This season, our Elemental Music family grew a little bit larger with the help of some incredible high school volunteers.
Looking for more ways to support her beginning Prelude students while learning virtually over Zoom, Prelude Director Emily Call wrote to Samohi Orchestra Director (and Elemental Strings Co-Director!) to ask if there might be some high school students interested in offering weekly one-on-one mentoring sessions for the young musicians of Prelude.
The response was overwhelming - so much so that mentors were able to be paired with every interested Prelude student in addition to a handful of Elemental Strings students. The results of the mentor meetings were clear – the high school volunteers not only reinforced concepts introduced and explored in rehearsals one on one, but as a young people who were not so long ago in the same shoes as our Elemental Music students, they were also inspiring and fun!
Next in our series of mentor interviews, we spoke with Samohi violist Daniela Losoya about her first time teaching and working with our Prelude students.
Elemental Music: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Daniela Losoya: I’m a junior in high school. I have been playing the viola since fourth grade. It’s a funny story how I got started playing the viola, because before I played it...I didn’t know what it was! I started off wanting to play the violin but there were no spots left. So the teachers suggested I play the viola and I actually liked it more because it wasn’t as high pitched as the violin. And I actually fell in love with it, which is why I kept going with it!
EM: What orchestra are you in at Samohi?
DL: I’m in Philharmonic, which is the second highest orchestra out of seven orchestras. It’s hard work and a lot of time!
EM: So you did Elemental Strings when you were younger. What grades were you doing Elemental Strings?
DL: I believe I started in 5th grade, all the way up through 8th grade in Academy Philharmonic.
EM: Do you feel like doing an extra after-school orchestra inspired you to keep playing?
DL: Yes, definitely! Especially because it gave me more motivation to start doing a lot of things. The pieces were always super fun and really kept me busy. Elemental Strings also got me into private lessons, because I have private lessons through [Elemental Music’s] Bergmann Project. So it all tied in together and it felt really nice to have that little environment.
EM: You’ll be a senior next year - do you have any big musical goals?
DL: I’m hoping I get into the highest orchestra and just keep playing. Although sadly I won’t be majoring in it in college, I would still want to continue my instrument and have it as a stress relieving thing. It really helps get me out of my mindset in the moment. Sometimes I just put my homework down and think, “Ok, I’m just going to set my mind to music,” and it’s really nice.
EM: What do you think you want to study in college?
DL: I want to become an elementary school teacher.
EM: I love that! You never know, maybe you’re going to become an elementary school music teacher.
DL: That’s what I was thinking! My private lesson teacher’s partner was an elementary school music teacher and she said she could help me with some pointers on how to teach kids. That would be really helpful!
EM: Yeah, of course. And you know, so many Elemental Music teachers are public school music teachers, too, like Mr. Aiello!
DL: I met Mr. Aiello in 5th grade in Elemental Strings!
EM: It’s pretty cool to work with your high school conductor as a 5th grader.
DL: Definitely!
EM: So what inspired you to volunteer as a Prelude mentor this year?
DL: This kind of tied into what I wanted to do in elementary and middle school. I always loved the idea of having a student - not a teacher - help me out with my instrument because it’s like they went through the same things not too long ago. I just loved talking to the older kids and getting their experience in high school and stuff. So I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s my turn to do this,” and I got really excited. I also thought it was a good opportunity to learn a little bit about teaching.
EM: Did you work with a mentor when you were in ES? I can’t remember if we had mentors when you were participating.
DL: No, but I remember our small group sectionals. I remember all of the girls still, and I still keep in contact with some of them – we’re pretty close! That’s what I loved about Elemental Strings, too. It kind of helped me become more social. Even though I was social at school, I still kept within my little circle. So it kind of helped me branch out to other groups.
EM: I love hearing that. Well, I just think that your enthusiasm for teaching your mentee every week really came across in your mentor reports. They were so detailed and you always worked on everything I requested. Do you have prior teaching experience or was this your first time teaching viola?
DL: Yeah, it was my first time but I was kind of just thinking, “How would I want the teacher to talk to me? How do I like being taught?” How I taught my mentee was kind of just like, “We’ve got this, this, and this to work on today. What do you want to start with?” And she would choose the order of things to work on. I like being enthusiastic because it gives you more motivation to keep going. It felt really nice just to be able to communicate that with someone. It was a really fun first experience.
EM: It’s so hard to teach over Zoom. Do you feel like you learned something from your own teachers in how to teach over Zoom?
DL: Definitely! We tried playing together once but then I realized that wouldn’t work. We did a lot of “I play, you play.” I would play a note and she would identify and name it. And then we would switch. That also really helped listening and knowing if notes were out of tune.
EM: I love that you were modeling that for her, because it’s so important for students to learn to hear and develop their listening skills. To hear someone else play it accurately and think about how their sound matches – that’s such an important part of ensemble playing that we don’t really get over Zoom, so I love that you were working on developing those listening skills with her in your lessons.
What was your favorite thing about mentoring?
DL: My favorite thing about mentoring was probably just being able to be the teacher! (laughs) It was just really fun because sometimes, as a student myself, I feel like I’m rushing and I start beating myself up in my head and it starts sounding worse than I want it to sound. So when I noticed that starting to happen with my mentee, I was like, “Put your instrument down, stand up, shake it out!” That made her laugh and I think that really helped because right after that, she played it totally correctly.
EM: Yes! You drew from your own experience about what you would need in that moment and helped her succeed. That’s awesome. Do you think that teaching someone else helped you improve your own playing?
DL: 100%, because I started noticing that I do the same thing as my mentee with her bow! She started off holding her bow like a cello bow and I was trying to help her, but I realized I was doing the same thing! So I had to work on my bow hold too. It actually got better, thankfully, and my mentee got her bow hold really good too.
EM: If you could give one piece of advice to our young musicians, musical or otherwise, what would it be?
DL: Stick with it. It’s a lot of practice and you aren’t going to get it right away, even though you want to. It’s worth the practice! It feels really nice when you accomplish something that was hard at the beginning. It’s just a mindset that you have to have, like…”Ok, I don’t have this now, but if I keep working at it, I can get to the point that I want.”
EM: If there were other classmates in your orchestra who thought about mentoring but were nervous about it, what would you say?
DL: I would just say...just do it! I actually thought it was going to be harder than it was. It gets easier the more you do it. I made so many mistakes while teaching and it taught me that you both learn from that. You can say, “Oh, I just made a mistake,” and you keep going! It just gives your mentee the motivation to like think, “Oh, I can do that too.” It helps take the pressure off.
EM: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
DL: I just want to thank you for creating this and helping me get this experience. It was super fun and I really enjoyed it.