Every child can

Since Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki founded his method of bowed string tuition in 1945, it has been adopted and embraced by countries around the world. Samara Ginsberg talks to teachers and students, past and present, about their experiences of Suzuki teaching and its enduring popularity

The core Suzuki values remain the same today: that every child can learn to be talented and that competition is to be discouraged Inset Shinichi Suzuki leads a class of children in London in 1981

MAIN IMAGE MERVYN@TAKINGPICTURES.COM. INSET IMAGE A. HARIADES

Developed by violinist and pedagogue Shinichi Suzuki in 1945, the Suzuki Method has been one of Japan’s most successful exports. Designed specifically to meet the needs of very young learners, it capitalises on small children’s natural aptitude for language acquisition by facilitating the same process with music. The core principles are repetition, reviewing previously learnt material, learning by ear, and heavy parental involvement (forming part of the equilateral ‘Suzuki triangle’ of parent, teacher and child). On a broader philosophical level, there is an insistence that any child can learn to be talented, and a discouragement of competition.

Today there are growing Suzuki programmes involving hundreds of thousands of students in 74 countries. Although other instruments have been added to the Suzuki arsenal over the years, bowed string players still represent the majority of teachers and students.

The Suzuki Method has been a particularly big hit in the US, thanks in large part to the work of John D. Kendall, who first travelled to Japan to observe the method in 1959. Annette Costanzi is a Suzuki cello teacher and teacher trainer with almost 50 years’ experience on several continents. She says: ‘They didn’t have a national system in place. For instance, there was the Russian school, the French school, the German school – these countries had developed their own schools of training.Once Suzuki hit America it was pretty fertile. It wasn’t going against another system. And because it’s so primal it works in any culture. When you actually get down to teaching children, they’re the same all over the world. They’re not going to be different because they were born into another culture.’

Edward Kreitman, a long-standing Suzuki violin teacher based in Illinois, says that it hasn’t always been plain sailing: ‘The biggest difference I’ve seen in my lifetime is that when we first started we had this resistance from university and conservatory professors, but today’s professors were Suzuki kids themselves, and their children are studying the Suzuki Method. It’s a totally different environment in terms of acceptance.’

Former Suzuki kids have healthy representation in the string sections of major orchestras. Sam Bergman, a violist in the Minnesota Orchestra, started violin lessons aged four with Genevieve Osborne in Concord, Massachusetts: ‘She was really devoted to the method, but more importantly, devoted to her students. She was just a motherly kind of teacher, which was exactly what I needed. I have really good memories, especially of the group lessons. I wasn’t always the most comfortable socially, and so I think that was a huge thing, to be in a room full of other kids doing the same thing as me, struggling with the same things that I was struggling with. I got some lifelong friends out of those groups.’

Karina MacAlpine teaches students at the London Suzuki Group’s International Summer School at Bryanston School, Dorset, in 2017

MERVYN@TAKINGPICTURES.COM

Kimberley Wong, a former Suzuki child turned Suzuki teacher based in London, also has positive memories:‘I remember enjoying my lessons, and my mum asking me every week if I was going to behave! My teacher was really patient and she had a good way of just laughing it off when I was being a bit crazy. We had our big concerts and playtogethers at the end of each term. And I remember the first time I went to Bryanston’ – here she refers to the London Suzuki Group’s (LSG) annual international summer course at Bryanston School in Dorset – ‘I was totally overwhelmed but absolutely loved it.’

This enjoyment is not accidental – the method is designed to indulge children’s natural inclinations. Constant repetition, for example, could seem a mind-numbing approach to an adult, but small children thrive on it. Costanzi says: ‘It’s only adults who don’t understand the beauty of repetition. Children want to repeat things, especially those that they do well. How did they ever learn how to go from crawling to standing, and then from standing to walking, and then from walking to running? Just watch babies – they do it naturally.’

Instinctive, child-initiated repetition is one thing, but how do you get children to be enthusiastic about practising? Kate Conway, another former Suzuki student and the founder and director of Suzuki Hub in east London, says: ‘The emphasis is on positivity, joy, achievement and progression for the child personally. The children always feel really clearly that, “Last week I couldn’t do this and now I can, and that brings me a sense of satisfaction.”’

