Have you ever wondered why it’s called the “Suzuki Method?” Here’s the story of the man behind the method.
Shinichi Suzuki was born in 1898, the son of the founder of Japan’s largest violin factory. It seemed Shinichi was fated to work for his father’s factory. Suzuki developed a love for violin music, and would listen to it on a wind-up gramophone for hours on end. This gramophone became his teacher. Through endless repetition and effort, he taught himself to play a Haydn Minuet on a violin from the factory.
Through a serendipitous friendship, Shinichi became acquainted with the Marquis Tokugawa who persuaded Shinichi’s father to let his son, at 21, pursue the study of music. Suzuki found that the education available in Tokyo was not conducive to the kind of violin playing he had come to enjoy. With the support of his father and the encouragement of Tokugawa, he went to Germany to study.
In Germany he went to many concerts, listening for the person he wanted to teach him. He found Klinger, under whom he studied for 8 years. He associated with remarkable people, including Albert Einstein. Suzuki, unaccustomed to the German language, was struck by the facility with which young German children manipulated their mother tongue, even before formal language training. It occurred to him that the child’s mind is very absorbent; if they can master something as difficult as language, surely the fine arts are possible.
After World War II, Suzuki started teaching children in Matzumoto, Japan. In 1947, the Talent Education Institute was formed under the assumption that humans are born with immense potential. If a child is exposed to the right things, and correctly nurtured, they can attain greatness and mastery. It was encouraged that children be consistently exposed to quality music in infancy, and that they begin to play their instrument as toddlers. It was the responsibility of parents and teachers to keep the child in an enriched environment that would allow them to absorb music as a language. Mothers were encouraged to be very involved in their child’s development and urged to attend their lessons. Teachers were not to rush the child through numerous songs until they had entirely mastered and understood the one they were working on.
The idea was not to force young children into careers as professional musicians, but that musical mastery would help them in all aspects of whatever life they chose (though musicianship could certainly be an option). The Suzuki method has been wildly successful and has since spread across the world, astonishing parents and nourishing young minds. Dr. Suzuki died in 1998.