Nurture Each Student As They Are: An Interview with Violinist Kristina Turner

This week we are talking to violinist, music teacher, and parent Kristina Turner. From her website: Kristina Turner grew up in Bellingham, Washington. She attended Eastern Washington University and studied Violin with Kelly Farris while performing in the EWU Symphony Orchestra and Gonzaga University Symphony. Kristina transferred back home to finish her Bachelor of Arts in Music at Western Washington University, studying Violin with Walter Schwede and continuing to perform in Symphony, Chamber, and New Music Ensembles. Kristina was a member of the Whatcom (now Bellingham) Symphony Orchestra from 2007 until 2019.

Kristina Turner taught in Bellingham from 2003 until 2019 when she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. She is a registered and active teacher with the Suzuki Association of the Americas.

In this episode of the Time to Practice podcast, we talk about what drew Kristina to teaching, what she learned about practicing the hard way, and the lessons she’s learned from practicing music with her son.

To Listen to the full episode you can find the Time to Practice Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also listen directly from the link below: 

Highlights Include:

“I didn’t plan on being a teacher. I was first asked during kind of a dark period by my nephew and a neighbor. And they asked me for violin lessons and I told them, “find a real teacher, I don’t know how to teach.” And they were persistent. So then the next thing I knew I had six students. Then I figured I’d probably better join one of the local symphonies so that I was playing with someone over the age of 13.”

On loving teaching from the start: “One, it was super social and these kids thought that I knew things and they liked to learn stuff and I liked to teach things. And I was surprised with how I had a knack for sequential and breaking things down and problem-solving and prioritizing. And that is a wonderfully fun puzzle and really satisfying. And then on top of it to make somebody happy and then for them to see that they could do something, they didn’t think that they could do.”

On early days of practice with her son: “And then I started him on viola myself. And there was one evening when I had him getting ready to practice. And I said, “Zane’s toes to mom’s toes.” And he did! He put his toes to my toes. That was very clear communication that he could understand. And then I had a couple of things written down on a list and I told him exactly how many of each thing we were going to do. And then we were going to be done. So I think we did 10 bow holds or 10 tone builders or 10 of this other exercise. And then we were done and his father was watching this and said, “Wow! The connection and the communication that you two just had, that was fantastic!”

On what she would say to other parents/caregivers when early lessons don’t go how they expected : “That it was more normal than I thought, and that everything is a skill and we need to acknowledge the growth and development of every skill. That could be whether or not the child is able to stand still, or if they can focus, if they have developed the ability to self-regulate or to wait or to take turns or to accept that maybe they made a mistake and that not knowing something is okay. And that all we have to do is just keep showing up and keep trying and it’ll work its way out.”

Links in this Episode: 

Kristina Turner’s Website: https://kristurnerviolin.com/

The Gifted Music School:https://www.giftedmusicschool.org/

Support the Podcast & Join the January Live Event Sign up: bit.ly/3mkTHrE

Connect with me on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/SuzukiTriangle

Transcript: