Giving Birth to Talent

Dr, Suzuki called his method “Talent Education.” As all children have talent, it must be educated,. But sometimes a student’s talent isn’t apparent. You teach all the right technique and make sure your students listen to their recordings, but some of them remain fairly stubbornly ensconced in their shells. So what do you do? How do you educate something that hasn’t manifested itself? How do you cultivate something you can’t see yet? 

When Are They Ready?

Many teachers have firm ideas about when a young student is ready for violin lessons. Or instrument lessons in general. Here are a few general rules:

1. The student can stand or sit still for a fairly extended period.
2. The child can listen and follow orders from a stranger.

But what to do when a parent wants their child to start music lessons and said child cannot seem to do either of the above?

Beautiful Heart, Beautiful Tone or Is It Vice Versa?

Recently, a teacher/researcher asked an interesting question on an Internet forum: What did Suzuki mean by the phrase “beautiful tone, beautiful heart”? What was the connection he made between tone and character?

Did he mean that a beautiful tone led to a beautiful heart? But Helen Brunner, who we all know spent a lot of time with Dr. Suzuki, wrote ¹ that he always said, “Beautiful heart, beautiful tone.” So what did he mean?

Suzuki was close to becoming, if he was not already, a realized being. It didn’t matter to him what the order of his words was. He knew what he meant. But most of us more earthbound beings tend to take such sages’ words fairly literally. Words (especially translated ones) are a rather poor way of transmitting what is essentially a spiritual concept. Suzuki even seemed to contradict himself on occasion...

Doing What Inspires You

A teacher went recently to a string teacher convention where she talked with many violin teachers, both new and experienced,  Here are a few of her observations:

1. Many studio teachers still have problems with the basics of scheduling, policies, and being paid.
2. Everyone she met talked about wanting to teach their ideal student.
3. Everyone also had a different opinion on what the structure of their studio should look like. 
4. Many think they have to be available to teach 24/7. 
5. Many allow the students and their families to dictate the teacher’s schedule, i.e., the time and frequency of the lessons. 

She said that she saw general frustration all around. Instead, I see the poor business practices that result in this frustration.

To Teach or Not to Teach... Or, How to Teach Your Own Kids and Survive

Scenario 1. You are a doctor, lawyer, mechanic, and/or a stay-at-home parent but have no professional qualifications to teach anyone. You have a child. You homeschool your child. Many people applaud you, do not question your ability, and notice that home-schooled children often get into very good universities and have no problems fitting in socially. Everyone is happy.

Scenario 2. You are a musician. You have a child. You teach your child your musical instrument. Many people, namely other musicians, when you ask for help or advice, are horrified and vociferously protest on Internet forums that you must stop immediately and get your child another teacher. None of them seems to notice how many famous musicians, past and recent, were successfully taught by their own parents. Nor do they consider that there may be financial or logistical reasons for your decision—even if you plainly state them.

Recently, I saw a post on an Internet forum where a musician mother was having trouble teaching her son and asked for help. While she got a lot of good suggestions, many commenters outright and sometimes offensively told her that no one should ever teach their own child and to find another teacher pronto. Why do people get so emotional about this?

Well, for one thing, many of them have tried and not succeeded, which brings them to the conclusion that no one else can or should either. Instead, teaching your own child can be a wonderful thing to do if you observe a few basic principles.

Teaching Technique to Trying Tots - or Anyone Else For That Matter

How do you deal with students who you just can’t get to absorb an important technical aspect? Four-year-olds with a death-grip bow hold that no amount of tricks or pleading will relax? Wooden wrists that won’t bend no matter how many exercises you give them? Pancaking left hands that won’t even respond to toothpicks taped to the fingerboard (some parents get desperate)?

Yes, you say, these are problems we all face with our young beginners…

Certainly. But how about a late adolescent student who plays a Mozart concerto pretty darn well but doesn’t hold his violin up? You heard me right. A young adult with professional aspirations, advanced technique, and a droopy violin!

What does that have to do with our problems with our twinklers?

Quite a few years ago, I found myself watching a video of a masterclass on YouTube with a pedagogue, whom I didn’t know personally¹, teaching that sadly-postured young man. What deeply impressed me was how the teacher handled the situation: he gave that student excellent and very specific reasons (one of which I had never heard before and have since stolen from him – don’t tell!) to do as he suggested. I won’t go into specifics, although they were interesting, but he told the student how and why his sound would improve and his left-hand technique would get easier, gave specific instructions, asked the student to follow them, and while he did so, made him actively notice how much better his sound and left-hand technique were.

