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home > radio > maine news > news story Maine NewsSuzuki Teaching Increasingly Popular Once viewed with suspicion by the musical establishment, the Suzuki method of learning is now widely accepted and widely used. The movement now reaches all corners of the earth, and a number of international starts, including Joshua Bell, learned to play using the Suzuki method. The educational philosophy was developed by Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki in the middle of the last century. It's based on the belief that children can learn to play music in much the same way as they learn to speak their mother tongue. Betsy Kobayashi, who learned from Mr. Suzuki himself, is president of the Maine Suzuki Association. She explains, "He thought 'How can I teach a 4-year-old to play the violin?' but then he realized that all Japanese children could speak Japanese, all English children could speak English, and everybody said 'Of course they can,' but this was the germ of the beginning of the Suzuki method, or sometimes it's called 'Mother Tongue Method.' “She goes on to say, "We teach them to play the violin like they learn their mother tongue. They listen a lot, they review, they don't just stop playing the song. They play many songs over and over again and get better and better at them." In Maine alone there are an estimated 600 students using the Suzuki technique to learn violin, cello, guitar and piano - some of them as young as three. Some performed this past Sunday before the Sea Dogs baseball game in Portland. The performance at Hadlock Field came after a week of workshops and concerts, including the New England Suzuki Institute's Annual Conference at St. Joseph's College in Southern Maine. Clarinda Noyes is director of the New England Suzuki Institute - and a violinist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra. She says, "I moved to Maine in July of 1975, and at that point there were three Suzuki teachers in Maine." She estimates there are now around 30 Suzuki teachers in the state, each of whom has about 20 students. She believes the only thing holding back the number of children adopting the method is the number of teachers available. Key to the popularity of the method, says Noyes, is the motivation of the child, rather than the parent, something which is done by engaging them immediately with the music. She explains, "They see other kids doing it, they hear it around them, the music itself is exciting, the sound is exciting, to see other kids playing it is exciting." Fellow Suzuki teacher, Yasmin Craig, is also a violinist with the PSO. She says one of the fundamental principles of teaching the method is to present the student with small achievable tasks: "The nature of a child is to want to do the same thing over and over again. If you have children or if you've ever been around a kid, they're singing the same song every day. Repetition is the natural way that children perfect the skill that they're learning and our job is to make it seem like they're not learning and all of a sudden they have these new skills and 'Wow look what I can play now.' " "I'm Erin Burke. We just played concerto in G-major for four violins and a piano by Telemann." Like many Suzuki kids, 11-year old Erin started learning early. She began at age five. She says, "I like the pieces that they choose. They're very challenging, but they're fun to learn." "I'm Nick Hawkins. I'm 11. I like pretty much everything about it. Mostly the way that the teachers teach you to play the songs." About 90 children from the Maine Suzuki Association will be performing alongside the Portland Symphony Orchestra, as part of their independence pops concert on Thursday July 3rd, at Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth. The event starts at 5:30.
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