My Experiences As A Suzuki Parent
Found in: Other Methods
Dorothy H. AU
Having been a Suzuki parent for my son, in both violin and piano, I thought I would talk about my observations of how Suzuki differs from Simply Music.
I believe that, apart from the delaying of the reading process, the Simply Music way of learning is completely different from the Suzuki method.
Here are a few of the differences that I see:
1. Simply Music is not a ‘playing by ear’ method. It is much more than that, and results are produced much FASTER.
2. I notice that my son remembers his SM pieces much better because of the SM ‘clues’ for each piece. In the past, once my son had forgotten a Suzuki piece, it was just ‘gone’, and took a lot of effort to revive.
3. The SM repertoire is completely different (classical, blues, jazz, accompaniment etc.), and therefore much more FUN. Also SM includes arrangements, composition, and improvisation.
4. Learning to read music is an important part of the SM curriculum, and presented at an appropriate time in an excellent way, and thus SM students become BETTER MUSIC READERS than most Suzuki or ‘traditional’ piano students.
In answer to questions I have seen about how the Suzuki method is actually taught, students have to listen to the music every day at least once (some teachers suggest playing the music softly during the night whilst the child is sleeping!!), learn to sing the songs with the correct words, also the versions of the songs (not done by all teachers), and then to ‘find’ the notes on their instrument, a process called learning to “audiate”.
As a Suzuki parent I had to promise the teacher that I wouldn’t help my son to find the notes for his song. You can easily see that this is completely different from the SM approach. To quote from the preface to Suzuki Book 1, the constant listening “helps them to make rapid progress. The children will begin to try their best to play as well as the performer on the recording.” Correct technique is therefore important, in fact my son was not allowed to move on to the next book for about three months, because his hand position was not perfect. As SM teachers, we would never hold someone back because of this.
There is much more to say on the subject, and I might add that I always speak with respect about the Suzuki method, since I do think that Dr. Suzuki was a great person. His book on the method is called “Nurtured by Love”, and one of his most famous sayings is “Where love is deep, much will be accomplished”.
Suzuki teachers vary considerably, with a lot of deviation from the original idea behind the method. The main criticism leveled at Suzuki students by the ‘traditional’ crowd is that they can’t read music properly. This is true in many cases, and becomes apparent when students join orchestras or ensembles and have to sight-read. Suzuki teachers are left to do their own thing when it comes to teaching their students to read music.
I would disagree with those who say that the basic premise of SM and Suzuki is the same (apart from the delayed reading). Suzuki is very much about realizing
the “untapped potential of very young children”, ie. the period 0 – 6years as the most crucial time for learning. When my son had his first Suzuki piano lesson at 5 1/2 years, I was made to feel as though I had been very neglectful in “leaving it so late”! As Simply Music teachers we assure people that it is never too late to learn.
It is also worth pointing out that the Suzuki method was developed in Japan, whilst SM is “Australian-developed”.
Hope this has been of help.
Dorothy H.