp (and fun!)
- FREE downloadable recordings (mp3) of Suzuki Book 4 with violin with piano
- FREE printable lesson summaries, scale book, practice plans and supplements support your progress
- Unlimited personal access to Lora and technical support for the duration of this course
- Unlimited interaction with me and other students through the comments section and online forums
- RISK-FREE, 30-day guarantee! You’ll love your lessons or your money back
- ALL for $57 USD per month!
- Your credit card will be billed $57 when you sign up, and every 30 days for a total of 11 months. Cancel any time.
Basic Book 4 Membership
$US$47/Month for 11 months
- Video-based lessons take you systematically through Suzuki Violin Book 4
+Mini-course “Introducing the Positions” by Harvey Whistler(Deluxe course only)+Mini-course “Melodious Double Stops” by Josephine Trott(Deluxe course only)- Playalong videos to practice along with in slow, medium, and fast tempos
- Red Desert Violin’s unique “Practice Coach” optimized your practice time and teaches you HOW to practice
- Access to three new units per month until you finish Suzuki violin book 4
- Watch as often as you like on any device
- Access to your videos for two full years after your final payment!
- FREE downloadable piano accompaniment audio files to keep your practice time sharp (and fun!)
- FREE downloadable recordings (mp3) of Suzuki Book 4 with violin with piano
- FREE printable lesson summaries, scale book, practice plans and supplements support your progress
- Unlimited personal access to Lora and technical support for the duration of this course
- Unlimited interaction with me and other students through the comments section and online forums
- RISK-FREE, 30-day guarantee! You’ll love your lessons or your money back
- ALL for $47 USD per month!
- Your credit card will be billed $47 when you sign up, and every 30 days for a total of 11 months. Cancel any time.
What will you learn in Red Desert Violin’s Suzuki Book 4 class?
Book 4 is where everything comes together for the sake of MUSIC!
Whereas Suzuki Book 3 elevated you from beginner to intermediate violinist. Book 4 will stretch you and help you grow into a mature, musical violinist.
Welcome to the world of the high intermediate violinist! Book 4 includes some core pieces of the mature violin repertoire. These are not student pieces, but actual concert repertoire.
Try not to get lost in the pure joy of playing this awesome music! As you stretch yourself to just play the rhythm, pitches, dynamics, and bowings, you will also be implementing the skills we worked on in Book 3: maintaining constant natural vibrato, beautiful shifting, intelligent bow distribution, expression through tone colors and phrase shaping. Our goal is for these skills to become automatic.
Repertoire is only one piece of the pie! In addition to repertoire, you will be tasked with multiple disciplines, as is the custom in other schools of violin pedagogy.
But it wouldn’t be Red Desert Violin if it didn’t include the unique “Practice Coach” feature, where you learn to practice effectively and efficiently, and in essence learn to become your own teacher.
Specifically, you’ll learn:
- How to practice like a boss: This course teaches you diagnostic, effective, efficient practicing skills. You will create a practice plan for each unit. I will give you guidelines in your printed materials, but you will be the boss. This course has tons of practice coaches throughout, and you are expected to participate, and then turn off the video and practice alone. The course spends a significant amount of time discussing and implementing practice strategies, techniques, and tips.
- Ear training and fingerboard geography: This course combines ear training with fingerboard geography that will merge your brain and fingers into one process that will help you play by ear and improve your memorization skills.
- Introducing the Positions” by Harvey Whistler (Deluxe course only): Although we learned 3rd position in
Book 3, we now unleash the power and organization of Harvey Whistler’s book, which will throw all kinds of surprises and curve balls at you to make sure you are reading with an intelligent knowledge of fingerboard geography. We will refine your shifting for accuracy and beauty. Oh, and we will learn 2nd and a bit of 4th position too. Say what?! (sheet music not provided) - Three octave scale mastery: True to Red Desert’s reputation, we will learn to approach scales using Lora’s ORIGINAL 5-Phase system. This prioritizes intonation, clean playing, tone production,
memorization, fluid playing, complex bow patterns, and intellectual skills into separate phases, helping you to squeeze amazing technical value from your scales and arpeggios. Scale practice is EXCITING!
- “Melodious Double Stops Volume 1” by Josephine Trott (Deluxe course only), will train your eyes and fingers to handle double stops. You will also learn how to dissect and fix problems with double stops. Have you noticed that the COOLEST violin pieces have extensive use of double stops? See where we are headed?! (sheet music not provided)
- How to build on your hard work from Book 1-3: I work diligently with students to help them utilize their vibrato to change colors and play expressively. We continue to work on tone production and intonation.
- We will combine the magic of Fingerboard Geography with Ear Training to strengthen your ability to play by ear, improve your memorization, and learn to choose more artistic fingerings, not just the easiest ones.
- How to memorize pieces efficiently: Have you ever seen a violin soloist use sheet music while performing a concerto? How in the world do they memorize those complex pieces? You’ll learn some proven memorization tactics.
- Become a well informed 360 degree violinist with a nice dose of music history and informative listening assignments to acquaint you with the world of violin repertoire and violinists.
- Develop an instinct for musicality: You will develop your own thought process on shaping phrases, making your performance an expression of YOU, and keeping things interesting.
- Add a sense of breadth and ease to your playing: Have you ever noticed the best violinists make things look so easy? This is something that you can learn, but it is rarely taught!
Plus so much more that I can’t even tell you! Come see for yourself!
Get Suzuki Book 4 – Deluxe
Get Suzuki Book 4 – Basic
What Red Desert Violin Students Are Saying
People just like you are learning to play the violin with my lessons.
First, I’d lake to say “Thank You!”: your video lessons are great for me. I tried previously to start playing violin but unfortunately failed — it was too complicated, too many things at once which should be taken care of simultaneously. And I almost gave up, thinking that in my late forties it ought to remain an unreachable dream. But suddenly, I stumbled across your course, where you building up my skills one by one incrementally. And it just works! Now I’m at unit 9 of your first Suzuki book and I’m really progressing pretty well. So, many-many thanks to you once again!
Lora, I cannot thank you enough for the encouragement and for the specific coaching: BIG differences emerged rapidly once I really made time to do the repertoire review (I had focusing almost exclusively on the new scales and the left-hand exercises, along with Minuet II which seemed nearly impossible). I’m now in Unit 19 with Minuet III (about to move to Unit 20), and again your lessons and program are just so so spot-on: I have been struggling to better my intonation and BAM! Along comes your Unit 19 Practice Coach with the exercise of hitting-the-ringy-notes-blind…which at first I was terrible at, but then *magically,* after two days of direct practice with your method, I got waaaaay better.
Magic, Lora, magic!
I just registered yesterday for the Fiddle course and must tell you how much fun I am having with it. I am an adult learner (turning 50 in a few months) and I’ve been taking Suzuki violin lessons weekly for about 18 months now. I absolutely love fiddle tunes and would someday like to play fiddle in a country band. I’ve looked at this course before, and didn’t sign up because I’ve taken courses online before where I’m trying to learn a “hands on” skill and have gotten discouraged and not completed them, but this course is very different so far (I’m only on the first lesson). I absolutely love the song and your way of teaching is really clear, encouraging and familiar given I’m taking Suzuki Violin lessons. It is a real treat to have the practice tracks to play along with and even a bigger thrill to have the guitar accompaniment. It feels like I’m playing in a real band. I don’t know how far I will get with the course but I’m certainly off to a great start. I think this is a testament to how well organized the material is, how easy and fun you make the lessons and all of the support materials available within easy reach and use.
Skills Taught in this Course
Members of my online violin lessons course featuring Suzuki Book 4 get all of the following:
- 33 lesson units which walk you systematically through the songs and skills in book 4
- Mini-course taking you through Josephine Trott’s “Melodious Double Stops for Violin Vol. 1” (Deluxe membership only)
- Mini-course taking you through Harvey Whistler’s “Introducing the Positions Vol. 1” (Deluxe membership only)
- Mini-course teaching you an incredible wealth of knowledge on how to practice scales
- At least 8 videos per unit, (usually A LOT more) for almost one hundred hours of instruction
- A printable lesson summary and practice guide for each unit to help you make the most of your practice time
- Practice aids you can print and keep beside your music stand
- Printable supplemental materials for unique concepts taught
- Help from me and your colleagues through the comments section of each unit
- Access to your videos for two full years after your final payment (that’s almost 3 years), plus extensions are available if needed
- Unlimited personal access to my help, feedback, and technical support for one full year (renewable)
- Play-along videos where you practice the songs along with me in slow, medium, and fast tempo
- Downloadable audio files of the entire Book 4 repertoire with violin and piano
- Downloadable audio files of piano-only tracks so you can go solo when you’re ready
One of the best things about online violin lessons from Red Desert Violin is that they walk you systematically through each book. We don’t just throw you into a pool of videos and hope you can swim. Here’s how you’ll conquer Suzuki violin book 4:
- Each unit and each lesson builds on the one before it. Your progress is a natural outcome of practice and moving through the lessons in order!
