By Kevin Lawrence 

After gaining the ability to understand language and to speak, a child's world becomes richer. Interactions with other kids begin to replace parallel play, and the child's intellectual life expands as detailed ideas are conveyed and absorbed. This growth opens up new possibilities for musical experience.

As early as age 3 or 4, some kind of formal instrumental music study can begin. Of course this study will be most successful if well suited to the level of the child's development. For instrumental music teaching, the method developed by Japanese teacher Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1989) is enormously popular and effective for kids of this young age. Although Suzuki was a violinist, his innovative approach to learning to play a musical instrument has broadened to include not only violin, but viola, cello, guitar, piano, organ, flute and even string bass.

The warm and loving atmosphere cultivated by Suzuki's school of teaching comes from the conviction that musical talent is not a gift given only to an elite few, but can be found in all. The responsibility lies with the teacher to find ways to make a musical instrument approachable for the student. Suzuki pioneered the use of very small instruments suited to the youngest children. The child’s control of the instrument advances gradually in carefully chosen increments. A very young child might even spend a few months playing games which help in learning how to hold a violin.

Parental involvement goes further than attendance at lessons and practicing. The parent also learns to play the instrument along with the child, at least in the early stages of study. Children appreciate seeing their parents, who seem to be so competent in all areas of life, struggling with them to learn a new skill. In fact, when my own daughter began Suzuki violin study, I was told that, as a professional violinist I was not the parent who should be working with her.

Because all children study the same graded repertoire, it is possible for groups of kids who are at a similar level of advancement to play together. In these weekly group sessions, the solitary business of practicing gains a social dimension.

Perhaps the most important innovation Suzuki stressed was the idea that one does not need to read musical symbols to play an instrument well. At an age when children have not yet learned to read, it makes sense to approach the first stages of instrumental study in the same fashion the child had so recently learned to use the "mother tongue." Much listening and watching are the first step, followed by imitation of the models the child has been observing. Reading music will enter the picture no earlier than a child learns to read words.

The original intention of Suzuki's approach was not to produce new generations of virtuoso violinists, but to provide a way for children to enjoy music with their parents and peers. His method is so well constructed though, that at least in the US and Asia, there are now few professional violinists who did not begin studying their instrument as Suzuki students.

Suzuki's remarkable method of early study is not without limitations and even dangers. If music reading is delayed too long, this vital skill might be difficult to master later. In my teaching, for example, I sometimes encounter college violin majors, originally Suzuki students, whose reading is not nearly as advanced as the general level of their playing. Since all Suzuki students listen to the same recordings and play the same repertoire, development of a child's personal musical imagination is often not the priority it should be. Students and their parents can make the mistake of assuming that the method comprises the totality of the instrument's capabilities. Just as we cannot claim that we have learned French simply because we have memorized all the phrases in a French phrase book, we cannot lose sight of the fact that that the world of music is much more expansive than any method can encompass. Certainly no Suzuki parent should confine the child's listening to the narrow range of the Suzuki repertoire.

With these caveats, the work of Suzuki and his followers must be appreciated by all who value the musical development of young children. Years before beginning their formal schooling, innumerable kids have experienced the joy of making music thanks to the insights brought to the world by this remarkable teacher.

Kevin Lawrence is the chair of the string department of North Carolina School of the Arts, University of North Carolina (http://ncarts.edu/music/facstringsthree.htm). His compositions, arrangements and translations are used in Orthodox parishes of all jurisdictions throughout the US, at regional and national gatherings of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, and were sung at the 1998 World Council of Churches Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe (Africa).

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