Tim Rohwer: Composer

While continuing to develop the skill acquisition pyramid I developed in 2014 ( read the article ), I've been expanding out my knowledge while teaching students about how to learn more effectively and practice more efficiently.  My goal is to take the things I've learned and turn them into a video series on YouTube to help anyone wanting to play an instrument. The first video is now up on YouTube, and I'm so very excited to share what I've learned about becoming a better musician through effective practicing!  Check out the video now:

Since taking over a small private orchestra program for youth, I've expanded the repertoire and the original philosophy.  I'm excited to announce that this coming school year I'll be launching the class with this updated philosophy and with a new name:  the Da CAPO Youth Program.  This stands for the "Collaborative Artist's Progressive Orchestra."  The overall philosophy is to collaborate together to create better music and better artistic experiences. You can check out the new Da CAPO page at the following address: Da CAPO Resources Wix Page You can also check out the resources for the class at the following address: Da CAPO Resources Blog Page (Most Updated) I'm very excited for the changes that are coming this school year!  More chances to work with local music students and art students in general, as well as professional musicians, dancers, etc.  We'll be starting an program branch in Bountiful when we receive enough enrollment in the cl...

One of my hobbies is computer programming.  One of the things I love about programming is the problem-solving process involved with making a program work correctly.  I started trying to figure out programming in High School and finally made a working game about 2-3 years later.  Each time I would go through the debugging process, I could eventually figure out something that would make the program work a little better.  Sometimes it was an easy fix such as to change where I put certain bits of code.  Sometimes it would take longer, completely reworking the code.  But even if it was frustrating, it was very logical, and if I kept at it I could come up with a solution. I have recently started trying to incorporate that logical approach into my own playing.  I realized that I treated playing music more as an artist:  thinking of it as a magical thing when I got a piece learned and was able to perform it well.  In teaching music, I've been findi...

 A quick update to the blog:  I'm beginning to put together a bunch of little supplemental songs to help young beginning students with note reading and technique skills.  They are going to have silly titles and will address one or two technique or note reading issues at a time to help offset some of the basic problems I've been finding come up with students as they try to learn violin.  The supplemental songs page is still under development, but we be available through my education page  (currently just for Violin , but eventually other instruments as well) so these resources can start to be used by students right away. They are designed to be bigger in size to make it easier to read, and are going to have little accompaniment files to go with them so the student can hear the melody and play along.  These resources will eventually be published in a booklet, but for now I am making them available up here for free so that I can get some feedback from ...

I've recently been debating with myself what defines the best teachers and the most successful teachers.  While I have been an a quest to get better as a music teacher, I keep seeing much success with my current studio.  I'm grateful for the job and for the number of students I've had, and I appreciate earning the income for my family.  I also find myself confused at the success, as I know that the other violin teachers have more experience and better credentials.  Not to say that the other teachers aren't successful, but I have been confused about the great success that I have had despite the lack that I have in some areas. Thinking about this, I came to realize that I love what I do.  I love music, I love playing, and I love the students that came in.  I get excited about teaching different ideas and concepts and about playing music.  When we talk about music, I'll often be saying things like:  "Mozart is awesome!" or "Isn't shifting so cool!...

In the midst of starting to get lots of students again, and taking care of young kids, and general life craziness, I've managed to get a few of the videos for the 14 week music theory course.  Two of the first week videos are now finished, and a couple more should be done pretty soon.  Here is the 1st video: The example videos are in the comments for this video.  Some more videos to come soon will be more about the structure of the class generally, but then we'll start delving into more of the theory elements, and about the composition assignments that will help understand the theory that we talk about. The goal of the course is to be able to write some simple songs with harmony, so if you're interested in writing, follow along with the videos, and let me know what you come up with.  Also, let me know any thoughts you have on this video and any others we post, as this is going to be a completely new course and curriculum.  :)

I've been working at the Utah Conservatory to put together a music theory class that is designed to help kids use theory right away in making compositions.  More updates on this as they come along, but part of my intention is to make many of the resources available online for the students to use.  My goal is to start anyone out with note reading and build up from their so that anyone who has sang or played an instrument can start to learn the theory that will allow them to write some basic and simple songs.  It's a lofty goal, and I think it is one that will help me refine the class structure. More updates on this class as they come.

One of my professors (Dr. Ted Ashton) used to refer to ways to teach concepts as your "bag of tricks."  As you would teach more, you would continue to develop this "bag of tricks" so that in many different situations you would be able to teach lots of concepts in many different ways.  In addition to coming up with your own bag of tricks, it can be really useful to find out the ways other teachers teach the same concepts.  This especially useful since students will all think in a variety of ways, and it may be that the way one teacher teaches a concept is easier for one student to understand than the way you teach it. I'd like to start sharing some of my "bag of tricks," as I've begun to find some very effective ways of teaching certain concepts.  Today I wanted to focus on some approaches I've had to teaching scales to beginning students.  Some of this may take longer than a lesson to discuss with a student, and I find that sometimes we have...

I have been putting together some arrangements for my students in the Summer, and for the orchestra class I've put together a string quartet arrangement of The Infernal Galop, commonly known as the Can-Can, by Offenbach.  All of the parts are put together, and we should be playing it for summer time.  I also put together a recording of it so that my students can have something that they can listen to in preparation, and here it is: The Infernal Galop (Can-Can) by Jacques Offenbach As I put together more arrangements I hope to keep putting recordings and eventually make the parts and scores available to by for any string teachers who might be interested.  Other arrangements soon to be put up here: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Garland Waltz, also by Tchaikovsky (I have a student who loves Tchaikovsky) I also put together a violin solo with piano accompaniment of the Garland Waltz that is a little longer than the string quartet arrang...

