Shar Music Blog

Most SHAR employees are players in addition to being luthiers, salespeople, purchasers, or web developers. So when one of our senior customer care specialists asked to attend the Phoenix Phest Grande Suzuki Teacher Training Workshop, we said, "Sure! But can you also blog about it?" Not only has Alexandra Ostroff sent us dispatches from her training workshops, she's generously shared her reflections on the Suzuki Method, allowing us to witness the discoveries and challenges of this week-long session at Phoenix Phest Grande.   

August 3, 2013

Today I started my one-week course to be a registered Suzuki Violin Unit 1 teacher. Each day I will be blogging updates with some of the ideas and concepts I am learning and detail the experience of becoming trained in the Suzuki Method. I must admit - although I’ve completed the prerequisite steps of reading Nurtured By Love (by Dr. Suzuki) and attending the Every Child Can seminar, the internal mechanisms of the Suzuki method remain a mystery to me.  In my learning of the violin, the written music part has played so strong a role that I can honestly say at this point it is a crutch; the idea of learning a piece completely by listening to it is somewhat foreign.

Our teacher began the week with an overview of the weeklong course. Afterward, we unpacked our instruments and began to play through the pieces in Book 1 together. I was not a “Suzuki kid” growing up, so this was the first time that I had ever experienced playing in a group setting outside of an orchestra section.  It’s difficult to find the right words for how it feels to play in this group, but I might describe it as a “musical hug”!

Memorization is not something that I excel at, and I was proud of myself to successfully make it through Perpetual Motion before I had to pull out my music and follow along in spots -  I’ll have to do a lot of listening and practicing this week to obtain my goal: to be able to play the whole book from memory.

In our lecture portion of the course, we started at the end; that is, we began by viewing the end results of the Suzuki process. We watched my Teacher Trainer’s student’s first recital, then fast forwarded to their Senior Recital - and saw the incredible results of a team comprised of teacher, student and parent. There was a wide range of high-level repertoire selected by the students and each piece was played with a high degree of musicality and technical ability that made the reticent 18-year-old in me jealous. The grace and ease of the playing on this recital is something that I did not have as I entered the collegiate world. How did they obtain this high level of playing?

Their teacher had this level of excellence in sight when they first taught them how to stand on their Twinkle Mat with a bow and hold their violin on day one of their education. As she lectured, we went over the fundamental concepts that need to be in place to create the foundation for success of a beginning student; among other things, the daily listening by the parent and child, daily practicing by child with a parent’s guidance, and the importance of giving the parent and child clear goals for their practice time at home.

I’m anxious and excited to learn and to push some of my own personal boundaries this week.  I’m looking forward to doing more observation throughout the week, especially of the group classes and of young players. I plan on becoming a stronger teacher as the week progresses.  Please follow with me on this journey!