What Kind of Parent Are You?

Teach Suzuki Podcast

The Teach Suzuki Podcast recently published its seventh episode, and this one is an interesting discussion for parents particularly. You will want to give this one a listen if you are a parent or a teacher.

In this episode, I talk about how parents run up against their own personal history when they participate in the Suzuki journey. For some parents, this encounter can be life changing for the parents as well as the children and other members of the family. What do I mean?

Everyone is the product of their own personal history. I had parents, and everyone else did too. Some of us had happy childhoods, and others did not. Most of us had mixtures of things, and our histories were also not the same within the family. My sister's memories are very different from my own, and even as an adult with the experience that I have as a teacher, I am unable to completely understand the family dynamics as they relate to my parents or my sibling.

To look at this phenomenon from a Suzuki parent's perspective though, I find that many of my studio parents discover that the difficulties they have during home practices are directly related to the parent's own personal experiences growing up in the parent's own family. This can be a very liberating discovery for most parents. I have witnessed many parents shed tears when they make this discovery and can now recognize and admit openly how their personal upbringing and story plays such a negative impact on the parents' styles of parenting today. For many parents this is a defining moment of beauty.

I use the word "beauty" to describe what happens, because I am gratified inside to share the parents' joy as they realize that their children's futures do not have to be a repeat of the parents' past disappointments. This is joyful because children will now reap the benefits of very informed and thoughtful parenting from this point forward. And joyful too because many parents now free themselves of beliefs that have limited the parents up to this point. I have had many parents rediscover a love for music that the parents had given up hope for when growing up. Many of these parents have begun music lessons alongside their children in order to share this joy of discovery.

So have a listen and see if you find this subject one that you would like to explore in more depth as a parent. Or, if you are a teacher, share this episode with your studio parents and see if they too are finding these same experiences. This episode, I hope, will offer every studio an opportunity to join parents and teachers together for the benefit of the children. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you discover and wish to share. Click below to listen to the podcast episode:

          Podcast Episode 007

Happy Practicing!

----- Paula -----

© 2016 by Paula E. Bird

Monday Morning Check In: How Basic Goodness Gives Life to Technique

Written by Paula E. Bird ©2013

"It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique." -- Dr. Stephen R. Covey (American educator and author, 1932-2012)

Dr. Stephen Covey wrote this in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. As I considered what to write about for this Monday Morning Check In, I recalled what Dr Suzuki wrote about music and character: "Beautiful tone, beautiful heart." Written in the Preface to Suzuki Violin Volume Two, Dr. Suzuki writes that "strings only sing the heart of the one who plays them. . . . because our entire personalities are revealed in the tone we produce."

"In human terms, if one lives in a self-centered, egotistical and immature way, one's life will be that of no joy and constant dissatisfaction. In other words, because of selfish needs, what one creates will be nothing but noise.

In contrast, when one lives by the principle of serving the hearts of others and learns to live for other people, one can enjoy a life of light, without discord, in harmony with others, and walk through life in pure joy. Similarly, the ultimate goal of music education, as well as the secret of violin playing is to guide others away from the world of self-centeredness to that of loving hearts in the service of others.

. . . The philosophy of violin playing is the same as that for life. Man, like the violin, can only sing the song of his own heart." -- Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998, Japanese violinist, educator, and founder of Suzuki Method of Talent Education)

It was Dr. Covey's words about basic goodness giving life to technique that spurred my memory of Dr. Suzuki's words about the violin singing the song of the human heart. I believe that both men would agree with each other. What we are inside is revealed when we play the violin, or whenever we play music.

I teach a string techniques course at the university, in which I teach music education students how to teach string techniques. I can work a few minutes with one of the university students and tell you much about that student just by how the student approaches the instrument, by the type of sound that the student produces, and by the type and amount of energy level that the student produces while playing. I am sure that the students think I am some sort of gypsy fortune teller because I am able to accurately describe the student's personality style within minutes of teaching the student. I can guess at the types of hobbies the student might pursue, the state of the student's clothes closet at home, and what sort of social life the student maintains. I can accurately guess what types of grades a student usually gets in classes and how uptight the student is.

When I listen to student recitals, I can close my eyes and envision the sort of person that is playing. I can hear whether the person is smiling inside or hurting. I can feel the student's instrument and music vibrating in the air, and I can tell whether the student is trying to communicate with me on some level or whether the student is playing "at me" or for their own inward purposes.

