Suzuki method practitioners advocate starting formal training by age two or three. The so-called, “Talent Education Movement,” created and developed by Suzuki and his colleagues, was based on the notion that the earliest years of a child’s life is the best time to begin training children to play piano/strings. While the Suzuki method is uniquely suited for training the youngest children, it has proven to be effective in training students of any age.
Traditional piano/strings teachers are rarely willing or qualified to teach the very youngest students. Beginning in the six to ten year old age range is favored by most, if not all, traditional teachers.
Suzuki study emphasizes passive modes of learning - watching and listening. Before engaging in formal study, Suzuki students are exposed to recordings of the first and subsequent pieces they will play, as well as recordings of great performances from the general classical repertory.
This continues when students begin formal study and as they progress. Recordings are played as “background music”, for hours each day and at low volume levels. Here, the thinking is that exposure to recordings is similar to the effect of immersion that naturally occurs in the process of primary language acquisition.
Successful study is enhanced by prolonged repeated exposure. Suzuki students develop an internal model of the music to be studied. They memorize the music and internalize the nuances of pitch, tone, timing, articulation, and dynamics demonstrated in recorded performances.
Suzuki method also uses language acquisition as a model for teaching students to read music. Just as one would never teach young children to read before they have learned to speak, Suzuki teachers defer reading until there is a technical mastery of basic skills for playing and musical memory has been developed sufficiently. As a result, students learn to express music with ease and fluency. Suzuki teaches that students can more readily develop technical mastery if the student’s attention is not divided by learning to simultaneously read and play.
Traditional (RCM) study favors a type of training that virtually ignores passive learning approaches. While students may be encouraged to listen to recordings of the more advanced repertory played by concert artists or symphony orchestras, beginning students are generally not given the opportunity to listen to recordings of the beginning pieces that they are or will be studying.
Traditional (RCM) teachers often justify the avoidance of making use of recordings of the pieces the beginner plays, suggesting that students will become dependent on learning by rote at the expense of developing the ability to read music, and that learning by rote leads to mechanical imitation. Instead, traditional teachers have students read pieces note by note, when learning and playing pieces.
