The Press: Suzuki: the mother tongue method of teaching the violin

Press, 31 May 1989, Page 20

To the uninitiated, the Suzuki method looks like torture. To a parent, it could look fun, but a lot of work. To a child, learning a musical instrument, it

can be fun. To the members of the South Island branch of the New Zealand Suzuki Institute the sound of 44 little darlings all scraping away on their violins was pure sweet music. It was the first major week-end workshop since the branch’s inception a year ago.

Half a dozen teachers now instruct about 60 pupils in the Christchurch area, in association with the Christchurch School of Instrumental Music. There are other groups in Timaru, Oamaru, and Reefton.

The workshop guest tutor, Cathy Shepheard, scarcely notices the mass sounds any more. At 27, she has taught both pupils and teachers the Suzuki method throughout the world.

She began learning the Suzuki method at 12 when her mother helped to introduce it to Melbourne. By 14 she was teaching pupils under her mother’s critical eye.

After studying with Dr Suzuki in Japan for two years, Shepheard graduated in 1980 with a Suzuki Method violin teaching degree. Although the workshop is a “very healthy set-up with lovely people work-

ing hard together” Shepheard says the South Island branch needs funds to send a teacher to Japan or the United States to be trained. “Or to even import someone from there with first-hand experience to teach here.”

Shepherd regards the Suzuki method as just another way of teaching. “It’s a part of the music world, just another ap-

proach and not intended to replace traditional teaching,” she says. “It’s only a choice, but some people think it’s a foreign world.” What makes it different is the vital involvement of parents as coaches — and in some cases, learners. During lessons the teacher instructs both the parent and the pupil, so that the child can be

supervised at home. There is more to it. With total involvement from the . parents, and often the whole family, the child is always performing to people and with others.

“They’re always playing to people and they get the chance for lots of concerts, so performing in public is routine,” says Shepheard.

Pressure and stress on the pupils are avoided as much as possible. For some beginners, only two or three years old, the sessions are more like fun and games than earnest lessons.

While they may not know it, even the toddler fiddlers are absorbing the music they will one day play. Each pupil is given tapes of music they will

learn, which they listen to as background strains.

“The Suzuki method is known as the mother tongue method because it is taught the way a child learns language,” says Shepheard.

It could be that this early absorption in the music gives the Suzuki pupils an advantage in ear training, she thinks. “They nave no difficulty learning notation later either, no trouble at all. They learn just as fast, and probably faster, than children who have been taught by traditional methods.”

But what if the parent, with such a key role to play, can’t read music?

“I have had to teach some parents basic notation, but mostly we teach them to be coaches, repeating what has been taught in the lessons.”

It does not matter if a parent cannot play an instrument. What does matter is the relationship between the teacher, parent and child. Central to the Suzuki philosophy is praise first, then criticism.

“You’ve got to know what’s good, and what needs to be corrected,” says Shepheard. “Parents don’t always know what to praise, which is why workshops like this are wonderful. They can talk about how they have solved certain problems and share their concerns.”

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