In the Thirties, a Japanese man called Shinichi Suzuki had a
revelation.
He realized every japanese child could speak japanese. Even if
this may seem a commonplace, it is not. Japanese is a very though and complex
language, still every child born in Japan is capable of learning it in few
years, typically less than 3. “How was that possible?” Suzuki asked himself.
And he suddenly found a reply to his question : children learnt language
through listening, imitating and being immersed in a “linguistic environment”.
Suzuki was a violinist and he was looking for a strategy to teach
very young students. In 1931, in fact, a man brought to him his 4 year old
child, asking Suzuki to teach him to play the violin. The young Suzuki at first
didn’t know how to teach, but then he had that revelation. A child could learn
violin just like he had learnt his mother tonguee. Through listening,
imitation, repetition and motivation. And the environment had the
responsibility to develop his abilities. To nurture his potential and make the
best human being out of him. The parents, and in particular the mum, should
take part at every lesson and work with the child at home. The child’s mum was
a sort of “home coach” in Suzuki’s view.
Just like behavioural psychology approach in those years (Watson,
1930: Skinner, 1931), Suzuki saw the child as a product of his environment. No
skill, in his vision, could develop without being taught or nurtured by the
environment. He said “What is missing from environment will not develop on its
own” : therefore, talent was the result of a child’s development, and not
something inborn or extremely rare. Being a behavioural psychologist myself, I
wonder if Suzuki knew about Skinner or Watson’s theories. I wonder if he
studied them and if he was aware of being, in some ways, a radical behaviourist.
Even his educational philosophy and his advice to the parents – first of all,
to the mothers- had a behavioural foundation. But I’ll come back to this later,
because I’d like to get to the heart of the matter.
If talent wasn’t inborn, then, every child could acquire it. The
most important finding of Suzuki’s was, in my opinion, the following : “ Every
child can”. Every child can learn to play the violin and become a better human
being thanks to it, despite his abilities, disabilities, strengths, weaknesses,
inborn pitch and rhythmical sense, and despite his age and cultural background.
The only necessary and sufficient condition to learn is to have a musical
environment. Or to create it. And parents who are willing to seriously
undertake and carry on their musical pathway.
In my work with disabled students, I’ve had proof that really
every child can learn. I had students with a lot of different disabilities and
with severe impairments : severe autism, Asperger syndrome, deafness, blindness,
genetic syndromes, neuromuscular diseases, attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, dyslexia and so on. And I never
ever met a child who couldn’t learn. With the right type and amount of work, by
the child as well as the family, everyone learnt. Everyone improved and met my teaching
aims. Everyone enhanced his skills and developed his abilities. Even the most
severely disabled student acquired some music ability and learnt the basics of
the instrument. So Suzuki was right. In Nurtured by Love he tells us about two
children, one blind and the other hemiparetic, who overcame their disability
through violin playing and they learnt to play just like the other children.
(Suzuki, 1983). In my opinion his great and unique discovery has been
underestimated, and it is still today, by too many people.
The most common reason for this is the prominence of traditional
method in music schools. Traditional method believes talent is innate and few
people have it. It’s doesn’t ask the parents to be involved in their child’s
musical experience. It requires the student to be at least 7 or 8 to begin the
lessons, and it’s strongly based on music reading and writing before than being
allowed to play. With these rules, very young and / or disabled students are
not allowed to learn. But also very few traditional teachers think a young or
disabled child can learn. The opposite,
in Suzuki’s view reading music was not necessary to play, because, like he
pointed out “No bird learns to sing by reading”. (Suzuki, 1983). Another
difference with the traditional method lies in the aims of teaching violin.
Traditional teachers often teach to create professional musicians. Suzuki, at
the contrary, had a bigger aim: he wanted to make good citizens, wonderful
human beings and great souls. For him, violin was just a tool to achieve
greater goals and to change people and the world. He certainly had very big
dreams, but, like he said, music and love have indeed this enormous power. They
can change lives and people and touch their hearts and souls. I think every
teacher should have this goal. Teaching is about carrying out the best from
someone and therefore changing lives. A teacher should foster and lead young
children to help them achieving a better and happier life and future.
