Directions to Richmond teaching venue

Directions to my Richmond teaching venue at Church of Christ, corner of Croucher and D'Arcy St.

Pianos (and electric pianos)

Piano tuning

If you already have a piano and it hasn’t been tuned for a year or two, it would be a good idea to get it tuned and checked over before starting lessons. Tuning will cost around $130.

Here are the contact details for two Nelson based tuners, who also travel to Motueka:

Neville Claughton (Mr Music)

03-547-2550

http://www.mrmusic.co.nz/piano-tuning-and-service.aspx

Mike Beever
03-548-3292
http://mebpianos.com/

Buying a piano

I have a strong preference for acoustic pianos over digital ones. Two main reasons for this are expressiveness and value.

It is hard to make a digital piano as expressive and responsive as an acoustic. The music on the Suzuki CDs is played on an acoustic piano so in order to be able to emulate the sound and expression as closely as possible it is best to have an acoustic piano.

Acoustic and digital pianos are often of a similar price for a similar quality, however acoustic pianos will hold their value far better. In ten years time a digital piano will have lost most of its value and if it breaks it can be difficult to fix. Once broken it is essentially worthless. An acoustic piano will be much the same in ten years time as it is today and its value is likely to hold well.

Second hand pianos are fine. It is usually not worth looking at anything under $500, probably you will need to pay at least $1,000 and preferably $2,000-$5,000.

The best place to buy a second hand piano is through Mr Music (Neville Claughton whose details are listed under piano tuners above). He has a showroom of renovated second hand pianos in Nelson.

Some new acoustic pianos are available at Music Planet (Richmond), the Rock Shop and Beggs (both in Nelson).

Second hand pianos are also available on TradeMe and you can usually pay a piano tuner to go and check it out for you.

Although I have a strong preference for acoustic pianos, I will teach students who have electric pianos at home as long as the electric piano:

o   has full size keys

o   has weighted keys (made artificially stiff)

o   is touch sensitive (goes loud and soft depending on pressure)

o   preferably has 7 octaves (though you can get away with 5 octaves initially)

An electric piano which feels reasonably similar to an acoustic piano will cost close to $1000.

Philosophy of the Suzuki Method

The Suzuki method is based on the way that children pick up their native language. It is sometimes called the "Mother Tongue" method.

The Suzuki method was developed around 1940 by Dr. Suzuki, a violinist in Japan. Dr. Suzuki marvelled at the way that children learn their native language. They enjoy learning to speak and they learn easily with no formal instruction. He also noticed that EVERY child learns. No child fails to learn their mother tongue. Dr Suzuki believed that music is a language and could be taught successfully using the same method.

After his study of how children learn language, Dr Suzuki concluded that:

• Learning should begin as early as possible and should be filled with fun, excitement and exploration
• The child should be immersed in the skill he is expected to learn - casual exposure is not enough
• Parental involvement must be present
• Acquired skills should be maintained and kept current, in the same way that a child keeps old words current by constantly using them as well as learning new words.
• Children should learn initially by copying sounds they hear and repeating them over and over. The children should be skilled at learning by rote and by ear before music reading is introduced.

So how does the Suzuki method mimic the way that children learn their native language?

Even before they are born, children are surrounded by language. They can’t turn their ears off so they listen and absorb everything. The Suzuki method aims to surround children with music in the same way. The parents regularly play a CD of the instrumental pieces that the child will be learning. The child is not made to sit and listen, the music is just played in the background – while eating, playing, travelling in the car, going to sleep. Listening is initially the responsibility of the parent and the progress of the child is strongly related to how much listening they do.

The importance of environment

One reason that children are so keen to learn to speak is because of the environment provided by the parents. Think back to the enthusiasm of your response when your baby said his/her first word, no wonder they were keen to say it again and again!. Try to create the same encouraging and rewarding environment and to find the same delight in your child's first attempts at making music. The way in which you approach music lessons will rub off on your child. Praise is very important in learning any skill, especially when you're dealing with a small child learning a difficult instrument. Do be honest, but there is always something you can say that is both honest AND encouraging!

