In 2006, when I began my piano teaching career, I set out to find a teaching method that would help students to get the most out of their music lessons. I found several good methods, but none of them were designed to develop the kind of “whole musicianship” that I wanted for my students.
I liked the basic philosophy of the Suzuki method, which teaches students by ear first, but wanted something that also emphasized total fluency in music including note reading, music dictation, and composing from an early stage. I also wanted a method that would instill in the child the love for church music and awareness of music history.
At the same time, I wanted to incorporate the real purpose of music in all my lessons — that music is a gift from God designed to uplift the thoughts to themes that are high, ennobling, elevating and inspiring and not to be perverted, misapplied, and used to serve the purposes of evil.
Over the years, it has been my philosophy to incorporate the following concepts in my teaching.
Active Parent Involvement
I highly advocate that parents should be involved in the musical learning of their child. By involvement, it means attending lessons with the child and paying attention to the teaching process. They also serve as “home teachers” during the week. One parent often learns to play before the child, so that s/he understands what the child is expected to do. Parents work with the teacher to create an enjoyable learning environment.
Experience Music Through Listening and Singing Before Playing
Music is an aural art form, and learning it should be rooted in actual sound, not in symbols on a page. When students start with a visual approach, playing the piano is little more than decoding written notes and “typing” them into the keyboard. Music has a flow, a rhythm, a pulse, and if children begin their music studies by experiencing music before being forced to decode it, they will always have sense of the way music should sound and will enjoy their music studies from the very beginning.
No child would be made to learn English by forcing them to learn letters before words. Children speak in full sentences before they learn to write and music students can learn songs before they begin to read notes. Students hear a new song, and then they are asked to sing it. As they sing, the student naturally learns the rhythm, the notes, and begins to memorize the song. Having words to go with a tune adds to the fun and makes it easier to learn.
Once the student is familiar with the musical shape of a song, then the teacher guides the student to discover the patterns in the music. Irene uses solfège (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti) to help students learn the relationships between different notes in a musical scale. Beginning students also sing rhythms and finger numbers to prepare them to play the song on a keyboard. Then when the students go to the keyboard, not only do they know what kinds of sounds should be coming out, they have a very good chance of making those sounds on their first try.
Beautiful Sound = Beautiful Posture
From the beginning, I want to promote technique that will allow a student to be the most comfortable and get the best tone out of their instrument. I use actual music repertoire designed to present technical problems to be learned in the context of the music rather than through dry technical exercises.
Students are also taught to play the piano with correct posture at all times, seated at the right height and with a foot rest as needed. With these good habits in place, students are always ready to play their very best.
Review and Repetition
In most traditional piano methods, students are marched through a book, learning a few songs a week and then forgetting them as they move on. But what is unique about the Suzuki approach is that students review all the songs they have learned within a certain level as they practice every day. This allows a student to become confident enough with their playing to achieve a high level of musicianship that isn’t possible with a piece that is practiced for a week or two and then left behind
At the end of each level, which normally takes from six to twelve months to complete, my students give a mini-concert and perform all the songs learned in that level from memory. This also builds greater memorization skills than a traditional book-based method.
As the child moves on to the next level, the previous pieces are still reviewed, continually enhancing the pieces as the child becomes more mature in piano performance.
Well-Rounded Repertoire
By using traditional folk songs, classical music literature, hymns and scripture songs, I am able to ensure that children are experiencing melodies that have stood the test of time and that have inherent musicality, values, and appeal. These are the kind of songs that never seem to wear out as students practice them.
What’s more, these are songs that will be stuck in their heads for life. Hence, I make sure it is judiciously chosen.
Teaching According to the Child’s Learning Pace
Parents are often concerned that a child who learns to play music by ear will never learn to read notes. This is not the case with my students. They do learn to play by ear first, but within a few months they are learning not only to read notes but to write down the music they already know using traditional staff notation.
Traditional letter names for notes on the staff are introduced in a fun and interactive way, with story memory aids to help children put together a note’s name, its place on the keyboard, and its position on the staff. I use songs a student has already learned to teach not only how to find individual notes on the staff but to see shapes of melody lines and chords, just as children who learn to read written language are taught to read whole words instead of just individual letters.
Most music students aren’t asked to do any music dictation until college, but there is no reason to wait to develop this important skill. When a child writes their own sheet music for songs they know and love it is a much more effective learning experience than if that child is handed a book with songs already written down.
Another thing I emphasize is improvisation. Just as someone who can only read or recite from memorization wouldn’t be considered fluent in a language, someone fluent in music should be able to improvise. This promotes musical exploration and discovery, and leads to developing composition skills. It’s also a lot of fun.
I ask students to transpose all the songs they know into each new key that they learn. This is another skill that is usually delayed until much later in a music student’s career, but that can be mastered more easily if introduced from the beginning. It strengthens a student’s ability to play by ear and to comprehend that music is all about the relationships of sounds.
Every Child Can!
Every child is capable of excellence. It is a matter of how much the adults in their life challenge them and show them what is possible. An important component of the Suzuki approach is that the teacher respects students, motivates them, and holds them to a high standard of performance.
These core values taught together with the important elements of musicianship makes Irene’s teaching well-rounded and meaningful. It allows the child to reach a high level of musical proficiency and at the same time seek to serve the community with good music.
Finally, in everything that I do in my studio, mhy eartcry echoes the Psalmist’s prayer:
“And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish thou the work of our hands upon us, yes,
establish the work of our hands!“ Psalm 90:17
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