Suzuki Violin

[Andrea H]

I was asked to share my experience with my son and suzuki violin classes, so here it goes:
When Iñaki was 18 months old I had the feeling he needed to experience music in a new way. I had gone to Philadelphia to take the Doman course, and had been applying music appreciation with him for a long time. eventhough his age was not suggested in IAHP as proper for starting, I followed my instinct. I searched and found fairly easily a teacher, considering I live in Chile, South America, where we don´t have half of what you guys have in USA for early child development. The teacher had his doubts but I told him I didn´t expect results, I just needed my child to be exposed to the instrument at a high level of technique. I guess this took the load off and he agreed. My son loved the violin, carrying it to the academy, playing for others (no fingering at that time) and he was invited to form part in a recital at the age of 2. After the recital he was no longer interested in the instrument. We tried for one month and nothing. His classes were always solo because I was never able to find an age appropiate group that would fit him (eventhough I would consider even 6 yo age appropiate). So I started taking the class and he would accompany me. He wanted to bring his violin on his own account and follow the directions that the teacher gave to me. It has been two years since that and we have never stopped taking the class together, playing together in the recitals, and practicing together everyday. It is our thing. It bonded us in a particular way, and made me research new ways, more "Doman" ways if you will, of exposing a young child into a technique that is physically and emotionally demanding. I have come up with ways of stretching his class until he has been working for an hour, happily, concentrated on the "violin project".
I was asked about the violin pannel that is on the web album. It is very simple: his part of the class is now divided into five (the pictures on the web are outdated): playing, fingering exercises, bowing exercises, rhythm exercises (he composes a musical verse with material I made for him and he plays it on percussion instruments, the musical triangle, and lately on the violin), and finally the repertoire part of the class: each week we learn and practice a new thing: pizzicatto, staccato, etc.
I made a photgraph representing each one and the teacher grades him after each class:
+2 did it well, happily and advanced a level
+1 did it well and happily
+1/2 did it well
0 didn´t do it upon request
-1 didn´t do it upon request, and was rude
-2 didn´t do it upon request, and was rude and didn´t apologize.
At the end of the week, when we add up all of the points in the Discipline Pannel, we add this as well.
I have to say that one thing that made it good for him, although it was challenging for me, was that every practice we had during the week was a music research instead of merely a violin practice: hearing music, composing music, playing music (violin) and dancing music (eurhythmy).
Hope this post gives ideas and thanks for asking.

[nhockaday]

Wow, that's great! Do you happen to have any videos of him playing or practicing?

[reei]

andrea h,

thanks for sharing. here in hong kong, violin only starts at 3 yo.. i'll try to check out if i can do anything for renei when she turns 18 mths now is only 1 yo.

reei

[Xica]

Thanks for sharing your story Andrea.
I just send  your post to my husband who sometimes thinks I should stop investing in early learning products because he does not see results. I love the idea of my daughter experience an instrument. Right now, we are enrolled in The Music Class but I would love to have the opportunity to offer her a private music teacher. However, music teachers are more expensive in the USA and at this moment we can not afford it. A piano software seems as a good alternative for a beginner. Hopefully, your post can motivate my husband to consider it.

Thanks again.

[Andrea H]

Xica,
I strongly advice against computer using as a substitute, even as a help. I know right now this is unpopular since it is such a help for making bits and accesing info. For us parents it´s Ok to use it as a works media, but I don´t think it is beneficial at all for children. That includes absolutely no TV. I have no articles to share about investigations that proove this, certainly there are and there are also studies that show the contrary. BUT in the reality, if you read Shichida for instance, and research outside educational sites about ESP, the power of suggestion, speed reading or instant math, or whatever strikes you as important that you are homeschooling your child, you will see the power of the brain when it´s starts making connections to the outside world through the senses and emotions. Read Gardner´s Multiple Intelligence postulate (Amazon or even Wikipedia), and you will see that nothing substitutes reality. If you have no resources for a private teacher, buy the instrument. don´t hesitate. If you don´t have resources for a violin, buy a xylophone and practice her ear training with that. Coordination is a big one here, because playing the xylophone needs technique. I don´t want to lecture on my own stand pro reality and brain development, and against computers and TV, but I can tell you I have been researching and applying for quite some years now, and the most important thing is not how fast and early your child learns, but how he/she learns. What happens to her brain, and thus her persona, when the info goes in a different way, accesing a different area, at an age where they are still constructing their world image, building their logic patterns to function in a future world. The truth is a ten year old is small enough to learn how to play the violin well, but what we should be looking for is not a 10yo master in violin, but a 10yo master in music awareness. I hope I explained myself well. Research also Waldorf´s Eurhythmy, which is a dance. We have been doing it for years, and this is how my son learned to compose, first with his body, then with mathematical patterns, and finally with musical notes which he plays on the violin. This is what I mean, he can understand that music is everywhere (in the kinetics of the body, in the math pattern of a leaf, in the duration of a wind blow, etc).