I know of several teachers who routinely assign special homework to their students during the week, which consists of character building exercises along the lines of doing things for others. The idea here is that if the students frequently perform acts of goodness or kindness, then the students will get into the habit of doing good or being kind. I think this is a great idea because it makes students and parents aware of the exercise. Hopefully, when one person sees another doing such good things, the person will admire the effort and will strive to imitate the gesture. The one act could exponentially grow to include many, many others.

What such an exercise will also do is help to purify and mature the heart and spirit of the person doing the exercise. We all know that "going through the motions" will not a good person make, but doing so will go a long way toward building such a person in the end. We have heard the adage "fake it until you make it," and this catch-phrase may say it all. We may have to go through the motions and build the character habit until we finally reach the point that the motions and the good strong character are instilled in us. I believe that good character is just another ability that we can develop by overlearning.

What Drs. Covey and Suzuki are both telling us here is that good character is the foundation to good everything else. For Dr. Covey, good character provides the structural framework for good attitude, good relationships, good communication, and good leadership. For Dr. Suzuki, good character will be reflected in a person's music, which is the performer's personal expression of inward emotion, attitude, and sense of beauty. Without good character, something is "off" about the person, and no amount of technique will change that. We will be dazzled by technique, but we will not be moved by it. We might admire someone for their technical skill, but we will not be persuaded to move mountains.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. -- Aristotle*

This week, let us contemplate the words of both Dr. Covey and Dr. Suzuki and consider what habit of character we are building through our repeated actions. Let us strive for excellence, but more than that. Let us make the effort to repeatedly do the right things that strengthen our character. Let us reach out to the world and build connections that will uplift and encourage our society and world to grow beyond itself in a good way, in the right way.

Go forth and do good!
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*Although this quote is attributed to Aristotle, it may actually come from Will Durant and his work "The Story of Philosophy," in which Durant summed up Aristotle's thoughts.

Everyone Can Improve

I wanted to share an experience with you. I have a university student who showed up as a freshman without ever having much in the way of private lessons before arriving at the university. This student learned most of what he could play on the violin in his school music program. He had some chops, but the biggest problem is that his left hand posture interfered with his ability to make improvement. In fact, just about everything about how he held the violin impacted on how he played.

We made the necessary adjustments, and this student got better. Along his university journey, he discovered that he enjoyed teaching and was quite good at it. Although he was not a great role model when it came to showing students how to do things right, he had very strong analytical and teaching skills. So he took on a few private students and began working with the university string project. Students liked him. He could relate to students that other teachers found difficult to reach.

As he progressed in his teaching career, he came to me frequently with insightful questions. He is one of my regular blog readers. He expressed interest in more formalized Suzuki teacher training. I started going through the Suzuki books with him, beginning with the Twinkle Variations. I noticed something interesting as we went along.

This student started to improve everything! Once I showed him the various teaching points involved in the songs, and he discovered many of these points himself while teaching his own private students, he started to improve his own playing. His posture solidified in the right direction. His bowing and tone production sounded much better, and his skill as a violinist grew. It is actually quite exciting to see the changes from week to week, all because he started at the beginning of the Suzuki violin books and worked through the material.

I know that I myself have grown as a musician and violinist because I teach the Suzuki repertoire. My first year of taking teacher training, I embarked on a review program of all ten of the violin books. I made up a blank calendar form of the 7 days of the week, and I started filling in the calendar form with each song, allowing each Twinkle variation to fill up one box. I filled in across the chart and then continued filling in songs in the second row, the third row, etc. When I finished putting in each song or concerto movement on the chart, I would just look at the songs that fell under the particular day's column and do review. I skipped repeats or repeated sections, and generally did what I could to minimize the amount of time I spent. It generally took me about an hour to play the review section for the day. I could have cut down that time by dividing up my review chart to span two or three weeks or even an entire month.

I made so many discoveries about my own playing. I struggled with some of the same issues that my students have to struggle with when they learn a piece. I found out how to play Vivaldi's concerto in G minor without my hand muscles aching through most of it (play on the thumb-side corners of the fingers) -- something that plagues a person with small hands. I learned so many things and solidified so many of my technical skills. It was a great experience that summer.

Now, of course, I review quite often because I am teaching all of this material to students. I still draw from my own personal review experience when I teach. I highly recommend that teachers and performers take the time to review and really study the Suzuki repertoire. When we approach the material with a thoughtful and analytical mind, we will reap a great many benefits and discoveries.

I am reminded every teaching day of the genius of Dr. Suzuki. He put together a masterpiece of material for teaching students. I hope that everyone can share in this wealth.