My little daughter (4 years old) has been asking and asking to learn to play the cello. After resisting for a bit (I thought she could start if she was still keen when she was six-ish) I've given in, and on Saturday, I got her an 1/8th cello on hire.

I mentioned it to my sister, and said I was thinking of taking her to a Suzuki teacher in Leicester. She was really negative about it, and said that 'real musicians' are very anti-Suzuki. I wondered whether that was true, and if so, why?

I'm not particularly invested in my child being hugely gifted, I don't expect her to be a prodigy, or a great soloist. I'm just trying to go with her interests, and not block her when she so clearly wants to try something. From what I'd read about Suzuki, it sounds kind of playful, and that seemed an appropriate approach for such a small child.


Any input gratefully accepted!

Hi Meercat!

my own thoughts on your question are as follows;

1. far far more depends on the nature of the teacher as a person, musician and teacher than on the method they follow. You cannot decide whether someone is a good teacher or not purely because they do or don't follow the Suzuki method.

2. of parallel importance to 1. above is whether you and your child have sufficient enthusiasm to practise regularly - obviously a good teacher will feed enormously into this, but however good the teacher is they cannot magic practise out of either of you.

3. subject to the above two comments, there is nevertheless one important difference in the Suzuki method, which is at once its strength and weakness. You learn to play by ear and not by reading music.

The strength of this method for all learners is that they have to listen to what they are playing rather than mechanically putting their finger down and hoping the right note comes out, and once they have learnt a piece by ear they are freed from the burden of having to read and follow the music whilst playing, which enables them to concentrate on the quality of the sound they are producing, and to pick an instrument up and "show off" without first having to find some sheet music. This advantage, though real, is not as all consuming as is sometimes claimed, because students well taught under a more traditional method will also listen to what they are playing, and can also be encouraged to play around with their instrument and try to pick out familiar tunes by ear.

There is an additional advantage of the Suzuki method for very small children, which is that their ability to replicate music by ear comes to them considerably earlier than their ability to replicate music by note reading. This may still be the case for your 4 year old daughter, although she is approaching the sort of age where reading music would not be an impossibility.

The criticism usually made of the Suzuki method is that an inability to note read is a massive disadvantage when considering all but the most simple of tunes. It is sometimes, for instance, reported that Suzuki trained instrumentalists struggle when they attend orchestra and are given 5 or 6 longish pieces which include harmonic accompaniment as well as the main tune. Learning all that off by heart is unrealistic.

I think Suzuki himself would turn in his grave to think that anyone was accusing him of not wanting his students to learn to read music. I myself have been led in a good university orchestra by two Suzuki trained violinists both of whom were very good note readers. Suzuki's point was not that students don't need to learn to read music, but that first they have to learn to play by listening. Progressing as he intended, Suzuki violin students are meant to be playing the Vivaldi A minor concerto from memory before they reach secondary school age. At some point along that road they should be introduced to note reading - he just didn't think it should be before they even started playing, or the basis on which all music had to be learnt.

I think problems sometimes arise in this country when due to lack of practise or other reasons, progress at the "playing by ear" stage is slow, and the basic Suzuki repertoire, which was only intended as a starting point, becomes a Mount Everest which is never climbed and thereby becomes a barrier to the child ever learning to note read. This is a potential problem which a good Suzuki teacher should be alive to.

As a result of the above, I don't think the fundamental question you should be asking yourself is "Suzuki or not?". I think the better question is "is this a good teacher who will inspire a love of music in my daughter?" I think for a parent that question can sometimes be a difficult one to get an answer to in advance of lessons starting. Some of the things you might be able to do are; have a chat with the teacher and ask for an overview of her approach, perhaps also asking how she approaches note reading. Have a chat with any students or parents of one of her students, and see if they are enjoying themselves. Listen to the teacher and/or her students playing, if you get the opportunity. If there isn't the opportunity to do any of that before lessons start, the feedback should start coming in pretty quickly once lessons have started. (incidentally I did none of those things with my son's Suzuki teacher - fortunately she was very nice, but we ended up stopping the lessons for other reasons - these thoughts are made with hindsight!)

good luck with whatever you decide to do, and do keep us posted!

