Where Love is Deep (Shin’ichi Suzuki)

[p3] I have pledged that from today on I will not be satisfied unless I make every one of my students a fine violinist. Since my resolution is firm, although some of you may have no hope of improving, I am sorry but you will have to face your bad luck with no choice but to become fine players. For everyone becomes good if only he applies himself properly.

[p3] I did not encourage them to advance in pieces. Instead, all the students did their best toward fostering a fine tone and musical performance.

Let the student hastily advance in pieces: you will have a dropout.

I won't do such a clumsy thing.

[p6] I was fortunate enough, when twenty, to wake to a phrase in a book by an early nineteenth century agronomist Sontoku Ninomiya: “Read not ten thousand volumes; explore the logic of the heavens.” From that day, I followed his teaching to “penetrate the truth of great nature yourself, do not just read books,” turning my eyes to everything before me and to the natural world.

[p12] In talent education families, small children listen to records every day and repeatedly practice the same pieces. They soon start to play Bach and other composers. Even if the parents have so far been uninterested in music, they unconsciously acquire the ability to appreciate music and the entire family may enjoy being able to feel music close to their life. I think there are many families that share this valuable experience. I see growth of a beautiful and high sensitivity in it. This is the education of sensitive human beings. In the world of music, while contact with the life of great men like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven is accumulated, the cultivation of beautiful sensitivity is carried out unconsciously.

What a wonderful world of human contact music offers. In music Bach and Mozart are still alive, talking to us.

"Sound breathes life / Without form it lives," I often repeat.

[p15] "Monotony is the worst enemy of music." These are Maestro Casals' words.

[p17] First listen to the recording of a great master; then record yourself on a tape, and compare the master's dynamics with yours. This will be good study. I heavily relied on this method when I studied, and owe a great deal to masters in records.

[p23] Don't you see that children develop a very high ability to speak their mother tongue fluently by the daily training to acquire it?

Let them practice well, train them repeatedly every day, expose them to the high level environment of, for example, adults' language, and foster them by this method. Then parents all over the world will succeed in raising their children's ability in every field.

[p25] I am happy that at last discussion of the "dropout" problem has begun. However, I find it sad that we are still at the stage where we consider it the problem of "dropouts." The fact is that what we call "dropouts" are "dropped-outs": they don't drop out, we drop them. Failing to foster children, we have been accustomed in our slumber to blaming their "inborn" qualities. This traditional thinking still dominates educational circles.

[p26] This discovery of the fact that "there is a way by which every child grows" is of grave importance. When I painfully felt the weight of this question, I once cried at night for this world's mis-educated children.

[p28] In the world in general, many many think that fostering high ability by music only concerns music. It is not so, however.

Whatever it is fostered by, the ability that a living being has acquired is an asset, it is a strength, part of that person's entire ability. I used to ask the mothers of elementary school children playing the Advanced Level graduation piece, "How is your child's academic achievement at school?" The response almost always was, "He's tops at least in his class." Since I know this as a fact, I no longer need to ask this question.

Bach's concertos, whether for the violin or the piano, are pieces that conservatory students study. For elementary or junior high students with high enough ability to play them, it is natural to achieve high academic standards at school. People beyond the ocean who have come to recognize such high ability of children have noted many facts about this new education: hence its spread overseas, evoking much interest. 

Of course, our purpose does not lie in a movement to create professional musicians, but to create persons of a beautiful mind and fine ability. We engage in human education through music so that children will grow with beautiful and high sensitivity, through an unparalleled, uniquely musical approach.

[p32] What is a truly cultured person?

One who is kind to others.

One who can pour affection on others.

One who knows the joy of life, and enjoys striving for the sake of everybody's happiness.

We must bring up such children. When such children grow up, they will both love others and be loved by others.

[p41] How to Make Your Child Poor at Violin (4)

There are parents who, at lesson time at home, interfere the moment the child begins to play until he can't move a foot or a hand: "There, now that's wrong;" "That's an error right there."

When you work in the kitchen, if someone by your side in the same way criticizes every little move you make, there won't be taste or shape, you won't have the leisure to think with your own mind, and in the end you will find it a bother. It's the same with your child. Even if he makes mistakes, it is important to always listen to him at least once through. And even if he plays poorly, when he finishes, please praise him for his effort: "Well played."

Whether you tell him "Very poor," or "So well played," you will have to correct him anyway. If he does not correct himself well, he won't make progress. Therefore, think of the child's feelings and praise rather than criticize. If the child is corrected after being praised, the correction is pleasanter beyond comparison than if given after criticism.

Please don't forget "to make sure to correct after praising the child." First praise him, then take the time to help him with weak places.

If you repeat, "no good," "poor," everyday, the child picks up the suggestion and becomes poor. I assure you that if the child thinks "I'm no good no matter what I do," it definitely begins to dull the activity of his brain.

Whatever the subject, please think that being poor is the opposite of being good. You don't need any artifice for making your child poor.

[p43] Let your child repeatedly practice pieces he can already play; emphasize the building of ability with familiar pieces. This fosters fine ability. (There is no need to rush ahead. If a child practices the pieces he knows over and over again so as to play them better and better, ability grows, and remarkable progress is made. This is the Suzuki method.) If you follow this method, your child will not but grow beautifully. He will also progress fast. But those who rush from piece to piece trying to play more advanced pieces will fail to foster ability and eventually drops out.

"Every child grows; everything depends on the parents," I often say. The young child's ability grows depending on how you foster him at home. Study how to skillfully create the desire to learn; don't fail to bring up your child with excellent musical sensitivity.

Every child grows, never fails to grow. Everything depends upon how you raise him. In addition, from your experience in musical education, you will understand well how to foster all other abilities. When you understand "fostering ability," life will become very bright. It's not just music; it's the same in all other areas.

[p48] We don't clumsily get set by saying "now, work hard," when we teach children how to speak. While people live happily talking to one another every day, a young child naturally adapts to that linguistic environment before one knows it, and "a desire to speak" germinates. That leads to daily training, and to smooth mastering of high ability. I have come to understand that the knack of the most skillful education must consist in this natural style. Teachers and parents should ponder this question. One who tries to "skillfully inspire the child's desire to learn" is one who is good at fostering.

[p50] Although the teacher teaches, the mother fosters the child in proportion to her skill. However, many do the opposite. Thinking it educational, they say, "Come on, let's practice," "don't look sideways, now hold your bow." The harder they try "to make the child do it," the faster the child runs away the minute he hears a call for practice time. This creates contrary results.

[p53] The head is the conductor, the hands are the orchestra -- I foster the mind of a conductor.

[p68-69] On picking up some books on psychology, I find their descriptions totally contradictory to reality. They say odd things like a child can do this or that at age four, or can go to the bathroom to pee by himself. (Laughter.) And here they are, four year olds playing the Vivaldi a minor concerto or the Bach concerto so I don't know what they are talking about. I recommend that you read a book on psychology once. You'll see why I no longer read any. "If you leave a child alone doing nothing for him"-- if there were this subtitle, those psychology books would fit reality. What they are doing is discussing of neglected children, and so unreasonably they ascribe normal development to inborn talents.

[p70-71] As I have already said, the basis of the Suzuki method is to let the child daily play with the record or the tape the pieces he has already learned. Let him play five or six previous pieces. If it's long, even one piece will do. If he is studying the first movement, let him play with the record the first movement and the piece before that, and compare himself with it. The child enjoys playing in this way the pieces he can play. Let him play them in the same way as he repeatedly speaks the dialect his parents speak. That helps him acquire ability, which in turn helps him progress rapidly. I teach children who have developed this way: they learn the Beethoven concerto, which can be expected to take over a year, at the rate of a movement a week. I ask them to practice so they can play it with Kreisler's record, and they really come back after a week to play it with the record. When you raise the child this way from the start, it works. Whenever a student finishes a movement in my lesson, I have him play with Kreisler's record, paying attention to his tone and his expression. The student doesn't pass if Kreisler can be heard over the student. The student's music becomes one with the record, and his sensitivity grows before he knows it. He then begins to advance quickly. For example, when he has finally reached Mozart's piano concerto, how about letting him finish the first movement in one week? In violin, that has already been done. The student plays a movement with a maestro, without at all diverging from him. The ability to do that is gradually created. Traditionally it was unthinkable to finish in a week the first movement of Beethoven's concerto including the cadenza, and go on to the next movement. I recently tried that on a child who will go to the States on the tour. She finished the entire concerto in a month. At age ten, she neatly plays the concerto. Instead of telling your child to practice, it is important to first let him enjoy playing what he can already play. When ability starts to develop, the child will be able to absorb any amount of fruit. This is our method.

[p106-107] Hatano: I see. And your own children--?

Suzuki: Fortunately I have none. Fortunately, because what if someone says, "then show me your children"? Since it would be a problem if I had examples of children whom I have already failed to foster, God wisely refrained from giving me one. (Laughter.) So I am provided with the opportunity to say what I like about another's child. However, it is important to start out with mutual awareness that it is the most difficult to foster one's own child. It is easy to handle other people's children. In our association when the mother can't handle her child, she visits a neighbor who is a senior member. Then the more experienced mother helps her instruct the child. She does it very skillfully, pleasing the child. She gives the child a lesson.

Hatano: I see.

Suzuki: However, when it comes to the matter of her own child, a mother changes her expression. She appears too serious, and teaches clumsily so that the child resists.

Hatano: It is the same in academic work, too, isn't it?

Suzuki: It is truly so. Therefore, the parent has to be aware: she has to do it as she does to another's child. For all human beings are the same. A parent tends to feel strongly that this is a child she bore so that out of great selfishness she forces him to obey her no matter what. She is subject to parental insolence which makes her angry the moment something happens. Please stop that, I ask parents.

Hatano: It is very important, yet also very difficult.

Suzuki: This is what mothers have to practice.

[p108-109] Parental Selfishness

Suzuki: After all, mothers regard their children as their own property. Hence, they won't be happy unless their children do as they wish. I wonder if this started when the children were babies. Watch mothers: when the children were babies, they pulled their legs, changed diapers, pinned diapers in place, turned them around, handling them every day as they liked. Now, when the children are bigger, that habit still remains in the mothers' minds. They get angry when children don't do what they tell them to do and when they can't handle children as they wish, because mothers have educated themselves to be that way. If only they think back, they will realize that that time was that time, and now is now: now parent and child are both individuals, and their human relationship is one to one. The failure to realize this is the parental error, as I tell mothers. One can face another's child in a one-to-one relationship from the start, because no past history is involved. One's own child is a continuation of babyhood diapers, so one cannot accept it if anything is contrary to one's expectations. If so, it would seem that the whole thing is a matter of parental selfishness.

Let's look at what develops in a human being as ability: when an experience is repeated, ability grows in proportion to the frequency. Hence, if the mother repeatedly practices scolding every day, her ability to scold grows higher in leaps.

Hatano: I see. (Laughter.)

Suzuki: Then, her scolding becomes intensified, while the child develops his ability to be scolded so that in the end he feels nothing when scolded.

Hatano: He becomes immunized.

Suzuki: That's right. Therefore, the parent's voice becomes higher and higher, until, finding the mouth insufficient, she uses her hand. Then that develops a stronger ability to resist, and the child starts to listen to her even less. After turning her child this way, the mother grieves about how stubborn he is born. How can she say this, I cannot stop wondering, when she herself fostered him as a stubborn child.

Hatano: It is exactly so. Moreover, in our society we tend to identify a child with his family: so and so belongs to so and so's family. We talk about the child-parent relationship from outside. This influences the child quite a lot. Society's failure to consider a child as his own person reinforces the mother's view of the child as her own. She cannot step back and accept his weaknesses, while helping him to develop where he can. If she is committed to staking her honor in making her child outstanding, that would heighten the tension between them. I always repeat that one should start out with a consciousness that parent and child are different.

Suzuki: Well, it is something that everyone understands as one ages. For example, an eighty year old grandmother and her sixty year old daughter are separate persons. But they were, from the beginning.

[p110] At the same time, life grows while receiving something even larger: what human beings radiate mutually. Therefore, even if the mother may think that the child may not know, what radiates from her heart interacts with the child: no matter what virtuous things she may mouthe, that is nothing but a linguistic session. If the parent wishes her child to behave well, she has to first change her heart. That done, she doesn't have to do anything. This is the way of thinking in talent education.

[p121-122] Hatano: The word kun'iku (fragrance and fostering, i.e., fostering through human influence) which we used in the old days is more appropriate, isn't it? It means the fragrance spontaneously wafts, enters the body, and fosters. Teaching means to press from outside, although there is in fact that element.

Right now what makes me feel torn most about mothers and what they consult me about most frequently is whether it is all right that children lose their time to play when they take lessons. I tell them that for children play is part of their lives, that, if they don't have the time to play, it's a negative influence, for, whether they become skilled at the violin or at the piano, they will grow as human beings who cannot really understand the content of what they have learned. What do you think, is this all right?

