Overcoming common misconceptions in Suzuki teaching

Why it is so important to understand the method’s concepts of review, group class and aural training

EDWARD KREITMAN Professor of violin, Suzuki teacher trainer and director at the Western Springs School of Talent Education, Naperville Suzuki School, Illinois; author of Suzuki books Teaching from the Balance Point and Teaching with an Open Heart

BORN Quincy, MA, US

STUDIED WITH Doris Preucil, Almita Vamos, Roland Vamos

TEACHES Private students aged 3–12; Suzuki teachers, levels 1–4

Whenever I speak about the Suzuki Method to a broader audience, I like to think about the elements of Suzuki teaching that may not be understood by more traditional teachers. Unfortunately there are many people who use the Suzuki books without the necessary training to understand how the method works, and two central topics that are often overlooked are the concepts of group class and review. As a young teacher I spent a summer observing Shinichi Suzuki teach in Japan. Knowledge in itself, he said, does not equal ability: knowledge times 10,000 repetitions equals ability. That is why Suzuki students continually develop and review each skill that they learn, so that they can play and perform with ease and confidence. It is therefore vital that children repeat the rhythms and articulations in the Suzuki books absolutely correctly, with an excellent posture and bow hold, right from the beginning. They should also have the opportunity to review these skills both in individual lessons and in a group setting. Group class allows students to do much of their skill-building repetition and review with their peers in a fun or playful way.It also allows them to revisit the technical aspects discussed in the individual lessons, while teaching them the importance of ensemble playing and helping them to build the social relationships that motivate many of them to continue their studies.

EXERCISES

Despite what many people think, the Suzuki Method is not about rote learning. Suzuki kids don’t memorise notes or finger numbers from a page, or play using only ‘muscle memory’.Instead they learn pieces by listening to the Suzuki reference recordings, internalising the sounds and figuring out how to play what they hear in their mind on their instrument. The Suzuki music books are only for their parents.

Suzuki based this process on his observations of how people learn to speak: we listen, imitate, and then eventually, when we understand how a language works, we have creative ideas of our own. He noticed that we don’t discard any of our early vocabulary: we still say those words in our grown-up lives, and he loved that idea of building up technique through repetition of the earliest skills and sounds that we learn. To develop this idea in music, from their earliest lessons children should learn to:

Hear the difference between two identical pitches and two different pitches. For some kids this is a challenge at the start. Play pairs of pitches to them until they can hear the difference.

Identify higher and lower pitches. Play two pitches and ask the child which was higher/lower. This well help them notice patterns in their pieces.

Understand the logic of the instrument. Work with students until they really understand that putting fingers down on the string makes the pitch go up and taking them away makes it go down. Teach them how to continue a scale when they cross on to a new string. Parents and students should understand that the pitch changes in two ways: either when the tension of the string is adjusted by turning the pegs, or when the string is shortened or lengthened by placing fingers down and lifting them up again.

Perceive a piece of music as series of notes that stay the same, get higher or get lower. Now it’s time to apply the aural training to music. Suzuki Book 1 helps to guide the child by reinforcing these skills and ideas steadily, using the same note patterns and keys. For example, Lightly Row (exercise 1) and the pieces that follow it all build up scales, chords and other patterns in A major.

Learn by trial and error. Children should have the freedom to do this at home, without the parent. We want them to learn, hear and adjust by themselves, without instruction. This can be very motivating for them and it is a key part of Suzuki aural training:

• Ask students to learn a new Suzuki piece on their own at home In their next lesson, check if they have internalised it, by asking them to sing it and then to play it on the violin

• If they haven’t internalised it well enough, ask them to listen to it ten times a day until the next lesson, until it’s really inside them

Once students understand how this process works, they almost always turn up to lessons with their pieces already learnt. That means we can focus on posture, tone, intonation and musicality instead, because they’ve already done the rest.

TWINKLE AS A BOWING (NOT RHYTHM) EXERCISE

Another common misconception among teachers is that the Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Variations is a rhythm exercise.

In fact it is an important part of the review process used to train and reinforce the three basic bow strokes of détaché, staccato and legato. There are 24 consecutive changes of pitch in Twinkle, so every time students play it, they repeat a bowing skill 24 times. If they do that in every practice session, group class, individual lesson and performance, by Book 4 they’ll have practised each bowing 10,000 times without even knowing it. As students do this, they should focus on developing a beautiful bow hold, without tension and with nicely curved fingers placed correctly on the stick:Next, pretend that the student’s arm is your bow, to show them both how their bow hold feels and how it should feel.