[MonkeynoseMomma]

Andrea H,
I read your last post on this topic and am curious. Do you think it is a bad idea to do flashcard on the TV or computer? Also, do you not have your child use computer? Have I understood correctly?
I am very impressed with your hardwork and results, as I have read many of your posts.
Unfortunately, with little space, money, and poor organizational SKILLS(a life long problem) your program seems very daunting. I want the best for my daughter. She is brimming with potential. It leeks from her every pore.

[MonkeynoseMomma]

Also, what kind of day to day schedule did you have for your son at age 2? My daughter will be 2 at the end of the month. 

[Andrea H]

Yes, I don´t use the computer to teach my son, or the TV, or videos on TV or computer. Only reading, writing, talking, engaging in activities, taking workshops (we just finished an astronomy workshop that the whole family attended , since we gave him a telescope for his birthday), playing instruments, doing sports and whatever else you can think of. Sometimes for a parent it´s easier to present flashcards on the computer (and cheaper) as opposed to printing them and binding them into a book. This way the child gets exposed to more material, that in the other case wouldn´t make it through the assembling process. But, in the long run, (remember we are talking about a work of years), the quantity of the material isn´t as important as the way the material is presented. When Iñaki was 2,5 yo I was heavily into word and phrases bits in Spanish. We were reading El Quijote daily (it took us 1 year to finish it) and every day I would take a very challenging word from the book and make one bit for him. I would present this bit the next day three times, and then move on to a new word. His mind was processing quite quickly and this was enough. I mean to say that one must not loose the objective of the work: brain stimulation. If the making of the material is too much, too expensive, too emotionally draining, then you should adapt the material to your specific conditions of living. The info on bits (or whatever) and the daily life of your child isn´t separated. She is making an immediate association between the information and the logic parameters by which she will understand life. The intensity of whatever amount of stimulation you can give her is more important that the quantity of it.
At age two my son was:
1. Physical circuit every day
2. Spanish, English, German, japanese, french, Italian bits (EK)
3. Spanish, English books everyday
4. Logical- Mathematical activities every day (Hands on)
5. mathematical operations every day
6. Artistic development activities everyday
7. Violin classes
8. Important social program: the law
9. Homemaking responsabilities: he was starting to take care of our dogs, starting to make his bed alone and I started to teach him how to cook. I would make him do almost everything alone, I started to make him eat properly with real fork and real knife (I started with the fish knive that doesn´t have a blade and then moved on to the regular one)
10. Swimming
I may forget something, but every day was full of things to do, never a moment of boredom. I had a very good scheduling and programming I could relay on, and in my free time I was always researching for more, so time wouldn´t catch up with me when we moved on.

[Xica]

Andrea H,
Thanks for your reply. I will keep in mind your tips.
Xica

[reei]

Andrea H,

My daughter just started picking up Suzuki Violin lesson. She is 2 yo and is quite attentive in class and followed instructions. So far , so good. But how do I motivate her at home? If I do not want to use rewards like stickers and all that , any other way?

By the way, do you have a blog?

http://parentinglittler.blogspot.com

[ChrisSalter]

The description of the mother above taking violin lessons with her son was really inspiring and edifying. Kids model and want to be like their parents, and that work together bonds them in amazing ways. We have seen that with our Academy program as well, it is a surprise benefit we found that parents most rave about. I actually met Mr. Suzuki before he passed in the early 90s, and he said one thing to me (that I later saw in his books) that impressed me. He said "A small plant does not grow faster or better by pulling on its leaves, you must create an environment that nourishes it, with good soil, sunlight, water, etc., and it will grow naturally to its full potential."

