21st Century Suzuki Music Practice (but really this post is about the importance of VISUALIZING PROGRESS)

 

The Suzuki method-or Talent Education as Shinichi Suzuki referred to it--got started about a lifetime ago, right before World War II in Japan.  Dr Suzuki grew up in a wealthy family that ran a violin factory.  They had switched from making more traditional Japanese instruments.  Suzuki recalled using unfinished violins as baseball bats as a boy.  Then he heard one played and everything changed.

Suzuki ended up going to Europe as a young man to further his studies of the instrument.  He was friends with Einstein, and studied violin with the foremost musicians of the day.  When he returned to Japan he had an epiphany.  All children learned their own languages effortlessly.  Even dialects that were considered very difficult for outsiders, like the Osaka dialect, were mastered young children who grew up surrounded by their sounds.  Suzuki applied that same notion to music, teaching violin to very young children, calling it talent education.  The Suzuki method was introduced to the United States in the 1960s.

Technologically speaking, a lot has changed since then.  Even since the 1970s and 1980s, when many present day Suzuki teachers who were themselves Suzuki students learned, technology has covered a lot of ground.

So today, I take notes on a computer, record new skills or special practice spots on my smart phone, and look up famous performers on YouTube for inspiration.  My iTunes is full of play lists that say things like 'Winter Listening 2014.'  I can search all Gavottes and do a little 'name that Gavotte' game in seconds.  I use an online tuner nearly every day.

But as we embark on Suzuki with our third child, I've found that some of the most important tools are really nothing new at all.  VISUALIZING PROGRESS is huge.  When our first two were starting out, we were resistant to sticker charts and rewards, having read studies on the dangers of extrinsic reward systems.  I now look back on that as young (and foolish) parent idealism.

This winter when Charlotte was working on getting through all the bowing of the many variations of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', nothing motivated her like a monkey chain.  For every section of the song, she got to add a monkey, and that was more than enough motivation for her--for more than a week!  It did not undermine her desire to play music, not at all.  In fact, it provided valuable feedback, letting her know how much she had accomplished and giving her an idea of how much was left to go.