Presentation at the 2026 Suzuki Association of the Americas Conference

San Francisco, CA

February 25, 3:00pm

More from Less: Tone Production Strategies for Small String Instruments

This session will present techniques and strategies for producing a beautiful tone on small sized violins and violas. Teachers and students are torn between two competing ideas: larger instruments sound better, but students’ bodies can only fit a certain size. Sizing up is not a healthy option for improving a student’s tone, so teachers must find ways to enable a student to play with a beautiful tone on their small-sized instrument. This session will approach this topic from both a pedagogical and instrumental perspective.

The main part of the lecture will be pedagogical. I’ll provide a systematic overview of tone production principles from the beginning to upper intermediate stages. We’ll begin with setup and sizing principles and then move toward describing the physical motions of sound production (arm motions, weight and balance, harnessing natural movement, etc.). Most of the exercises and techniques I’ll share will be geared toward younger students, since they are the ones playing on small sized instruments, but they will also be applicable to all levels of string players.

I will also cover aspects of instrument and bow construction and design, as well as how to maintain a small string instrument. I’ll discuss the acoustic and physical features of the instruments, while pointing out the important the several, important features to look for in the instruments themselves that contribute to great sound.

Finally, I’ll touch on the parent-teacher-student aspect of instrument sizing. Many teachers have dealt with difficult situations in which a student/parent wants the next larger size instrument before they’re physically ready. This desire is most often motivated by the simple fact that larger instruments sound better than fractionally smaller instruments. While this topic could be a lecture itself, I’ll briefly discuss the psychological and social factors that are also at play here.