- You are given access to three entire units at a time, which is about 30 videos. Every 30 days or so, the system automatically opens up the next series of videos to you. The units don’t close, so even if you’re not ready for the next batch of lessons, you can still move at your own pace.
- Your card is billed $47 each month for eleven months. Cancel anytime, but if you finish all of the payments, you have access to your videos for two full years after your final payment, (that’s almost 3 years!) plus extensions are available if needed.
- Access your lessons any time you want from your own Red Desert Violin member portal.
- Have personal access to my help and technical support for one full year. (renewable)
- Watch the videos as often as you like, on any device with a fast internet connection.
- Download the audio files to play on the device of your choice.
- Join the online student forum on Facebook for live interaction with people just like you!
- Am I ready for Suzuki book 4? Before you take the class, I recommend that you have:
- Some proficiency in reading music. (I have a “Learn to Read Music” course if you need to brush up.)
- A grasp of how to do vibrato. (I will help you implement it in your playing, but you need a foundation. I have a violin vibrato course if you need to learn this first.)
- A good understanding of the basics of tone production and intonation
- It will help if you have started 3rd position, but if not, you can catch up
- A good start on bow techniques such as spiccato, detache’, portato, and legato
- My Suzuki Book 3 class is an excellent preparation for Suzuki Book 4
- If I sign up for Basic, can I change to Deluxe later? Yes and no. You may purchase the mini-courses on Trott double stops and Introducing the Positions at a later time for $99 each. By signing up for the Deluxe membership, you will save about $88 overall.
- Can online lessons really be that good? If you have an in-person teacher you really like, then that is certainly the best route. But I have worked very hard to make sure these online lessons are the best they can be. If you follow my system, I guarantee you’ll be satisfied with your lessons experience.
- Don’t I need contact with a live teacher? Yes! And I work very hard to shrink the distance between us. You can reach out to me anytime for the first year through the comments section and through other channels. After the first year, you can purchase an extension to continue getting personal attention. I’ll always be there to answer questions personally and give support and encouragement.
- What if I get started and it’s too hard for me, or too easy? Simply let me know. I can help place you in a lower book if this one is too hard for you. If it’s too easy for you, may cancel your membership with no hard feelings!
- Do I need to know how to read music? Yes. My book 2 course gave thorough and complete instruction on reading music. While the Suzuki philosophy emphasizes learning by ear, we are now at a level where we must learn etudes and exercises that are no longer feasible to learn by ear.
- After book 1 and 2 do I still need to stick with Suzuki? Yes because Suzuki philosophy constantly reinforces what you learned in books 1 and 2, so it’s best to stick with the approach. In addition, as you start to learn musicality and expression, the Suzuki philosophy helps you acquire these skills more easily than you can with a traditional method.
- How long will I have access to my lessons? You will have access to all of the lessons for two full years AFTER your final payment, if you finish all eleven payments. After that, you can purchase affordable extended access for as long as you want.
- How quickly can I get through book 4? The class is timed to take you about eleven months. If you need to take longer, go ahead. Everyone goes at their own pace and your pace is okay. If you would like to go faster, I do not recommend it, but can be arranged.
- Do I have to buy the book? Yes. You will need the 2008 revised Suzuki Violin Book 4, “Introducing the Positions Volume 1” by Harvey Whistler, and “Melodious Double Stops for Violin Volume 1” by Josephine Trott. Think of it as building your library.
Unique Features of Red Desert’s Suzuki Book 4
Skills and Materials Required With This Course
Note: “Introducing the Positions” by Harvey Whistler and “Melodious Double Stops” by Josephine Trott are only required with a deluxe membership.