Now, do any of us seriously believe that this student could have gotten that far without all of his teachers and probably his parents telling him countless times: “FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, HOLD YOUR VIOLIN UP (followed by 50 exclamation points)”?  Of course they did. But here the difference was twofold:

Taking Stock of Growth

Maturity can teach you a lot of things. So can experience. When you put the two together, some remarkable things can happen. Maturity teaches you that so many things you had thought mattered don’t really matter much if at all, which allows for what’s truly essential to percolate up in your mind when faced with a difficult teaching situation. Experience teaches you how to handle such situations.

But growth, or maturing, is a funny thing. We can grow slowly or in spurts, but often we don’t notice how much or in what way we have grown until we’re put to the test or given some way to measure ourselves. Usually, circumstances that challenge us in some significant way compel us to take note.

I mention this because a violin teacher friend and I were discussing what’s important in teaching, how much we have learned over the years, and how differently we handle things today than we would have in our first years of teaching. And then she started telling me about an incident that had demonstrated to her very surprised self just how much she had changed.

Here’s what she said:

“In a group class not so long ago, a young adolescent talked back to me. I had a hard time convincing her to stop rudely justifying her behavior and just be quiet. But I finally succeeded and then went on with the lesson as if nothing had happened. I knew I had to do something about this, but instead of immediately taking action, I was surprised to find that I wanted to think about the whole thing first.

“The student’s mother had not been present that day, but later I got a phone call explaining her daughter’s behavior. It was obvious to me that the daughter had given her mother her version of the incident that had nothing to do with reality. I thanked her for the phone call and hung up without saying anything else. I wanted to think about it.

“During the week that followed, I talked to everyone present that day to get their impressions. The students were shocked. The mothers were horrified. The varying opinions were that it was the mother’s fault (that she hadn’t raised her daughter right), that I should demand an apology in front of the whole group, that I should “fire” the student, and that she also behaved badly behind my back. I didn’t say anything. I wanted to think about it.

“The difference between me then and 30 years before was this:

Helicopters and Tigers

“How do you teachers deal with Helicopter or Tiger Moms? It seems that honesty about their roles ends badly.”

A really good question for instrumental teachers of all stripes. The answer? First of all, of course “honesty” in the situation ends badly.

Why? Because anyone to whom you would apply these labels feels judged. And they don’t just feel it. They are judged by anyone using these sneeringly derogatory terms for another human being—terms which should be struck from the English (or any other) language. And here we come to a Very Important Principle:

THERE IS NO NEED TO CATEGORIZE ANYONE, ESPECIALLY OUR STUDENTS OR THEIR PARENTS.

I have said this before, but it bears repeating: difficult people do not become easier to deal with because you have judged them to be difficult. Putting someone into a category is not going to help you deal with them. It will only make things worse.

So, the first thing to realize is that today, being a parent is a lot more complicated than it was when I was growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, or even twenty years ago. Getting into a good college or university today has become an industry. When I was a high school student, I had a pamphlet on taking the SATs. Today, there are courses. We all know about the scandal involving cheating on SATs and bribes to get into good colleges, just to give an idea of the anxiety levels of the rich and famous, who classically have never had problems placing their offspring in fine schools. Imagine how “normal” middle-class parents feel! Also, many students nowadays are learning to play a musical instrument for the express purpose of getting into a better college. And winning a post in a good youth orchestra (and nailing the auditions) has also become paramount. Are students even enjoying playing anymore?

Therefore, there is an awful lot of anxiety for one’s children that simply didn’t exist a few decades ago. Unfortunately, this may result in somewhat extreme behavior by some parents, commonly defined as “Helicopter Moms” and “Tiger Moms.”

So, what to do?

How Much Do We Ever Really Know?

A very dear friend who left us far too soon was a learned philosopher, lawyer, and eloquent writer. A line from one of his articles on his long-defunct blog struck me:

“Nobody knows as much as he thinks he does, and to whatever extent anyone bases a decision on facts, the facts are always incomplete.”

That’s quite a remarkable statement—especially from a lawyer who is supposed to get all the facts to support his case. But stop and think about it. How much do we all think we know about others? How often do we make judgments about them, thinking that we have all the necessary facts? How often do we react to a situation, presuming that we instantly understand other people’s circumstances, psychology, motivations, worldviews, and moods?

As a case in point, I read recently in a teaching forum a post by an understandably exasperated teacher whose young student had asked the following question 10 minutes into the lesson:

“When will this be over?”

Five little words prompted this teacher to consider when it would be possible for her to teach only students who were interested. But did she have all the facts about that student? I’m sure she thought she did—she said the child’s mother said he was lazy. But did his mother even have all the facts? Does any parent ever have all the facts about their children?

There are so many reasons why that child could have asked this question