I've recently been using a technique for teaching whole steps and half-steps with my students that I feel has been pretty effective, and I wanted to share what I do.  I mention this to my violin students after they have been playing for a little while.  I have students start with a simple tetrachord pattern (what I call the mini scale) on just one string, and from there we progress to a D major scale on the D and A strings.  When they are starting to play on more than their D and A string, I introduce them to the fact that they can do a bigger scale on their whole instrument.  At this point, I mention half steps and whole steps. I start by having students listen to the difference between half-steps and whole steps.  I currently have a piano in my teaching studio, and so I'll play them the a half-step lower down on the piano, and tell them how it is like the "Jaws" theme. I then show them the contrasting sound of a whole step and mention how in music we ha...

For those who are not as familiar with violin repertoire, there is a book of etudes for beginners written by Franz Wohlfahrt.  These are quite famous in the string world, although some students might consider them infamous.  I had been resistant to use them when I first started teaching since most students I assigned them to wouldn't practice them anyways.  I have recently started to be more insistent that they spend time with them, to the point where we may spend half a lesson on just a Wohlfahrt etude.  A colleague of mine who teaches piano has a similar set of etudes that he uses, and which many students may peg in the "infamous" category:  the Hanon book (etudes by Charles-Louise Hanon). As I mentioned in the discussion on acquiring new skills and my Skill Acquisition Hierarchy , technique - the "how you do it" of any skill - is the foundation you build upon before you can become a true artist or even just get better at anything.  Since this is the c...

After taking a break from writing (both new compositions and for the blog) to focus on teaching a large group of students, my schedule should hopefully get to a point where I can start to add both to the articles here and also finish up and create new compositions.  I'm hoping to also start sharing some insights from teaching, and some of the resources I've been creating for my students. If all goes well, here are some things soon to come: -An article on a principle I'm calling the "patience threshold." -Arrangements for orchestra groups of some classical pieces -More sight reading exercises -More progress on previous compositions -New Warm-Up compositions exercises

I've recently updated my music education section with sight reading exercises for Violin.  I use these pretty regularly with students who are on the point of being able to read notes to start them out with some very short and simple things to play to help them read lots of the same notes over and over again. These pages, in conjunction with the All for Strings books by Gerald Anderson and Robert Frost, have been a great way to help beginning students with their note reading skills. They're still a work in progress, and the eventual goal will be to get them to the point where they can be stuck in a book for beginning students to use as daily warm-ups for note reading.  The pdf's on this sight are still in their early stages and need some refinement, but you can feel free to use them as you wish.  All of these resources will eventually also be made for use with Viola and Cello in the near future.  Here is the Link:   Educational Resources for Violin The orga...

After getting a bit of time to finish up a long term project I've been working on, I was able to complete work on a method book for violin.  This first edition still needs some tweaking, but it is now loaded up on Lulu.com for printing. Here is the link: After a few crazy months getting things situated to move, there will be some new updates with projects that I've put together at 5-7am before my little boy is awake.  Some things to look forward to:  a new arrangement of "Come Follow Me" for violin and children's choir with piano accompaniment, some new small compositions, some updates in the education section with thoughts and with new free resources, and more.

The player from Open Drive that I've been using for my blog has encountered some problems with iPad, iPod, iPhone, and other Apple type devices.  The Canon in D now has a link to stream the music directly.  See the  Viola  section under Educational Resources.  I've tested it out on an apple device, and it is up and running. If for some reason it is not working on your own device and you would like to listen to something in particular, leave a message for me, and I'll figure out how to get it working or how to get you the file.  :)

A new accompaniment has been added to the Educational Resources of the blog.  It is an accompaniment of Canon in D transcribed for Viola.  Check it out in the Viola section of the Educational Resources.

I've been talking to my students for a while about my pyramid of learning skills and wanted to share some of the insights I've gleaned as to how people learn how to do stuff, more particularly as it applies to the arts. These are kind of the rambling thoughts I've had on the subject, and might be a little scattered still a the moment as I am still developing the ideas that are here. As I got finished teaching a few students one day, I realized that their pattern of learning followed a certain path, and that that same path was the same for me as I was beginning to learn how to play, and it has continued since then down that same path.  With these insights, I started to formulate a model for how people not only learn how to play music, but how they learn to a number of different skills.  What I came up with was this: Learning a new skill first involves the basic technique of how to do it.  For musicians, this involves the functions of holding an instrument and m...

After working with the BYU-Idaho Help Desk, we got our computer back up and running, and I have now put some of the promised free resources on to the blog. In addition, I have created the first edition of a Viola and a Violin Scale Exercise book which are now available at a discounted rate for purchase through lulu.com! Violin Scale Exercise Book 2 Viola Scale Exercise Book 2 Some of the additions:  more scale and arpeggio stuff and more songs for the Violin section.  There are some sight reading exercises (pre-cursors to what will eventually be a sight-reading book), Frere Jacques, and my child-friendly "What Would You Do With a Tired Sailor?" (What would you do with a tired sailor?  Put him in the long-boat until he's woken.)  There's also a worksheet section which will probably expand soon, but we'll see if I have time to do it. In addition, I'm starting to build up a few things on the Viola section.  A few songs, etc.  Most of my students h...

I've spent some time updating the education section of my blog, and will soon be putting up a lot of different resources, some for my private students, but generally free to use for the public.  Here's the link to this updated new section:   Educational Materials . I had a new student start taking lessons a little bit ago, and she was a little bit older and more able to use technology, and I thought about putting up some scales and other things that she could download and use so she wouldn't need to go out and buy a scale book or other things.  I realized that this could be a useful resource to put up for all of my students and for other teachers and their students also.  I started changing and moving things around on my blog to get the new pages set up, and I now I have the beginnings of my education section. Some things that will be included: -A section on each page for free resources that I have created for use with my students -Other extremely use...