‘SUZUKI KIDS GROW UP IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE EVERYBODY’S SUPPORTED AND WHERE A DIFFICULT SKILL IS BROKEN DOWN INTO SOMETHING SMALLER AND MORE ACHIEVABLE’

That confidence is palpable both on and off stage. Suzuki children seem, as a general rule, to display bulletproof selfesteem and an ability to absorb criticism without upset, along with fearlessness on stage. Kreitman says: ‘The whole premise of the Suzuki Method is about creating a positive experience where the kids are successful. Suzuki kids grow up in an environment where everybody’s supported and where if they’re struggling with a skill, that skill is broken down into something smaller until it’s achievable and then you build it back up again.

‘We never allow children to get on a stage and play their latest piece. If I have a student playing the Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Variations’ – the first piece in Suzuki Violin School vol.1 – ‘in a solo recital, they are probably already playing Perpetual Motion, the ninth piece in the book. So they have this experience of getting up in solo recitals and group concerts and playing something that’s really comfortable.’

A group cello performance at the LSG’s Bryanston course

DANA VAN LEEUWEN / DECCA CLASSICS

Another hallmark of the Suzuki Method is a strong focus on technique. With her very youngest charges, Wong plays a game called ‘Good Kimberley/Naughty Kimberley’, during which she shows them a series of correct or incorrect bow holds. ‘Naughty Kimberley!’ they all chorus, but they don’t win a point unless they can tell her why her bow hold is naughty – which they all can, in minute detail. The technical exercises that the children are put through aren’t dissimilar to what college students might do if they were going back to basics; but with lots of encouragement, they don’t seem to find it taxing.

Learning by ear is perhaps the most widely known cornerstone of the Suzuki Method. Critics say that delaying reading produces weak sightreaders. Many teachers acknowledge that for a time in the early days, Suzuki tuition in the West did produce weak readers, thanks to a combination of misunderstandings. Conway says that Suzuki children ought to learn to read music at the age at which they learn to read their language, but that the advanced technical ability of some of Suzuki’s very young students led Western teachers to the mistaken conclusion that reading shouldn’t beintroduced until attaining a certain level of proficiency. Wong adds: ‘Japanese children were learning to read music in school. It wasn’t that he wasn’t teaching them to read music; it’s just that he didn’t have to. That got a bit lost in translation in the first round of it coming to the West. It’s definitely something that has improved a lot in the last 20 years.’

‘JAPANESE CHILDREN WERE LEARNING TO READ MUSIC IN SCHOOL. IT WASN’T THAT SUZUKI WASN’T TEACHING THEM TO READ MUSIC; IT’S JUST THAT HE DIDN’T HAVE TO’

The focus on starting very young and the heavy emphasis on parental involvement have generated an association with pushy parenting, but teachers insist that this is not the case. Another common criticism is that the method produces students who play like automatons. It hasn’t escaped the notice of Bergman that these criticisms are congruent with stereotypes associated with Asian musicians:

‘Dr Suzuki would bring these groups of young Japanese musicians over to the States and they would play these recitals. I remember going to a couple of them – these amazing eightyear-olds playing Fiocco’s Allegro together at top speed in perfect unison. And you would literally hear white parents saying, “Yeah, it’s impressive, but they’re robots. They don’t really have a musical soul.” But they were playing together!

FORMER SUZUKI STUDENT HILARY HAHN

What are your earliest memories of Suzuki lessons?

I took lessons and group classes at the Peabody Institute starting when I was almost four. I did about a year and a half in the official programme, and then had some overlap because I started studying with Klara Berkovich, who also worked with the Suzuki Method.

For the first group class I was uncomfortable being on stage, so I just stayed in the wings and pretended to be on stage. By my second or third group class, I’d gained so much confidence that I thought, ‘Why isn’t the teacher asking me to do the solo?’

Many Suzuki teachers speak about the importance of the social aspect of classes. How was that for you? I’m guessing that you might have stood out as the star of your class…

No! I don’t think I developed spectacular violin skills noticeably different for my age until I was a few years in. Suzuki was more like planting seeds for my relationship with music.When I look back at it as a grown-up who plays with other people and as a soloist, who practises and listens to music – all of that was part of the landscape from the very beginning.

