For my series of pieces I will analyze for technique and assignment of supporting etude materials, I chose the Donkey Doodle by Kroll. The piece is a very fun piece. I like the “Hee Hawing” of the Donkey that you hear. Techniques used in the piece include:

  1. Bowing in lower half of the bow – This technique can be worked by assigning any number of etudes and playing them in the lower half.  Wohlfahrt Foundation Studies Book 1 No. 14 should be helpful with this.
  2. Bow strokes using the collé motion of the fingers – This technique can be practiced with any etude, such as the one listed above, to be practiced in the lower half.
  3. String crossings for the donkey sound effects can be practiced with Wohlfahrt Foundations Studies Book 1, Number 26. This etude works sinking the weight of the bow after a string crossing that often leaps strings. It focuses on adding weight on an up bow.
  4. Fingers “hopping” a fifth – I have not yet found a supporting etude for this, but I think that refreshing the students’ memory on pieces like Minuet 3 by Bach where the third finger must hop across the fifth is important to make sure this technique is in place.
  5. Grace notes can be practiced using a few different methods. They are approached both from below and from above. Sally O’Reilly’s book Fiddle Magic has an exercise called Leap Frog (Group II, Number 6). It however, does not approach the grace note from above. To practice this, maybe you could have the student play up and down a scale making every other note a grace note to the next.
  6. Sixteenth note “trills” can be practiced with the exercise called “Shivering” in O’Reilly’s book (Group X, Number 1).