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As a committed amateur musician, I'll remind you that the word "amateur" means "a person who loves something." You led with the fact that your son loves the viola, and that is something that should be supported -- I think it's okay, or even important, to show a gifted kid that you're not required to be the very best at something in order to have permission to pursue it passionately and work on developing your own skills over time and to just plain enjoy doing it.

Okay, so then we have a question of whether this teacher and/or this training method and/or this instrument is a good match for this kid.

Instrument: If his dysgraphia is focused around fine motor / graphomotor control, sequencing, and automaticity, (and from what you're saying about the overflow, I'm wondering if working memory is also lowish), then yeah, that's going to make viola (or pretty well any instrument other than percussion, as far as I can guess) pretty tricky. Note that he's got to coordinate two hands doing very different but related things, too -- that's extra hard, although I can't be all that confident that something like piano (where the two hands are coordinating on similar and related tasks), a woodwind (where the hands are doing the same thing) or a brass instrument (where only one hand is highly active) would be all *that* much easier. But man, a non-fretted string instrument... that's about the toughest thing going. And the most painful to listen to when it's not *just* right. Much as I would like to defer to his love of viola, I'm wondering if an alto or tenor instrument in a different family (clarinet, english horn, french horn, they all have the same kinda mellow-gorgeous vibe as viola, at least to my ear) might be a bit easier. If he can't hear the subtleties of pitch well enough to adjust on the fly, though, then I'd have to say maybe piano is a way better plan for success.

Method: Suzuki is a great method, but it's not for everyone. It does require a lot of coordination between "what you hear" and "what notes you therefore need to play" and "what movements need to happen to make those notes happen," and my sense of it is that it requires the kid to figure out much more pretty well on their own, although I know that teachers vary widely in their methodology. It sounds like this teacher isn't giving as much clear guidance and simple skills practice as your son needs -- too much gets piled on too soon. Perhaps a method which is a bit more explicit and skills-based, even if it doesn't sound quite as interesting at the start, might be, again, a bit better of a plan for success.

Teacher: This is crucial crucial crucial. And it sounds like this teacher is not quite getting him, and the relationship between them is starting to degrade as his skills don't quite keep up with expectations. I wonder if it would be possible to help get the teacher more on the same page -- you have seen this kid work hard and improve in other domains, so perhaps the teacher could become more comfortable and confident in working with him if there were ways she could be effective with him. Or perhaps in having the dialogue you and she and he can figure out that it's not a good match. I think I'd be careful in that dialogue not to frame it as "teacher failing with student" or as "student is so hopelessly bad," but just a question of whether she's comfortable working with a kid who may very well not progress at the rate or through the methods she is used to. This is going to be much more of a problem-solving process for her, and frankly, not every music teacher (or every any kind of teacher) is really up for it. She has to love (or at least be intrigued by) the process of teaching him.

My piano teacher, I have to say, this was her great talent as a teacher. She was very adaptable to her various students. She had very high standards, but she also was very sensitive to where each kid could reach at the given moment. She was clever in terms of coming up with specific drills to improve target skills without being boring. And above all, she was very tuned in to how each kid could approach music and find their passion for it. (I'm sorry to say she has passed on, otherwise I'd give you her name).

My son has been taking piano lessons since he was five. The sensory processing thing that causes his dysgraphia caused him to have trouble some days in piano, even when he did practice, but other days he did well without practice. It is very difficult to explain this to people but the piano teacher is a smart woman and she could see it for herself and she believed my son when he told her how much he practiced. My son told me that one of his problems was when he practiced past the time he started getting tired it was worse than if he didn't practice at all because he would practice it wrong and then he has the wrong motor memory or something like that. I asked about this on another message board and a woman with mild CP, who has similar motor issues and endurance issues, confirmed what my son said. He has to practice for shorter periods of time than other people.

Now my son wants to take guitar lessons. We found someone who says he can get him started, but I haven't figured out how to explain my son's mild hidden disability.