Suzuki: That is a mistake. Let me tell you about a skillful mother. I think her child started the violin at three. When she was about two, the mother gave her a violin instead of a doll. So this child played with the violin from morning till night as if it were a doll. She learned to play records by herself, and also fooled around playing the violin. The mother occasionally corrected her. This was a perfect game for the child. Then she formally started lessons at three. She has developed beautifully, and now plays Bach's concerto beautifully as a second grader. However, think of how a parent may take a child to the teacher, wanting him to learn violin or whatever. For example, the teacher abruptly tucks something like a gourd under a three year old's chin and tells him to rub it (Laughter.) Even we adults would find it most annoying. Then the mother scolds him saying he doesn't rub it right. No wonder that the child resists it. Then she says her child has no interest in music. Of course he doesn't. The thing is to create conditions which make the child love it and want to do it by all means.

I talk about jun-kyo-iku, prepare-teach-foster; in other words, it is important to first prepare.

[p124-125] Home Discipline Is Important

Hatano: One more thing to think about, Mr. Suzuki, concerning mothers. Even progressive mothers who have their children take lessons may for example bang the door, yell loud, dump instead of putting down something, or walk clumsily. Mothers who are careless about daily home life create a bad environment for their children. I often talk about this.

Suzuki: That is very important. It concerns the mother's culture as a human being. This is a matter of sensitivity: some have not cultivated the heart. So I often say: what is education at home? The father kicks the door open. The next day the child, who saw it, kicks the door open and gets scolded by the mother. Isn't this education at home? (Laughter.)

Children copy what parents do. After all this is the same as giving education. In addition, I think those who have received the kind of education which doesn't help them feel want emanates from another's heart-- what an important thing they have left behind. They cannot fell what others would feel when they do something. That insensitivity means lacks of culture. Same with politeness. After all, what is basic is whether or not a person attains the height of human ability. Our education of human beings by the violin is related to this. When children become advanced students, I sometimes invite them home for a meal, ask them to host our guests, or let them help in the kitchen. This is also part of violin lessons.

Hatano: I see.

Suzuki: In other words, I help create a loving heart by teaching the joy of being able to serve others through these activities. Without that, it is not only difficult to perceive such high art as by Bach and Mozart but impossible to move others by music.

[p138-139] The most basic problem, however, is that parents tend to be all too preoccupied with school education. Don't place too much emphasis on school; don't think that "the violin is just a hobby, so it's fine if my child can handle it a bit." Instead, think that you are helping to overcome a great deficiency in today's education with something important. Be aware that other parents are also studying ways to motivate their children so they will become fine human beings. Our association exists for that purpose. Don't be the kind of parents who insist on the immediate progress of their children. Sit back calmly with the determination to make your child great. It's fine to be slow; handle it so your child enjoys it. Self-criticism of this sort, I expect, will arise. All you need is to be faithful to the principle, "no hurry, no rest;" there is no need to compare yours with other children. Recognize how your family operates and motivate your child within the given environment; he will improve. Eventually, each child will have a basis for developing in his own unique way. If you think of everything in this manner, children brought up on talent education will be truly great. Among Matsumoto children, for example, a little boy Fumio Nakajima whom I taught twenty-five years ago, has become a leading scholar on China problems, though he didn't go into music; and he is an assistant professor of the Tokyo University of Foreign Languages at his young age. It doesn't matter where the child goes. All I hope is that parents will skillfully raise an ability which prepares the child to cope with such a challenge.

[p143-144] Reading ability in the real sense of the word means that the child's musical sensitivity has grown so high that he can not only play beautifully but also understand written music. Unless the child acquires reading ability in the musical sense, I can't claim that he has true reading ability. What is the ability to read books? If asked "what's written in that book you've read?" you may answer, "I've read it all, but I don't know what's written in it." If music reading resembles this, it's no good. When you read music you may feel moved and understand the content. The moment you see the printed page, you may be able to say, how beautiful. We should engage in creating that kind of reading ability. You read a book; you were moved; you found it interesting. --That is what reading a book means. Similarly, to read music does not mean just to learn the fingering. It will be fine if you prepare the basis for such future development. If you jump too high now, what is very simple will become complicated. It will be incomprehensible to children. When you think too intellectually, you will create children who don't grow well.