Memories of Dr Shinichi Suzuki
What kind of person was Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998), the famous Japanese violin teacher whose work revolutionized music education and lowered the age children begin learning music all over the world?
The attraction of a charismatic leader or teacher can trigger responses from followers, students and supporters that may, in reflection, seem embarrassingly naive, overly hopeful and blindly emotional. Adulation delivers influence, power and permission, and putting too much faith in leaders creates risks – and as history shows, the dangers of the pedestal can disastrously overbalance the benefits.
By contrast, truly great teachers empower and inspire their students by sharing their mastery, knowledge and vision freely, and serve without succumbing to the temptations and perks that follow their success and popularity. Expertise and integrity are inseparable qualities of their leadership.
What do we know about Shinichi Suzuki ?
Suzuki – the Teacher-Philosopher
In public, Suzuki was an outlier even in his own country, yet eventually recognised as a national treasure, a pedagogical phenomenon, and a philosopher of the stature of a Tolstoy or Thoreau. But what sort of person was he in everyday life?
Suzuki – Up close and personal
Personal accounts and anecdotes of westerners who studied with him are often mixed with the cultural exoticism of student life in rural Japan. Friends used to ask me, “Why did you go to study classical violin teaching in Japan of all places?” The stories I told of life at the Suzuki Institute were as much about the quirks and quaints of Japanese culture as about my studies with Suzuki.
Violin teacher and author Lois Shepheard brings us closer to both the man and the teacher in her memoir-biography, Memories of Dr Shinichi Suzuki.
A pioneering violinist-teacher in the Australian Suzuki scene, Lois uncovers some little known facts about the early years of Suzuki’s teaching as she recounts her time in Matsumoto. And foreigners who have lived in this fascinating and enigmatic country will recognise the curious and humorous experiences of being an alien in Japan.
Her account includes the difficulties his German-born wife, Waltraud, experienced living as a westerner in the complex cultural traditions of Japan. During the couple’s stay in a Tokyo hotel, the staff once refused to give her the key to their room because they couldn’t conceive of a foreigner being married to Suzuki, a Japanese.
Suzuki emerges as the kindly professor, unselfconsciously generous, unfailingly cheerful and funny, jocular, almost naively unworldly, an addicted smoker consumed in his work around the clock. There appears to have been little difference between his public and private persona, although Waltraud would surely have added ‘exasperating‘ to the list.
The recollections of Lois’s time at the Suzuki Institute and beyond provide readers with an authentic first hand account of the man behind the legend, with all the colour of her daily interactions with the Suzukis.
Lois Shepheard, author of Memories of Dr Shinichi Suzuki
Unquestionably, knowing more about Suzuki helps us understand how to teach and learn better. His philosophy is delightfully contagious. As Lois and others explain, Suzuki built much more than a mere method.
Please follow this link if you wish to purchase the book: https://ipoz.biz/Titles/Suzuki.htm
(Disclosure: I have no financial interest in the sale or otherwise of this book.)
From the BBC: The musician who taught three-year-olds to master the violin
Thanks for visiting Teach Suzuki Violin!
Cheers,
John
Coming up next: Violin Concerto in D Major, K218 by WA Mozart – 1st Movement