The bigger picture

Suzuki method is not only about teaching children to play music. There is also a bigger picture. The method aims to produce happy, hardworking, confident children, who love music and love learning. The daily quality time parents spend with their children is very valuable.

FAQ

How is the Suzuki method different from traditional lessons?

The main differences between the Suzuki method and the traditional method of teaching are:

• The Suzuki method believes that every child can learn, and that every child has 'talent'. Children will progress at different rates of course, but they can all enjoy learning music and be proud of their accomplishments. Suzuki method aims to develop a love of music and learning. 
• Suzuki method teaches music initially by ear, with music reading coming later. First, the student listens and copies what he hears. Traditional lessons teach music through the student's intellect. The student must learn simultaneously to decode symbols on a page and to play the relevant notes on the instrument. To play music solely through the eyes seems unnatural to me because music is an aural art.
• Children can begin to learn by the Suzuki method much earlier than by traditional methods. This is because young children are excellent imitators. They can learn this way many years before they are ready to learn music by reading.
• Suzuki method encourages students to always add to their repertoire. Traditional lessons usually place more emphasis on exposure to a wide range of pieces and styles. Pieces are often perfected for exams then never played again. Suzuki students continue to revise and polish pieces they have already learnt. They can then perform these pieces in recitals with much greater confidence than students who perform 'new' pieces.
• Memorisation is automatic to Suzuki students, they learn their music by ear anyway. Memorisation can be very stressful to traditional students who rely on their eyes instead of their ears to prompt them.
• Parental involvement is much greater in the Suzuki method. The parent is the home teacher and motivator so it is important that they know what their child is learning. To achieve this, the parent attends all lessons (at least for the early years) and notes down what needs to be practised at home.
• Traditionally, music reading and music playing have been taught together. In the Suzuki method, children learn to play music by ear, working out the notes of a tune by listening and copying, rather than by reading the music. Music reading is taught using games and cards, often in a group.

Is the Suzuki method just for violin?

Dr Suzuki first developed his teaching method on the violin because that was his instrument. However, the method has since been adapted to teach many other instruments including piano, flute, cello and voice.

Do Suzuki children learn to read music?

Yes Suzuki students do learn to read music! However they do not always learn music reading right at the start.

When children are learning to speak their mother tongue they are not expected to learn to read words at the same time they learn to speak them. It is accepted that babies learn to talk first, then learn reading much later when their eyes and analytical skills are more developed. Trying to learn to read music at the same time as learning to play would slow young children down. For this reason music reading is taught separately from playing. For older children (who are already competent language readers) there is no problem with learning to read at the same time as learning to play.

How often should we listen to the CD?

The child should listen to the CD every day, preferably for a few hours a day. I know this sounds unbelievable but think about what we are trying to imitate. Before your child learnt to talk, they were surrounded nearly every waking hour by the sound of people talking. The children don't need to sit and listen to the CD, it just needs to be playing quietly in the background while they go about their day, like the background chatter of voices.

Is Suzuki right for my child?

Suzuki lessons might not suit everyone…

      Suzuki lessons require a greater time commitment from the parents. It is essential to the success of the method that the Suzuki CD is played frequently. It should be played in the background every day to replicate the way that babies are surrounded by language almost constantly. Parents attend all the child's individual lessons and take notes on what needs to be practiced. Parents then practice at home with the child every day. I believe that this time commitment results in more enjoyment and progress for the child, but it will not suit parents who do not have this time available.

At what age does Suzuki stop?

Suzuki method never exactly 'stops'. As the student gets older and becomes better at reading music, the printed music is used more and more at lessons. The differences between Suzuki and traditional lessons then become much smaller. The student also begins playing not just 'Suzuki' pieces but any other pieces that take their fancy. The advantage of having started by the Suzuki method is an emphasis on listening and on the love of music.

What pieces do the children learn?

The Suzuki books contain a set repertoire for each instrument. All Suzuki students start by learning these same pieces. The first piece on both piano and violin is "Twinkle, twinkle little star". Once the student can read music they can also learn pieces from outside the Suzuki reportoire. Because they all start by learning the same pieces, Suzuki students show great interest in watching other children play at lessons or performances because they will have either have already learnt the piece or they will be learning it in the future.