• Ask the student to hold your finger as though it is a bow

• What are the different fingers doing? Is the first finger pressing too hard? Is the thumb making enough contact? Is the pinkie lifting off, or sitting nicely on the stick?

• Is the hand relaxed and balanced, with an equal amount of pressure coming from the thumb and fingers?

It is also important to develop students’ tactile awareness of their fingers. We don’t want them only to feel the bow with their hand as they practise Twinkle : we want them to extend their sense of touch so that they can feel the friction of the hair on the string, and the angle of the bow, without having to look. This will help them to play with a beautiful tone.

• In exercise 2, listen to how the string rings after each pluck

• We want to create the same effect in Twinkle, by getting the bow to ‘catch’ the string to start each note, before bowing with the natural weight of the arm, then releasing the note so that the string rings after the bow stops, in détaché, staccato and legato. Try this on Twinkle variations A and C (exercise 3).

If a child plays out of tune, I always stop them. I might say, ‘Did you hear that? If you play out of tune, it’s like a bad smell for your ears. You don’t want to make smelly sounds. Let’s make it right.’

EXERCISE 1 Lightly Row is one of many Book 1 pieces that help to familiarise students with scales (A) and chord patterns (B) in A major

EXERCISE 2 Use this often-overlooked pizzicato exercise from Book 1 to establish the same type of articulated, ringing sound you would like your kids to produce with the bow

EXERCISE 3 Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Variations A and C, from Suzuki Book 1. Use all the variations to work on bow hold, tone, and staccato and détaché strokes

REPERTOIRE

Contrary to popular belief, the Suzuki books are not all recital-piece compilations. The first three volumes are actually cleverly disguised preparatory etudes that address specific technical concerns. Suzuki’s way of sequencing skills so that we constantly review the same ideas in different ways is brilliant, because by the time we get to the real repertoire in Book 4, we have already prepared and reviewed many necessary violinistic skills. That means that exercise 3 (page 103) has already taught students the bowings they need for examples 1 and 2, both in Book 4. This disguised repetition is part of Suzuki’s genius.

The Suzuki Method trains the ear, technical skills and musicality, but it is not designed to teach note reading.I recommend using books such as I Can Read Music: A Note- Reading Book for Violin Students, by Joanne Martin, and Rhythm Bank and Ensemble Scales, by Alan Lumsden, to develop essential note-reading skills alongside Suzuki training around Book 2, before moving on to etude books by composers such as Schradieck and Wohlfahrt. I also hold a sightreading orchestra class for my kids every week, to develop their note-reading skills. At a certain point it is necessary to push beyond the limits of the Suzuki curriculum.

IN THEIR PRACTICE

Students should practise each task until they can do it consistently and with ease, by following three simple steps:

• Comprehension This takes place in the brain, not the body. What do they have to know in order to achieve what they want to do? How do they need to move their fingers, and on which notes?

• Cooperation Now they have to put their knowledge into action, by getting the body to cooperate with the mind. Here they make mistakes, assess them, and practise until they get a skill right.

• Constructive repetition Once they have practised until they’ve got the skill right, they must practise it when they get it right. In this third step, they should repeat it correctly many, many times.

Building up skills step by step is something for parent and child to enjoy doing together. Even parents who are not musicians can take notes or video during the lesson, and mimic each session when they are at home. There is specific work to do, so it isn’t just a game, but fun, playful practice will help the child to stay motivated.

TIPS FOR TEACHERS

We must always play for our students with the best sound that we can, because that’s the model they’re going to copy when they practise. If they learn to play beautifully from the start, they are more likely to enjoy the violin. It’s also our job to break down every skill and build it up again in little steps, to make sure that every student feels that they can succeed. If we give them things that they feel they can’t do, they will say, ‘I can’t do it; it’s too hard.’

Weekly group classes alongside individual lessons motivate students to practise, to keep up with their peers. Isolate a skill that you’ve been looking at and drill it both with individual students and the group, so that they can practise and review it. Ask them if they played better today than yesterday, and in what way: did they use more bow, or create a more ringing tone? Adding layers of skill to each piece and repetition will help to ensure that students never grow bored. Hopefully over time they will grow into wonderful musicians, even if they go on to play as adult amateurs, not as professionals.

INTERVIEW BY PAULINE HARDING

FURTHER MATERIALS

William Starr’s 77 Variations on Suzuki Melodies are short, fun exercises that you can pull out when a student needs to work on a particular skill in Books 1–10.

I’m so thrilled about Hilary Hahn’s Suzuki reference recordings for the Suzuki Violin School, which are just gorgeous. All the kids know who she is, and it’s so exciting for them to hear her playing their pieces.

NEXT MONTH Violinist– violist Misha Galaganov on trills and embellishments