A teacher who had very similar ideas was a forerunner of Suzuki
method, Edith Lynwood Winn (1868-1933). An American teacher, pedagogue and
writer, she was the first to think about a violin teaching approach respectful
of children’s features. She thought talent was acquired and not innate, that
every child could learn. She also believed in the importance of having specialized
teachers, because she thought teaching to beginners was a very hard matter.
“The theory that any teacher is good enough for a beginner is fast becoming
null and void” (Lynwood Wynn, 1908). I find her theory very interesting
because, as a teacher, I suffer the lack of specialization I see here in Italy
about too many people who works with very young children. And Nurtured by Love
underlines, as well, the importance of being carefully prepared and also
passionate to teach young children. Another similarity between Lynwood Wynn and
Suzuki is the “sound” topic. Suzuki wanted his students to make a nice sound
and a ringing tone. Learning the notes was, in his opinion, just the first
phase. The most important one was to develop a wonderful sound and a deep music
sensitivity and ability to say something throughout the instrument. Repetition
had the aim to take the playing ability to a greater level. He called this
level “superior ability”, which was something any student should aspire to. He
used to say “Now you are able to play this piece through, we’re going to start
your lessons to play it extremely well!” (Suzuki, 1983) And the sound
production was crucial to achieve this level. In the same way, Edith Lynwood
Wynn wrote: “Above all, they (the teachers) must be able to produce a beautiful
tone, – the first model which a child hears” (Lynwood Wynn, 1908). I find this
completely true, because the sound is the “voice” of the violinist and the
aspect which characterizes the “language” of music.
Another Suzuki’s concept I find crucial is the idea of “kindness”.
He said a parent or a teacher should always be kind and positive to the child,
this way the child would have learnt how to be kind to the others. The making
of a “noble heart” went through a positive attitude towards life and people. He
wanted his students and their parents to act in a generous, gentle, helpful and
nice way. The Talent Education School was first of all a school of life, and
Suzuki’s children learnt how to be open hearted and how to achieve a good
control of themselves and their feelings in a productive and enriching manner.
It may seem quite an utopian idea, but I’ve experienced the power of music
education too with my students. In my studio, children with “typical” abilities
and children with disabilities grow up and play together. They help each other
and are the most kind, generous and spontaneous human beings I’ve ever met. And
this is the result of their musical education.
Positive communication and positive reinforcement are, by the way,
also key concepts in Applied Behaviour Analysis. I mentioned this approach
before, talking about behavioural psychology. ABA is a science which comes from
the studies Skinner did in Suzuki’s years. Research in ABA shows that positive
reinforcement is much more effective in education and in changing behaviours
than punishing or other strategies. Suzuki taught the same. But he went
further, talking about motivation, which is the basis of ABA science, learning
by having fun and modelling. This is a behavioural strategy based on imitation
of a model, which is exactly what the Suzuki method is about. He also used
physical guidance, prompt and fading, which are really effective to teach goal
behaviours to very young or non verbal students. He had a scientific approach,
with his well organized and structured repertoire. With his analytic way of
teaching and home practicing, step by step. With clear goals and steps. He
proposed, finally, to do a sort of “conditioning” towards the violin, creating
an association between something the child knew and liked yet (his parents,
toys, his environment, his life routines) and the instrument. This way, the
violin would have become something positive and likeable and the child would
have loved it for the rest of his life.
In conclusion, in Nurtured by Love Suzuki demonstrates through his
own life and work how would be possible to change lives thanks to the violin.
He had this vision of a better, happier and kinder world, and he worked hard to
realize his dream. Years later, we can say he succeeded, because Suzuki method
did change the lives of so many children and families, and it is still doing
it. I hope more and more teachers and parents will have also in the future the
opportunity to meet this great educational philosophy. Because music and violin
are, without any doubt, a gift for life.