Zoda, thanks for that thoughtful response. I find that really reassuring. Your description was more or less how I'd understood the method to work, and I feel a little less worried now.

She picks up tunes to sing by ear pretty easily, and playing with the cello yesterday, she could hear the differences when we depressed the strings, and played different strings, etc. She was starting to sing along with the sounds she was making (very sweet!). However, I don't think she'll be satisfied waiting too long to read notation, as she's very interested in it, and very keen to try to read my music books (just as she's keen to read text in other kinds of books).

I've spoken to the teacher on the phone, and she invited me to come and observe a lesson or two, which I thought was pretty positive. She was very likeable on the phone (I know that's not a great indication), and seemed to have a reasonable understanding of how small children learn (important to me as a dev psychologist!). My only snagging worry is that she told me she wouldn't introduce bowing for quite a long time - the main thing that makes my child want to learn is that she loves using the bow on the strings!

I was about to post exactly the same first point as Zoda - that especially for young children, the teacher himself or herself is far more important than the methodology.

Son Viohazard started violin not long after he turned 4. There are advantages and disadvantages to starting early, but I don't think he's ever had cause to regret it - I haven't! At 4, too, he was oblivious to any prodigy nonsense, he just played, and that was that.

I think you probably know what you're looking for! I hope it doesn't make her too nervous though, having her lessons observed by a developmental psychologist! (which issue of "the psychologist" will your analysis of her be appearing in? )

I would definitely take her up on her offer of observing lessons - it would be quite good if you could see a more advanced pupil as well - about 30 seconds should be enough to tell you if her pupils are worn down, miserable and lacking in tone, or enthusiastic and having a go.

As to the question of when to start bowing, I think there's some things which you can only see how they are going to work out once you get them underway. I think a balance has to be found between the main agenda and driving force coming from the teacher, but some sign of appropriate flexibility and responsiveness sufficient to keep the child enthusiastic. Your daughter may see bowing as a "reward" to work towards by progressing with her plucking - but then again neither of my two were that philosophical at 4! On the other hand she may just decide she likes plucking in the context of lessons and progress. If you keep the teacher updated with your daughter's keenness to use the bow, it would be interesting to see what the teacher makes of that information.





ha ha!

I was actually thinking of Viohazard when I posted that, because from your previous posts, Allears, it seems he could illustrate the point I was making from his own experience, having himself had Suzuki trained teachers ranging from the demented to the sublime!

Meerkat - I think Zoda gave you a pretty balanced account. I don't know whether I'd qualify as a proper musician or not - but I'm not particularly anti-Suzuki, for what it's worth. I think in the hands of a good teacher it can be one of the better methods for starting very young children.

I have some experience of it, although I've not used it first hand; my daughter started violin with the Suzuki method and initially did well, including a transition to reading music with a second teacher. (In her case it was the third teacher who was the weak link in the chain I think - and that was not down to Suzuki). She certainly played in tune fairly early on - I remember her class teacher's jaw dropping when she heard her play at age 6 - and she told me later it was because she actually played properly in tune.

It does seem that Suzuki in the west is sometimes "watered down" a bit - used by teachers who know something of it but who also use other methods. This may not necessarily be a bad thing - I myself tend to use various methods depending on the aptitude and ability of any particular student - but it needs to be used effectively, and if, eg, the teacher is using bits of the method he/she needs to be in a position to choose the most effective bits, rather than just going for what's most easily available. Some teachers use it as a starting point; in the Far East it's more likely I think to be regarded as the complete system.

Just a few random thoughts. I'm not a string teacher, so they are general thoughts. I had the luck to attend a Suzuki concert in Tokyo a few years ago when Dr Suzuki himself was present, and there were students there from 3 to 18 or older, so something works - at least appears to, given this one snapshot. There were several tinies there playing wee cellos - and if I remember correctly they were using the bow.

I would say give it a try and see how it goes - I feel it's more important to find someone who understands the age group than anything else. At this stage, as long as she has fun and stays enthusiastic I wouldn't worry too much about anything else.

