Program hits a chord with youth
Teaching technique offers new way of approaching music.
For the Frischbutter family, learning music is all about joy.
In this case, joy for playing the piano. Both Noelle, 9, and Jack, 7, are studying piano using the much-celebrated, decades-old Suzuki method, which emphasizes developing students’ natural abilities through love.
The Frischbutters’ youngest child, Sam, age 4, is also starting piano lessons this fall.
The Suzuki method emphasizes “nothing without joy,” says mom Kristen Frischbutter.
“If this is not bringing happiness to them, then they won’t do it,” she says.
“We’re all about creating an environment where this is something that helps them feel and love music. It is not a chore.”
As part of the Suzuki method, children take both private and group lessons. Suzuki piano students come together once a week or every other week to play for each other. They learn performance skills and have a chance to hear other students play.
“A lot of camaraderie is formed that way,” Frischbutter says.
Another Suzuki music tenet that brought Frischbutter to the method is its emphasis on ear training, which was different than the musical training she had growing up studying conservatory piano.
According to Suzuki piano master teacher Bruce Anderson, music — and the Suzuki method in particular — “develops body, mind and spirit. It’s education not just for their mind — it’s education for their heart and soul.”
Anderson, an American who studied in Japan with Suzuki method founder Shinichi Suzuki, shared his thoughts on the Suzuki method with parents and music educators during the Calgary Suzuki Piano Institute 2012, held at Mount Royal University this past summer.
Practising music is an opportunity for children, together with their parents, to give their undivided attention to their practice time, and each other, on a regular basis, says Anderson.
“A child is naturally drawn in if the adult is doing it too,” he says, referring to the Suzuki method’s emphasis on encouraging the parent to sit down with their child when practising. “That’s your special time with your child at the piano.”
According to Anderson, learning music is “a chance for a child to develop skills that will last them a lifetime. It’s about preparing them for their future, with achievement skills for their whole life. Their concentration will develop to an incredible degree. They will also develop self-control, discipline, determination and perseverance. All of these are skills which are trainable.
“Having a long-range goal or dream, and learning how to break it down step by step and go day by day — that’s a skill. Any child can develop them, but they have to be taught, and they have to be taught early.”
With the Suzuki method, “we do it from Day 1 of that first lesson. There will be ups and downs — that’s normal, that’s life. It will be difficult sometimes because they are learning skills that are not easy. To learn an instrument is hard work for anybody.”
Parents, meanwhile, have a lot of input and commitment to the Suzuki program, says Calgary piano teacher and Suzuki early childhood educator Pat Huck.
Children can start learning an instrument as young as three if the parents have already prepared a musical environment in the home, “by having good music going throughout the child’s day and working with their child in a patient, caring way,” says Huck.
“It’s nurturing the child through music. Dr. Suzuki’s whole idea was to educate the whole child. We are using the piano, violin, cello — or whatever instrument — as a vehicle to teach the whole child.”