Bad Teachers, Big Egos, and Instagram Experts

Elizabeth Faidley saw a post from a violin teacher, and she was repulsed. The post explained how this teacher stays calm in lessons "when the situation dearly calls for some unhinged reactions"—and that sentence sends Elizabeth into one of her most passionate, and necessary rants yet. What situation, exactly, calls for an unhinged reaction? Did the child set the violin on fire? Did she throw it out the window? Or did a nine-year-old play an F out of tune? In this episode, Elizabeth draws a firm and uncompromising line: you do not have the right or the place to be angry at a student. Ever. She dismantles the romanticized culture of abusive teaching that has plagued classical music for generations—the screaming teachers, the humiliation, the thrown objects, the adults who still remember the feeling in their stomachs 30, 40 years later. She brings in the science: meta-analyses showing that acute stress impairs working memory and cognitive flexibility (the exact systems we ask students to use constantly), and a 2026 APA study of 700 teachers and 18,000 students across eight countries showing that teacher anger predicts lower teaching quality and worse student outcomes. She explains why "suppressing" rage isn't the goal—the goal is examining why the rage is there in the first place. And she offers the alternative: rigor without cruelty, high standards without anger, discipline without fear, kindness without permissiveness. Because children can tolerate incredibly high expectations when they know one essential thing: my teacher is on my side. It's not student versus teacher. It's teacher and student versus the wrist. Teacher and student versus the horrible shift. Teacher and student against the unfair competition. And if a nine-year-old plays the F sharp wrong 14 times? Okay. Apparently we're learning F sharp 15 times.

Parents are obsessed with talent. Elizabeth Faidley doesn't mean mildly interested—she means obsessed. And if you're listening, there's an 80% chance you are too. In this episode of It's More Than the Violin, Elizabeth introduces her taxonomy of the seven parents she's met over nearly 30 years of teaching—Blythe (who is "very relaxed" and definitely has a spreadsheet), Balthazar (who just wants his son to enjoy music, right before asking why he isn't first chair), Cricket (whose child is genuinely extraordinary and has no idea), Persephone (whose six-year-old has had four lessons and needs to discuss summer programs), Steve (whose nine-year-old "owns the process" in the same way she owns the apartment), Petunia (whose daughter is "behind" some imaginary child on Instagram who may or may not be a 43-year-old accountant named Bob), and Clementine (the dolly parton of musical parents—protect Clementines at all costs). What all seven eventually want to know is the same thing: is my child talented? And underneath that: how far could she go? Elizabeth believes in talent—she's seen extraordinary ears, remarkable coordination, children who walk on stage at seven like the audience came to see them, and children who look like they've been kidnapped. But talent, she argues, is not a prophecy. She explores why being talented can make the beginning too easy, why the violin eventually comes for everyone, and why "she's just naturally talented" usually means a child with a staff, a spreadsheet, and several adults having serious conversations about her next piece. Drawing on Carol Dweck, Anders Ericsson, and her own experience as a recovering Blythe, Elizabeth makes the case that talent is just information—not destiny, not a contract, not a guarantee. It doesn't tell you the ending. Because if your child studies violin for 12 years and becomes a cardiologist, the violin did not fail.

If Elizabeth Faidley had a dollar for every time a parent told her "my child doesn't like practicing," she'd never have to teach another G major scale again. In this episode of It's More Than the Violin, she tackles the panic that follows that sentence—the fear that a child who doesn't want to practice has lost their love of music forever, or that years of scales and metronomes have ruined them. Spoiler: they haven't. Elizabeth breaks down what practicing actually is, why "playing" and "practicing" are completely different activities, and why an iPad six feet away is always going to win the attention contest. She shares her own childhood practice battles—chasing her mother around the house, screaming matches 35 seconds after promising not to argue, and her father Buster mysteriously disappearing every time the violin case clicked open. She explains why asking "do you want to practice?" is a trap, why children need help with the enormous executive functioning that practice requires, why boredom is not the enemy, and why "I don't want to practice" and "I love music" can absolutely coexist. Along the way, she offers the good-enough violin parent's guide to surviving practice: keep it routine, don't hold a referendum every afternoon, let them complain, and look at the whole child—not the meltdown at 5:15 on a Wednesday. Because the goal isn't a child who skips joyfully to the practice room every day. It's a child who learns how to work at something difficult long enough to experience the magic of "I couldn't do this before, and now I can."

In this episode of It's More Than the Violin, Elizabeth Faidley takes on one of the most persistent fantasies in music education: the "perfect" student who practices every day, loves scales, finds the metronome comforting, and never complains.

In the debut episode of It's More Than the Violin, veteran violin teacher Elizabeth Faidley pulls back the curtain on what 26 years of teaching really looks like—and it's far more than scales and bow holds. From staring at children's thumbs with the intensity of international diplomacy to navigating scheduling crises that rival Pentagon operations, Elizabeth introduces the five core philosophies that have shaped her teaching: foundational technique first, fun with no fear, the art of triage, every student is my favorite, and the power of communication. Along the way, she shares unforgettable stories—a mother nearly hit by a car on Broadway over a dropped Mendelssohn line, a parent jumping on her windshield, and the family who showed up 20 minutes early while she was still in the shower. Whether you're a teacher, a parent, or a student, this episode makes one thing clear: teaching the violin is actually a surprisingly small part of teaching the violin. It's more than the violin—and that's exactly the point.