You recently made the recordings for the latest editions of the first three Suzuki books. Can you tell me about that?

It was really great to have the experience of revisiting the pieces, and having the ultimate experts in the booth to give me feedback. I saw a lot in the method that I hadn’t noticed before, like how the techniques are gradually added in.

I really tried to be mindful of the student’s level of playing. I tried to play in ways that were my playing, but more relatable and not too overwhelmingly layered. I wanted to speak directly to the student. Thinking about all the students and about how the recordings can help was a really meaningful experience.

Is there anything you still do in the practice room today that you learnt from Suzuki lessons?

I don’t think I would remember enough. My assumption would be there is something, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

I’ve been doing a ‘100 Days of Practice’ project, which I’ve shared online. I’ve seen in the comments the common stressors of practice. It’s almost like you’re supposed to go into a practice room, look at yourself in a mirror, pick out all the things that aren’t going to measure up, and then just stay in that room until you’ve fixed yourself. That is pretty cruel, I think.

I’m not going to accomplish more by putting pressure on myself than I am by just chipping away at it. I’m proud of a day when I do one thing that I wanted to accomplish just a bit better. If you add it up to 365 days in a year, that’s many tiny achievements – and that’s huge.

INTERVIEW BY SAMARA GINSBERG

‘I don’t have a single Asian colleague who hasn’t been told at some point that they played robotically, or who hasn’t had it assumed that their parents were pushing them. There are pushy parents in every part of the music world. That’s hardly a Suzuki thing. It’s undeniable that part of the backlash to Suzuki in this country has been based in racism.’

The last few years have seen an increasing focus on social justice both in the arts and in wider settings. The core Suzuki belief that all children have innate aptitude seems aligned with these values. However, instrumental lessons are often seen as a conspicuously middle-class activity, both for economic and cultural reasons. Conway has given this a lot of thought:

‘Dr Suzuki’s first principle that every child can learn to be talented is inherently democratic. It is a very equitable philosophy. Every Suzuki teacher will tell you every child can learn to be talented. And then if you ask them why their students tend to be from white, upper middle-class families, they will say, “Well, I’ve just taken whoever’s been interested, and then they’ve told their friends.”’

Conway has worked to get around this by running Suzuki Hub as a social enterprise, imposing a Robin Hood tax on wealthier parents in order to subsidise the fees of those in less privileged positions. She says that parents welcome this, as they see the value in their children learning alongside a diverse range of classmates.

Teacher training is different in different countries. In the UK, for example, there is a minimum of three years’ worth of part-time training before becoming accredited. The US takes a less formalised approach with a focus on continuing professional development – the course itself is less rigorous, but teachers are expected to take it repeatedly with different instructors at various stages in their career.

The interpersonal elements of teacher training are equally weighted towards dealing with both students and their parents, enabling teachers to build a strong Suzuki Triangle. The Suzuki Triangle has come into its own during the Covid-19 pandemic – Suzuki parents went into online tuition already accustomed to playing an active role. This is all very well with established students, but how on earth does one go about teaching tiny beginners online? Kreitman tackled this situation with a pair of three- and five-year-old brothers:

‘We had two lessons a week and the first lesson was with the dad only. I would teach him what he needed to teach the boys, and then the next lesson I would supervise him working with them. I wasn’t directly teaching the kids –I was really just doing it through the dad. By the end of the year, they both can play a beautiful Twinkle.’

What’s next for the world of Suzuki? Many teachers say that their waiting lists are enormous and that demand is outstripping supply to the point where they simply don’t know of another teacher they can refer students to. There is a hope that more musicians will choose Suzuki teaching as a career path, but what is it that makes the method so popular?

Conway says: ‘The kids that I feel most proud of are the kids who have found it difficult and stuck with it. The “growth mindset” really is the core of Suzuki Method. Psychologist Carol Dweck is the person who coined the term, but Suzuki was one of the people who really locked in on the fact that if you teach kids how to learn something they find difficult, they learn how to apply that in all other areas of their lives. It doesn’t really matter what that first thing is.’