Susan Hamerton

Enchanted Quest: motivating young learners to consolidate their early set up and bowing proficiency.

As teachers we all want our students to learn optimum posture and movement patterns early on, so it falls to us to give explicit, content-rich lessons in this regard. So, I developed Enchanted Quest to solve the problem of how to motivate my young students to

• Hear and value my suggestions
• be mindful of their actions
• habituate these mental and physical procedures without it being tedious for them (or for me!)

Enchanted Quest is an online point scoring game for teachers of bowed string instruments to play with their primary school aged students (4-11yo). It is made up of 13 themed modules that frame each teacher’s unique philosophy in key areas. Using scales as a vehicle, Enchanted Quest harnesses children’s love of exploration, adventure and reward to motivate them to undertake purposeful and reflective practice and consolidate their skills through meaningful repetition.

About Susan Hamerton

Sue studied at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne before travelling to Cologne, Germany where she studied the violin with Professor Helfried Fister for two years. Moving to London she spent 10 years as a performer and teacher working with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Mozart Players and the Mercea String Quartet (specialising in the performance of music by contemporary British composers). Sue returned to Melbourne in 2000, where she held the position of Head of Strings at Presbyterian Ladies’ College for 10 years, and afterwards as Junior School Head of Strings at Scotch College, Melbourne.  Sue has a Masters of Music (Performance Teaching) from the University of Melbourne.