The Secret to Success is Listening Back
90% of the time and effort a child spends practicing the violin is the activity of listening. All of the children who are making progress in their studies at TEC are listening to the Suzuki Violin CDs. Listening to the Book I Violin CD by David Cerone every day at every opportunity is the secret to success in the TEC Violin program. The Cerone CD has a separate track for each rhythmic variation that the PreTwinkle child will be learning. By making effective use of the single repeat button on each track the young child can focus on a smaller bit of information and internalize it much more quickly in the early stages of listening.
When a baby is born he is bathed in an environment full of language. Dr. Suzuki reminds us that he has been listening even from before birth for at least 2 years before he utters his first word. When a toddler 1st begins speaking they practice their first words over and over before going to the next one. We do not expect them to utter entire sentences for months. Even though learning even those first few words is a complex process, most children learn to speak with natural effort by hearing the sounds they will use over and over.
The first word a baby speaks takes the longest to learn, but the second word is acquired nearly on the heels of the 1st. This is because the child has used the 1st word to learn how to process language. As a child practices on the first 3 or 4 words that he knows he becomes more skillful at adding more words. Before long adding short words to his vocabulary becomes a habit and he begins developing new skills for learning language.
Learning a new language efficiently requires us to start by mastering small bits of information at a time. So it is for music. By taking the time to listen to the 1st Twinkle variation over and over the PreTwinkle child learns the skills he will need to access each succeeding variation. These are skills that will eventually lead him to the rest of Book I and the life of playing the violin.
In much the same way a baby listens to and then repeats their first short words over and over again before attempting to say the next one. He overlooks much of the language that goes flying by him, focusing most of his energy on that one word that means so much"MaMa!!". The young child actually develops his memory for music by focusing on and mastering his first Twinkle. Doing it this way is actually faster than if he tried listening to the whole piece or the whole CD. Only repeating the whole CD everyday would be like pushing a whole pizza in his face at once. A lot of cheese would end up on the floor before it made it into his mouth.
Let the child use the first track on the CD to learn the skills he will use to absorb the rest of the CD. By using the single repeat button and playing the music softly in the background we give the child's ear a chance to re-sample the musical information and verify what he has heard. Play the first Twinkles softly in the background through out the child's day as if it were the carpeting or the wall paper in the room. By creating an environment filled with this music the child will come to his first music lessons recognizing the Twinkle variation the he is asked to tap with his fingers.
As the child masters the first Twinkle rhythm so that he can tap it with his fingers he develops skills that he will use to learn the next 3 Twinkles.
The 1st kind of listening starts in the womb when the ears first begin to take in sound. The baby hears what ever is in the environment around him. His response to it is intuitive and subconscious. He does not consciously respond to it but it is data none the less important, streaming into his subconscious. It may cause a startle response or calm his heart rate as it influences his endocrinal system or the primitive parts of his brain.
We know now from research that if a child does not hear language when it is developing in the womb he has already missed critical periods for learning language later. The experience of passive learning opens the door to more active forms of learning that will occur later.
Your child masters the skills of passive learning very early in life. Even when you think he is sleeping or doing another activity his ears are taking in information in the passive mode. The brain is building up a subconscious auditory map of the world he lives in. At an early age he hears everything even the things you don't want him to hear. This is because the neurons in his young brain are voracious for stimulation.
As parents we can take advantage of the passive brain by bathing it in the music we want the child to hear and learn at a subconscious level. The more samples of the Twinkles he has stored a way in the subconscious ear the easier it will be to retrieve one for the PreTwinkle class when we need it. This will give the child the opportunity to exercise the natural and intuitive skills of his musical brain.
When the child begins attending his first PreTwinkle classes your teacher will begin doing games and activities that we refer to as active listening. Moving with the whole body, the legs, arms and the fingers. These activities will help the child capture the information in the sea of his musical unconscious and give him conscious awareness of each of the Twinkles that he will master during the first month of his life as a PreTwinkler.
By playing the Twinkles everywhere you go your child will gain better
listening skills and coordination. One day you will look into
your rear view mirror at a stop light and see your PreTwinkle sitting in
the back seat, tapping the rhythms on his own to the music.
In Listening to Learn we described many of the aspects of Current Listening. This is the listening we do with any new piece of music we are learning. Most students will probably spend about half of their listening time doing this kind of listening in order to master the newest piece of music they are trying to master. Mastering a piece of music means memorizing all of the basic musical elements so that we can play it on the instrument.
Once the PreTwinkler graduates to Twinkler and then begins moving through the Twinkles with fingers he will have a repertoire of active listening activities. Active Listening with his body, his bow arm and his fingers will insure that he has internalized the process of playing the violin.
Previewing the music is about listening to the next piece of music at least once a day. It is the music that we will be learning before we attempt to play it on the violin. It is important that we give the growing musical brain time to absorb as many of the details of the music before we try to play it on the instrument. This prevents the child from guessing were the notes are before he has had a chance to listen accurately. Ms. Cynthia like to give a few Active Listening activities such as tapping, moving the ball, and bowing on the shoulder. When the child can play the correct bowings on the open strings then Ms. Cynthia know that the child is ready to start playing the piece with fingers.
Dr. Suzuki's favorite secret for learning music is Reviewing. Reviewing may be done by listening to the whole CD or all of the pieces that the child has learned up to this point. Scientist recently discovered how the brain uses this secret to make it work. If a child continues to listen to a piece of music he has practiced, the brain continues to practice that music every time it is heard even when the child does not have the instrument in his hands. That means the brain can have a rehearsal for that music even when the child is asleep, just by hearing it! Now that is magic.
One day Dr. Suzuki asked one of his students to play a movement from a concerto for a guest who was visiting his studio. The student was very reluctant to play the piece because he knew he had been practicing other music and had not had time to review it on the violin. The student played it with out missing note and astonished both himself and the visitor. But Dr. Suzuki knew the student had continued to listen to that music everyday and had every confidence that the student could play it.
There is lots of music being played out there in world that your child might aspire to play someday. Now is the time to explore what others are already playing. We want to expose young minds to classical music as well as a wealth of music from other cultures. We recommend starting with recordings of the pieces found in the last 10 books of the Suzuki Method.
When the child's teacher asks if they would like to play in a quartet or community youth orchestra it will be a much easier experience if the child has already heard and become familiar with the music played by these ensembles. Children will be more motivated to practice if they are aware of what they can do with their growing musical skills.
Finally, listening is a great motivation for practicing if we are creatively inspired by what we hear. The job of teachers and parents is to constantly look for musical experience that give our children that Aha! experience. Parents should always be on the look out for musical venues were children can be exposed to music performances. Radio, PBS, Concerts at local schools, Local Symphony Concerts, Chamber music Concerts, Fiddling and other ethnic music, not to mention Suzuki Workshops and Institutes just to get started.
The Art of listening to music is a huge topic in the Suzuki world as well as the musical world in general. It is the stock and trade of being a successful musician. But it is also very much part of living a fuller life.
We will continue to explore this topic which was of such great importance to Dr. Suzuki. One great resource to start with is IN THE SUZUKI STYLE: A Manual for Raising Musical Consciousness in Children by Elizabeth Mills. You can find it in our Bibliography section with many other recommendations and a few retail sources.