Marnie Thies Violin Lessons

I have been teaching violin since 2004 and give violin lessons in St. Paul (Roseville, North Oaks, Falcon Heights) and Crystal, a suburb of Minneapolis.  Violin lessons for children are available for students five years and older.  I also teach adults.

Some of my violin students have played before and some are completely new to playing the violin.

I am a Suzuki Violin teacher trained in all ten books and have attended the Suzuki Institute at Stevens Point for 15 years.  I have a Masters degree in Violin Performance from DePaul University in Chicago where I studied with Joseph Genualdi and Ilya Kaler.  I was a regular member of Chicago Civic Orchestra, training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony.  My Bachelors degree is from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where I studied with Vartan Manoogian.  As a high school student, I studied with Mary West for 4 years.

I offer continued musical support throughout the week by encouraging my students to send me videos of their playing.  After reviewing student's videos, I offer feedback of their playing.  This accomplishes a few things: It allows me to identify student's strengths and weaknesses.  As a result, I can tailor their lessons accordingly.  Another benefit of a student sending me recordings during the week is that more lesson time may be able to spent working on pieces and covering new topics such as music theory or more advanced violin techniques like vibrato, wiggling of the finger and getting the bow off the string.

Although I'm a Suzuki teacher, I teach music theory in the early stages.  Theory helps a student read music more accurately for the first time.  Reading music for the first time is often referred to as sight reading.  Sight reading is important for learning pieces quickly and is a part of youth orchestra auditions.  Sight reading can often be the deciding factor in orchestra auditions when two players play equally well.  For this reason, I spend time with students in lessons developing their sight reading skills as well as the ability to play by ear.

Playing by ear is a useful skill to have because sheet music is not always available for recorded music.  When a student is able to play by ear, they can better discern between different notes they hear.  This is a valuable skill to have as it helps students to be able to play in tune.  This is why daily listening to Suzuki violin recordings are important which is available on proviolin.com.  When correct notes are heard on the recordings, the notes are internalized and the player can adjust their fingers according to what they remember hearing on the Suzuki violin recordings.  

If you have questions about violin lessons with me, feel free to contact me at proviolin.com and to see how I teach.