Something about me and Suzuki

I wrote this when I was planning for a parent discussion group about 10 years.

Around 1964, the first tour of Suzuki violin students came from Japan.  My father and grandfather saw the performance in Philadelphia.  The whole audience was in tears amazed about what this troupe of young children could communicate with music.  After the performance my father called my mom who was pregnant with my brother Fred to tell her about his plans for our family.  My mother didn’t play an instrument and claimed to be tone deaf, but she loved children and followed the plan.  My father decided after seeing the Suzuki Performance eventually our family would be a family string quartet.   He already played the viola and decided my brother would play the cello.  My older sister was born a few years later and she started violin lessons in 1970 when she was 3.  I went to all her lessons in utero and after I was born in 1971 sitting on my mom’s lap and started violin lessons myself at age 2 ½ with Barbara Embser in Hartford, CT.  Barbara was studying with Suzuki and he came and while I don’t remember it, I played for him when I was 5.  When I was about 9 we played as a family string quartet at the governor of Connecticut’s Christmas party.  While my dad was the musical parent, my mother was the Suzuki parent, attending all our lessons and the weekly group classes which seemed to consume every Saturday morning.   I don’t know how she did it now, with three kids into music and sports and holding down a full time job as a pediatrician.  When I was a child my dad was a platinum frequent flyer and traveled about 1/3rd  of each month. 

As for lessons, I remember the comfort of sitting in my mother’s lap and her attention when we’d practice together.  I detested performing for performing sake.  If I was playing with others, fine, but by myself, no thank you.   When asked I’d always say I didn’t like playing the violin.  But as the youngest in the family I often was left out and felt left out when my brother, dad and sister would play trios together.  I loved to play the violin, but not so keen on performing or playing on my own.  My dad was quite goal oriented with my playing, I was to be the 2nd violin in our quartet whether I liked it or not. So, I am a violinist. I did like playing for my mom who claimed not to understand music and folded laundry or ironed while she observed my practice and offered post practice cuddle time! 

Fast forward a million years to when my son Carter turned 4.  When my son turned 4 I really wanted him to learn an instrument.   I asked him what he wanted to play, and he said clarinet.  Ok.  I said, how about the piano?  I took him to observe a lesson with Cynthia Huard.  He responded, no way, not the piano, clarinet.  So at 5 I signed him up for clarinet lessons and had his babysitter take him to lessons.  He liked the clarinet, but absolutely would not practice.  I thought I didn’t have time to practice with him because I had a job and a farm and travelled and so on and the babysitter simply shrugged when I asked her to practice with him.   So, the clarinet petered out.   I asked Carter again what instrument he wanted to play and he told me violin.   I called around and found there were no violin teachers with spots available unless I was willing to drive him to Burlington.   So, I decided to teach him myself.   As a teenager I ran a fairly successful practice partner service where parents dropped their kids off with me to practice with them.  In college I taught a few students private lessons.  So, I thought, ok, I can do this!  I’ve had 30 years of lessons and practice, I must know something.  The first few years were pretty much a disaster.   I would teach him a lesson and then expect him to practice on his own and he wouldn’t practice, and complain incessantly.  I would avoid lessons and practice for weeks at a time.  But we persevered and he progressed a little.  Word got out that I was willing to teach and I picked up a few students.  I loved teaching other people’s kids!   I didn’t have to do the practice!   

Eventually I signed up for Suzuki teacher training classes at Ithaca College and Hartt School of Music, the school where I took lessons and where the youth orchestras I participated in were held.    The revelation in teacher training was that the practice is the meat of studying the violin and the parent is the primary teacher of the child.  The teacher gets the child once a week, otherwise, the parent does the dirty work.   The primary lessons in Suzuki teacher training are figuring out how to support families as they tackle music education.  I learned some practice strategies from my eight summers of Suzuki teacher training classes, some of which I now use with my son and share with student families.   After the first teacher training classes, I decided to find another teacher for my son and observed his lessons with his teachers Francine Hamberlein and Pam Reit for 10 years.  When he learned to drive, he started attending lessons solo.  My son is now 19 and loves to play the violin and viola.  He made it through all 10 books of the Suzuki Repertoire and a lot of other repertoire.  He loves chamber music, plays in orchestras and gigs with me for weddings and events.  He’s a wonderful musician and human.