I forget to mention that we finally stopped using the graded piano books and let my son pick out sheet music for songs that he loved. Most of the songs he chooses are at an intermediate level and his teacher just teaches what he needs to know for that song. There is a lot of beautiful music written at this level. He is appropriately challenged, has control over what he learns and he feels good about it so he practices a little more and he can talk about music with his college age friends in his musical theater class. I told one of them I thought he would be a really good music mentor for my son.

This strategy has been working well with my DD8 as well. She just started piano two months ago, but has been able to figure out how to play a lot of music on her own.

Also, she started violin right before she was five at her request. She had lessons for about two years, but by the end you could just see this instrument was very difficult for her.

She has been diagnosed with a vision processing issue and has had therapy. I'm told that it is now resolved, but I'm not sure about that. She is currently being assessed for a fine motor difficulty. She has significant difficulty writing.

Ultimately, I observed that her extreme perfectionism + difficulty with fine motor combined with the expectation of perfection her Suzuki teacher seemed to need in order to move on to a new piece of music = not a happy little violinist!

She has decided to move to piano and after watching her teach herself for about a month I realized she wasn't giving it up. I found a great teacher for her, who was willing to be flexible with her teaching method and I think that has made all the difference.

She is back to making music and most importantly, incredibly happy doing it!

HTH

Hi! Haven't posted here in a while, but just wanted to share some of my personal experiences in playing a string instrument (violin) ^o^ .

It's great that your kid loves his instrument. When I first started playing in fifth grade, it was really difficult. Playing a string instrument as opposed to anything else is completely different. My fingers would hurt a lot of times from playing, and sometimes I couldn't get anything in tune. So it was like that, but my parents wouldn't let me quit despite my own wishes.

During sixth grade, I had a falling-out with my private teacher and for a while I was teacher-less again. Then came seventh grade, which was a completely different experience. I auditioned for my middle school's chamber orchestra, and surprisingly, made it!

That was the defining moment in my relatively short violin-playing career. The chamber orchestra in my school was made up of three grades together, and I was the youngest there. Nearly everyone was better than me and had played longer, so I was embarrassed to play in front of other people and always sat in the back. But my school conductor was amazing. We'd have after-school rehearsals as a club, perform in competitions, and even went to Hershey Park.

I found a new private teacher and started to enjoy playing the violin instead of it being a chore, and my playing improved a lot as a result. I built up enough confidence to play in front of other people, and to make mistakes in front of them too. There's always a lot of pressure, both school-wise and from your private teacher, but I've not regretted picking up the instrument and I'm glad I didn't quit back then.

One of the most fulfilling things about playing an instrument when you're young is the school-involved part of it, getting to see how other people play and learn from each other. It's great encouragement, and knowing how to function as part of a group within the orchestra matters as much, if not more, as your actual skill level. Playing an instrument also opens up a lot of opportunities - whether it be to go to competitions, play in a quartet with your friends, or just learn how to play that awesome piece you heard on the radio. I can only speak from personal experience, but stick with it if only for a little longer to see if quitting is really what he thinks is best.

I'm not too familiar with dysgraphia or how much it would affect playing an instrument like the viola, but it's said that higher strings such as violin and viola are arguably the hardest instruments to learn how to play well, and it does involve quite a lot of fine motor control. >_<

As a fellow string instrument player, it's not uncommon even after playing for several years to play on more than one string on accident, and playing in tune is always going to be a challenge, regardless of skill level. I would put myself as around an intermediate player, but sometimes during lessons I'd still play something out of tune, especially in the higher positions, and be unable to hear that the note isn't quite the way it should be until my teacher told me how awful it sounded. XD

And lastly - it's really not so much as how long you practice, but more the quality of your practicing and how focused you are. My teacher is alright - though admittedly not ecstatic - with my practicing twenty minutes a few nights each week, as long as I'm accomplishing something each time. As for being able to hear that the notes are in tune, some of it is natural ability (people with perfect pitch) and having a "good ear," but it can also be trained if you listen really hard while you're playing.

Sorry for the extra long post, but I hope I helped a bit. Best of luck to you and your son no matter where you decide to go with his instrument.