Effectiveness of the teaching program prepared to improve intonation skills in violin education

The aim of this research is to examine the effect of the curriculum prepared for eliminating posture-holding disorders and improving right-left hand skills on the intonation skills of violin students. The model of the research is the explanatory sequential mixed methods. In the quantitative dimension, a single group pretest-posttest design was used, and in the qualitative dimension, the structured interview technique was applied. In the 2018-2019 academic year, six students from BAIBU Department of Music Education undergraduate 1st and 2nd grades participated in the study. During the experimental period, a 13-week teaching program was applied, one lesson per week. Three tasks are determined to measure the effectiveness of curriculum on the students' intonation accuracy skills: I position, speed and I-III shifting. The studies and exercises determined to measure the effectiveness of the curriculum were recorded with the Studio One 3 program and the entonation errors were calculated in cents and converted into numerical data through the Melodyn Studio 4.0 program. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to determine the level of significance between the pretest-posttest results. Descriptive analysis method was used in the analysis of qualitative data. According to the results obtained from the quantitative dimension of the research, it was determined that the curriculum prepared for eliminating posture-holding disorders and improving right-left hand skills significantly reduced students' intonation errors in the first position the intonation errors due to speed and intonation errors in I-III shifting playing. According to the students' opinions taken in the qualitative dimension, the participants stated that that they had overcome various technical problems in line with the curriculum applied, that their violin playing skills improved in many respects with the elimination of these problems, which increased their willing to play and practice violin, and that these studies significantly improved their intonation, speed and shifting skills.