Easier said than done, but music is one of those things you don't want to force, hence the importance of parental involvement and participation. Her attitude above was that she could learn along side with him, just ahead of him and share in the discoveries, in fact she described it as music research, where she is the guide and not the expert. That is so empowering that attitude, I really commend her.

Mr. Suzuki was one of the pioneers of early music education, but after spending some time in Japan and seeing their educational system, I realized that while he had some brilliant insights (start early, have the parent play first and with the children, let them learn a song deeply and well to get a holistic understanding of the elements of music) he also used a rote learning method much like they teach Chinese characters in Japan, i.e., just repeat, repeat repeat. This works of course, and is a staple of many Asian traditions, but Suzuki method students are notorious for struggling with improvisation skills (though this mom above is not following that method so strictly), and on the piano, they struggle to read fluently, memorizing and decoding rather than learning to read. He was an inspiration for our work with the Piano Wizard Academy as well, one of our delights is that kids as young as 2 and 3 can play instantly (so can their parents) because we use color coding first, not notation, but then transition them to recognize the notation after they are fluent in the song.

I look an music being such a big diverse world that no one method will give all the answers, use what tools work for you and yours, and like the mother above, don't be afraid to improvise and co-create the best things together to find a winning formula for you and your child.

Finally, I of course disagree with the other mother above who feels computers and TV is only detrimental, it is clearly how you use the tools, not the tools themselves, and we monitor that closely in our home, but our kids are in a different digital age, and not recognizing that is like not letting them use electric lights to study because it is not "natural". It really sounds almost like a religious point of view, not a practical one. Balance and parental involvement and interaction are the keys I think. I have a 13 year old and his computer use is mandatory for school work, and we have to monitor it closely so he stays balanced and doesn't get sucked up in the social media/youtube/video gaming world, but we are teaching him that balance rather than controlling it for him. He will go to college and will need to balance his studies there as well, better he learn that under us with our guidance than on his own. He can't learn to control and resist the temptation if it is not there to contend with, but close attention is needed because those things are so powerfully attractive. If I am worried about my kids drowning, I can keep them out of the pool until they are 18, even instill a strong fear and revulsion to getting in the water, but I would rather teach them to swim in carefully supervised situations. I look at the media and technology similarly. They will be immersed in that world some day, I want them to be able to keep their heads above wanter and navigate it easily without me.

[PY]

Begining of next year we will sign up for violin lesson(my daughter and me). Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I think music is such a powerful art in our minds.We need to cultivate it.

[ChrisSalter]

We have had some spirited discussion in this forum, with lots of curiosity and different points of view. We don't shrink from that, we hope to learn from it and take the best ideas and bring those tools to our homes to help our children grow.

With that in mind, we shared the free report on "Is Music a Birthright?"(http://www.brillkids.com/ext/partners/ebook-free-download-2.php) that gives some perspective the challenges of learning music, and their roots, some of which was brought out in our discussions. SoftMozart has some similar, more in depth articles on the origins and challenges of traditional music notation as well, the summary of which you can see in this thread (http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-music/information-about-music-history-and-theory-every-parent-should-know/new/#new). What I also added, in a different section, to try and give some perspective of the range of approaches and choices, is a series of posts about four common approaches to learning piano (up to now). I believe that our methods, both Hellene of SoftMozart and Piano Wizard Academy, begin to shape a "fifth way". What is important to appreciate is they were both developed in response to something that was not really working, in the context of the limitations of the other approaches, trying to compensate for those gaps and yet leverage their strengths. Though each method has its advocates and champions, including Hellene and I for our own, and those advocates can be as we have seen quite passionate and compelling, NONE OF THESE APPROACHES IS PERFECT. We do strive to honestly "perfect" our process every day, with more and more knowledge, and this forum has been I think very fruitful in its exploration of the options. Here is my latest contribution to that conversation.

Below is the link to that section of the forum.

http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-music/four-common-approaches-to-learning-piano-some-pros-and-cons/msg60967/#msg60967

I don't know how many parents are following all this, but I can tell you if you are, you are now MUCH more knowledgeable about both the challenges of music education, and the pallet of options available, and I hope it helps you all find your own unique solution to your children's needs, and leads to a less dogmatic, more practical, efficient and fun way to bring music into their lives.

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