No direct experience of Suzuki, but thought I'd add that your daughter has excellent taste in instruments! Someone I know has been learning Suzuki violin since she was tiny and plays really beautifully and is fine about sight reading too. There have been one or two derogatory comments that I have heard of made about her by other teachers and parents relating to suzuki. I can't see they are justified at all, so I think these are down to predudice - you are correct to worry a little about this. However it doesn't seem to have held the child in question back at all (she has won scholarships and music festival prizes and plays in national orchestras etc.) I don't see why a child can't begin with suzuki and move to more traditional teaching when they are older if predudice is a problem. I should have thought observing some lessons would be a great idea to decide if it's the right approach (and the right teacher) for your daughter.

Lastly - if you take a look at the link below you will see a cute picture of a really young cello beginner!

http://www.amybarston.com/bio.html

I know a few post Suzuki violinists and they were very good. I think zoda's post is excellent advice, and also agree with maggiemay that it needs to be used effectively. I would imagine at age 4 that it would be a more suitable way to start your daughter off than a more traditional method, and give her a head start in terms of tone production and posture etc.

And remember, Suzuki children aren't behind in their SR skills, they are just ahead in their playing skills.

My son started off in the Suzuki method for piano and I envy his technique and memory skills. I give him a piece of music, he reads it, plays it and then does it by heart. Grrrrggghhhh

It is hard to add much to the very thoughtful replies above.

In particular as Zoda says it must be the teacher, and more importantly, her relationship with both you and your child which is important. If you like the teacher, and are impressed after observation I would go for it. There are a lot of good things in Suzuki teaching - none of which are unique to the method, but it is rare to have all of them available in one teacher.

A couple of things haven't been been mentioned above.

Firstly, most Suzuki teachers will give you a normal weekly lesson, and several group lessons a term. These can vary from large groups of children all playing at similar levels, to small groups of children playing at very different levels. Most children find these group lessons very motivating - they can hear (and begin to learn) the music they will be playing, and learn from a very early age about playing in an ensemble. Groups are normally fun - it depends on the teacher, but in our case the groups are a large social event, and a highlight of the children's week.

Secondly most Suzuki teachers will arrange for a good number of performance opportunities. This is not to say that other teachers do not do this, but the idea of performance is firmly entrenched in the Suzuki philosophy. In the case of our teacher the children are all playing in one informal group concert a term, and all playing in a solo concert one or twice a year. There is also generally a formal concert once a year, and often opportunity to play in city-wide or nationwide Suzuki events.

Thirdly the philosphy of positive reinforcement - always finding the good bits in a child's playing or practice, does seem to pay dividends. It is all too easy to be only critical as a parent listening to music practice - particularly string instruments palyed by the very young!

However, don't underestimate the amount of parental involvement that is required to make the method work. The method is quite prescriptive: parents should attend lessons and groups, and should supervise daily practice. This prescription is no bad thing, but is quite a commitment.

For what it is worth, in my experience the learning by ear, and the good intonation my child has from that has been very valuable, and her music reading seems to be about as good as her peers learning traditionally. She is only 8 at the moment, so only time will tell whether there will prove to be a difference.

My feeling is that young children can get a good deal out of the Suzuki method - and that many of the benefits have little to do with music, and a lot to do with the confidence that being able to play an instrument and having a good ear will bring.

A small side benefit - a good deal of the music is memorised, even once the children are reading music fluently. This ability to memorise great wads of music seems to spill over into the children's school work and every day life: learning tables and spellings is pretty straightforward after all this.

Thanks for mentioning the performance opportunities and group sessions. Because they weren't a part of my daughter's Suzuki training I hesitated to list them - although I know they are an important part of the original Suzuki system on home ground. We had the occasional pupils' concert - as many teachers do - but there were no regular group sessions at all, and by all accounts these do seem to form a very valuable adjunct to the individual lessons.

I think you're right about the memory and confidence benefits. Parental involvement is vital, and is a commitment, quite a fun one though and we didn't find it too onerous.

