Suzuki Method versus traditional teaching method

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I have generally heard of the Kodaly method as being the best.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

If somebody wants to start a Zlatkovski Method Certification Program, I won’t charge anyone to enroll!

Maybe.

[kreig-kitts]

By no means should you charge them to enroll in the certification. You’ll make it up in royalties on their students’ method book sales!

[sherry-lenox]

I absolutely agree that “grinding” is a killer to enthusiasm. Kodaly done correctly totally omits that phase of training.

I had a very pleasant experience the other day when a student with whom I’d worked about 15 years ago came to my house to sell me Cutco knives. I was amazed at his conversation about all the good times we’d had when I taught using Kodaly in the elementary school he had attended.

He has now graduated from college and plays drums and guitar, having started somewhat seriously only about two years ago. He said when he began instruction that his teacher was amazed at his grounding in music theory fundamentals, and this was what he remembered from 6th grade.

I was a pretty good self-taught sight reader when I was a kid, and learning part music by rote always made me crazy, so one of the things I found most attractive about Kodaly is the high degree of skill independence in students trained in that way.

My conversation with my former student convinced me that my enthusiasm for the method was reciprocal, and that my students were equally enthused about what we did together.

[Julietta Anne Rabens]

The Kodaly method is also an excellent one. I realize there is a tendency for people to think in terms of being the “best”, but because there is always a great deal of context involved in the field of teaching, it also seems apt to value different approaches for their individual merits. I have great respect for the Suzuki method, Kodaly, Orff, and many others. It can feel somewhat arbitrary to label one as “best” and dismiss the others. Education is a continually evolving field, so understanding a variety of well thought out and effective approaches is important.

Since I mentioned a reference to brain imaging in the study of language
acquisition in an earlier post, it seemed important to include a couple
of references for anyone interested. There are specific regions in the brain devoted to language acquisition while literacy seems to integrate a variety of regions. Considering the history of mankind, speech communication is significantly older than text communication. The following are a few articles I found which might be an interesting read.

1. Brain imaging of speech perception in early infancy: Exploring the neural mechanisms for language acquisition by Dr. Fumitaka Homae.

2. Nature and Nurture in language acquisition: anatomical and functional brain imaging studies in infants by Dehaene-Lambertz, Pannier, and Dubois.

3. Wired for reading: Brain Research May Point to Changes in Literacy Development. by Sara Bernard.
“New brain-imaging technologies and a spate of recent studies suggest that readin aptitude is better understood as a spectrum of abilities relateed to biological architecture than as a universally acquirablee skill. Misconstruing the neurological underpinnings of reading risks alienating and discouraging students for whom this particular task will never come easily…”

[Julietta Anne Rabens]

Saul Davis Zlatkovsky wrote: So, given this start of a Suzuki-trained child, how does this affect
their psychological development, and artistic growth? To never have a
critical attitude or accept it is to me a bad thing, and I believe I’ve
seen the results of that on stage.

If you reference to a lack of criticism is based on my use of the term, I should clarify. Having a focused, nuanced level of aural awareness is likely the same thing another person would call “criticism”. The emphasis on listening is a necessary first step to any excellence in playing. The problem of “criticism” comes in when it becomes a psychological way of removing oneself from the experience of creating music and focuses on gaining approval or avoiding punishment instead of focusing on sound. If someone is obsessed with the idea of hitting a wrong note, it distorts the perceptions and limits artistic growth. This can be a difficult topic because word definitions are easily molded to the point where there can be agreement in principle, but debate in the use of words.

[Julietta Anne Rabens]

The Suzuki Association of the Americas website does not list renown performers who went through the Suzuki method, but that is partly in line with its philosophy of non-elitism. It is true that the Suzuki philosophy doesn’t focus on building the pre-college resume through competitions and festivals during childhood and adolescence. That can be a disadvantage when functioning in a professional environment where external measurement is the ideal. There is room to question the competition track as well since it is not as holistic in its development of the individual, especially if it results in understanding second place as failure when subjective and random elements cannot all be accounted for in the evaluation process, but that should be explored in a new thread. I did find the following reference in a memorial to Lynn Baughman, a Suzuki teacher who passed away. I think it sums up the Suzuki philosophy quite well.

Many of Lynn’s students received music scholarships to institutions of higher learning including Eastman School of Music, New England Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Cleveland Institute of Music, University of Southern California, Stetson University, Vanderbilt University, and Harvard University. Although many became professional performers, composers and music teachers, she was just as proud of those who became engineers, physicians, graphic artists, attorneys, etc.

[carl-swanson]

After reading all of these very thoughtful and interesting posts, I’ve come more or less to the following conclusion: that any “method” is simply a format for teaching music. None of them guarantee success. None of them make virtuosos out of everybody. And like any teaching method, the success often depends on the skill of the teacher. And some teachers are excellent and some are not. I think we have to accept and acknowledge these variations within any “method.”

The skilled teacher sizes up not only the ability of the student, but the aptitude and desire as well, and contours the teaching format to each student. The unskilled teacher takes a one-size-fits-all approach and will likely hold back the most ambitious and talented students and discourage the ones who don’t work well with that particular format because he/she(the teacher) cannot adapt to each student’s needs.

My problem with the Suzuki approach is that it seems so rigid in its format that it cannot adapt to the varying needs and abilities of the students. The approach seems to be of the take-it-or-leave-it variety.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

I think it worth looking at the philosophies involved, because they come from a different culture, and have ramifications. Jewish people, it seems to me, come from a highly critical culture of opinion, judgement, criticism and intellectual pursuit, and I think that if you can turn that into positive attributes, you are a finer artist for it. The problem is, a

[carl-swanson]

I’ve never heard Yo Yo Ma’s name associated with Suzuki method, and I went to several web sites to read about him and there is no mention at any of them of Suzuki training. He was born in Paris to parents who were both musicians, and moved to New York at the age of 4 where he began studying music with teachers there. I sincerely doubt that his parents would have sent a prodigy like that to Suzuki classes.

[mr-s]

Carl hi,

[Katja Base]

Hello Mr. Swanson:

My children, ages 9 and 10, have studied harp for 5 years and taken instruction simultaneously from two harp teachers (one Suzuki method and the other

[carl-swanson]

That’s really interesting. Thank you for your post.

[Shelley]

I realise this conversation is fourteen years old but I wanted to answer this one question about famous musicians who started out with the Suzuki method. Not the harp but Hilary Hahn started out as a Suzuki student. She recently recorded a CD with a pianist to accompany the Suzuki books for violin

My current harp teacher who began playing when she was two also learned through Suzuki. Her greatest gift to students (to me) is that she is always encouraging and at the same time corrects my hand position and anything else I need to understand as we go along in a way that instructs without criticism.

I do listen to the music in my volume (No.1) because it’s a good way to absorb the pieces, and also because I find most of them uninspiring. By listening to someone fluent play them I feel encouraged that even dull music has something to say. However, I don’t rely on listening as the main way to learn and play. I could already read music though playing piano and guitar before taking up the harp and so I generally begin by “sight reading” and playing before listening to the piece online. In addition I use Grossi to practice technique.

[balfour-knight]

Shelley, have you been following the thread on here called “Is This Normal?” We have had some very interesting posts, which you might enjoy!

Harp Hugs,
Balfour (and Carol Lynn)

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