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? 

What do I mean by talent? The ability to express a musical phrase with a beautiful tone in a way that will provoke emotion or recognition of beauty in the listener. You need a lot of technique for that. But technique isn’t enough, or we would all listen to computers instead of human beings. Computers don’t make mistakes.

So, first of all, we must realize that sometimes it takes a lot more than listening to music and good technical advice to get a child to show his talent. 

I know and have known many teachers (including my own, many years ago) who think that talent will show up on its own—that the teacher has to do little, nay, should do little to help a student give birth to his talent other than show him how to move his hands, how to practice, and indicate what music to listen to. 

But giving birth to talent can be very difficult for those who need more help than others. The interesting question we should ask ourselves is: when you see several mature musicians, can you tell the difference between those who needed that help and those who didn’t?

Here’s an analogy. Before you are four full-term, healthy babies about a month old, each one named Talent. All four mothers had the attentions of an obstetrician or midwife during labor and delivery.

Mother One had a very easy labor: one push and out popped baby. She really didn’t need the OB, except maybe to catch the baby and clean it up. She could have given birth in the fields by herself, as many of our forbears have done.

Mother Two had a long and painful labor and was helped by the obstetrician, who made it easier with pain control, etc., but this mother, too, probably could have managed on her own.

Mother Three had a long and difficult labor, a breech presentation, and the obstetrician or midwife had to manually turn the baby around. Mother and/or baby might have both perished otherwise.

Mother Four had lots of difficulties: too big a baby, fetal distress, placenta previa, or any other potentially fatal problem, and she required the professional services of an expert obstetrician and neonatal team; otherwise…

However, after a month (or even a few hours), by looking at these babies, all named Talent, could you tell which one was the product of an easy or incredibly difficult delivery?

The answer is, in a word, no. They are all beautiful babies, some prettier than others, some bigger than others, some louder, and some stronger, but they’re all named Talent. And none of them is any less or more successful when they grow up because of the ease or difficulty with which they had entered this world.

All successful students need teachers, just like all mothers need an OB or midwife to make sure things go as smoothly as possible. But the teacher, like the attending medical professional, has to be ready to go that extra mile. The mother needs a C-section at 3 a.m.? The doctor needs to be awake and ready, no matter what a long day he or she has had. A student doesn’t understand how to find his sound (as one teacher I know regularly asks of his students without giving any indication of how to do so)? We have to help such a student, even if it means explaining things we thought we would or should never have to explain to anyone.

Some kids are trapped by their personalities; they are laconic, speak in a monotone, have difficulty showing or expressing emotion, etc. They need help from a determined teacher and are glad to have it, even though they may seem uncomfortable when gently guided outside their comfort zone.

They may need different types of approaches: intellectual, spiritual, or physical. Some need all three and a few more perhaps no one has thought of yet. Others need varying sorts of the same explanations at different points in their learning career. After all, how can we expect students to find their sound and musicality, i.e., their talent, if we don’t help them become aware of what these are, what they mean, and the effect they can have on people (including on themselves)?

Here's the real danger: if we don’t help students find their self-expression, we risk that they only imitate what they hear or see, or that they do what they’re told instead of making something their own, the result being that nothing will be authentically theirs. Imitating is not the same thing as creating, although it’s often a good start. Great teaching helps students who are stuck make the breakthrough from one to the other.

I have interviewed a lot of fine musicians; what stood out is how important their first teachers were to them, both positively and negatively. Those who had had a positive experience as beginners had teachers who transmitted to them, or actively made them understand in one way or another, the wonders of music. They looked back fondly on those teachers. The others merely felt they had survived their early music education, notwithstanding the excellent technical preparation they had received. Perhaps it’s worth considering what we would like our students to say about us someday in the future. Did we help them give birth? Or did we leave them to labor alone in the fields?

Many say that you can’t create talent. Maybe not—the obstetrician doesn’t create the baby—but we can help students find it in themselves, and even they may be surprised at what they can accomplish if they are guided sensitively, compassionately, and without judgment.