I'd agree with that! A few other/follow-on points do spring to mind:

On the comment about 'watered down Suzuki', some teachers in the UK use the repertoire but are not trained Suzuki teachers. If you do want the whole Suzuki package, do check that the teacher is a qualified Suzuki teacher. S/he will have undergone substantial training through the British Suzuki Institute, which not only relates to technical skills, but to the way of teaching. The BSI is at http://www.britishsuzuki.org.uk/

On sight reading: it does come later than in other approaches, but not necessarily as late as Dr Suzuki originally intended it within the Japanese context. Remember that at that time in Japan there were virtually no high school orchestras, or indeed much music-making, because all effort was concentrated on a very heavy academic timetable. The pressure was therefore on to have children get to as advanced a stage as possible before they had to drop music for serious academic work. In the West, music opportunities abound in high/senior schools, and so the focus has shifted a bit. With this has come earlier introduction of music reading, although still later than with other approaches. Suzuki teachers are well aware of the need to prepare students to join in with group music making. My children started to learn to read music around the Suzuki Book 2 stage (Brahms Waltz, Gossec Gavotte, Boccherini Minuet among the pieces in the repertoire). My son has been in the National Children's Orchestra of Scotland for 3 years, and my daughter goes for the first time this year, with repertoire including Weber, Arnold and Humperdink. So Suzuki kids can read orchestral scores!

Positive reinforcement is a wonderful aspect of the method. Yes, it's time-consuming, but what better to invest time in than our children?

My daughter in particular has found that the method has encouraged her to think about her learning style and preferences, and this has helped her tremendously in school work.

And the national and worldwide community is a significant plus from our point of view. We've made friends from across the world through Suzuki. We're off to the Suzuki World Convention in Turin at Easter, where the children will be playing common repertoire with 2000 others from around the world. I am preparing to pack plenty of paper tissues for the the part where I'll see my kids playing the Bach Double Violin Concerto from memory as a common language with all these other children.

Suzukimom

The teacher is suzuki qualified, but there was one point I forgot to mention earlier that I could do with some advice on. Her hesitation in taking my daughter was that there wasn't a group she could join in with (she only has one or two private students, and teaches in schools, which is where she runs the group sessions). How big a gap do you think that would make in the suzuki approach? She thought she might have a group up and running in a year or so, but not in the immediate future.

From what I observed the group sessions can be a valuable addition to the lessons, but the lessons could also work as free standing lessons just as well as traditional lessons would. I rather suspect it is harder in this country to gather a great "gang" of Suzuki cellists than it is to get a group of Suzuki violinists together. On the other hand it sounds like the teacher will have group lessons if that becomes possible. In the meantime, another feature of the Suzuki method is that the parent is supposed to play with the child, so with your input your daughter will not miss out on the opportunity to make music together with someone else.

You should check how far. In suzuki training you qualify a book at a time - By book, they mean level, each level being one book of the Suzuki repertoire. So, a teacher can be qualified for book 1 - ie just for beginners., and not for later books.

Suzuki training tends to take several years - most teachers qualify in small jumps, so having a book 1 teacher is no bad thing, provided she is following up her own training.

As for groups, often Suzuki teachers don't have groups of their own, but will send the children to another teacher's larger groups. Also, within the Suzuki world there are endless workshops and holiday courses around the country (and around the world) where your children can get the buzz that the groups give, and meet other children.

I wouldn't have thought that groups were essential - but they are a big bonus.

Good luck with choosing your teacher. I hope the observation goes well.

Again, I'm not the first to say this, but "Suzuki-trained" is a different thing from "uses Suzuki materials".

Viohazard's first teacher used the Suzuki books but had no training, and his second teacher was conversely quite influenced by Suzuki methods but didn't use the materials or have a system. He had a few lessons long ago in NZ from a trained Suzuki teacher, and the difference was apparent (not to say that there's no other way to learn violin, but the trained teacher knew how to make the Suzuki approach WORK).

Group...for a small child, a group doesn't need to be a large group. 2-3 other kids getting together is good, overlapping lessons for a small demo or duet is good, including kids on projects the teacher might otherwise do alone (e.g. a music talk for the local Scouts or Guides) and so on. Even tiny beginners like to show other kids how to hold the violin and play it.

It's important that you do check how far the teacher is qualified. There are 5 levels of training, which don't equate exactly to books, because in the violin repertoire at least there are 10 books. Level 1 qualifys a teacher for Books 1 and 2 of the repertoire. Level 5 in violin covers the last few books up to book 10. Some teachers aim for a phased update in their level of qualification, and continue all the way to level 5. Others may stop for a while at a lower level, and the issue for you then - and certainly if the teacher does only have level 1 - is that your daughter would have to transfer to another teacher. I had a look at the BSI website and didn't immediately see a cello teacher in Leicester, but it may be that there are updates to be made to the site. In any case, the BSI is the best source for information on qualified teachers.

Group classes certainly add to the fun, but I wouldn't hold back from starting now if your daughter is very keen. As parent_1 says, there are national and wider opportunities. I see from the BSI website that there are cello workshops this summer in Suffolk and Temple Dinsley. Workshops are great fun for children and parents, and children usually come away enthused. We have cellists each year at our weekend strings workshop in Edinburgh, ranging from tinies to more advanced students who also take part in chamber groups during the weekend.

Suzukimom

She did make a point of telling me she only had level one, but that she is continuing with her training (I thought her being upfront about that was promising!).

I'll have a look at the BSI site - thanks for the suggestion.

The most important things with small children is for the child to feel comfortablewith their teacher and for the teacher has experience in teaching young children.
We didn't have Suzuki near us but we did manage to find teachers who were good with young children. The teachers were influnced by Kodaly and Dalcroze, the lessons were fun with lots of singing and listening games used along with learning to play They learned to read music as they played but they also placed great importance on playing from memory and quality of sound as well.
Their teachers used to regulary organise concerts so they would have a chance to perform and also to listen to others as well.
At 4, regardless of the teaching method used, you will have to help with practise. We never used the word practice at home but said we were going to play music, play sounds like fun so the "practice" was achieved with the minimum of fuss.
whatever you do regarding teachers I hope your daughter enjoys playing her cello.

The practice thing makes sense. I think it's sad the way that we turn so many lovely things for children into 'work' (look what we do to reading in schools!) and 'practice'. Takes the joy out of things entirely! T has wanted to play her cello every day this week, but is tremendously independent about it. She won't let me show her anything at all, and insists that she's going to do it her way. She won't even let me get my cello out when she's playing!

She's been forming open stringing bowing into little rhythmic tunes, and it's awfully sweet. But I think, given that she won't let me 'teach' her, I'm going to have to sort some lessons out pretty quickly!

Personally I have reservations about the suzuki method. I prefer the Kodaly approach for younger children as it reinforces string technique with a teaching of general musicianship.

But the most important thing is that your child and teacher click so that that they feel enthused to practice, and not that it is some kind of chore.

my daughter has Kodaly lessons as well as cello lessons. Although she doesn't learn by the Suzuki method there's no reason why she couldn't. I don't think it has to be either/or. The difficulty in most places seems to be finding a Kodaly class in the first place.

Too true

Sadly so...

However, Bagpuss and I have A Cunning Plan which might go some way towards helping here...in fact it's the biggest and craziest plan we've ever had - whether or not it will actually come off is another matter...but you never know...*LARGE GULP*

Cunning Plans are always good...

Thanks Sarah - will let you know if this one ever comes to fruition!

My 5 year old son is going to start the violin after easter.

He already has his 1/8th size violin and at present he gets is out of its case every day. Just picks it up, puts a bit of rosin on his bow, and tries to play the open strings.

His teacher is colorstrings/kodaly based and will at least have a child who is happy to get their instrument out of their case on a daily basis before he starts, and I'm being very careful to tell him that "mummy does not play the violin" and "his teacher will tell him how to hold the bow properly."

The plus side its that my older son is now actually doing some Piano practice, and this means that I can carry on teaching him.

(Mummy "plays" the piano regularly a.k.a she's actually practicing so at least they see its not just them that are getting some music done)

My daughter had her first lesson on Saturday, and really enjoyed it. THis was a relief, as I've been a bit worried about how she'd feel about not being allowed to play with her bow on strings for a while, as it's the thing she's most wanted to do. Her teacher was lovely with her, and she's done her practice routine very enthusiastically today and yesterday. She particularly enjoys owly eyes, and has taken very seriously her teacher's statement that she is now a cellist, and has to look after her cello herself (she insists on putting it on her back in its pack to go from the dining room where it's stored to the lounge where we practice). She's also very excited because her teacher is including her in a concert she's organising for her existing students (she's going to sing with them)>

Great news Meercat! Long and happily may it continue