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i like Suzuki... it's very logical.. my only complaint is that once you are in the more advanced literature, it moves really fast. there are no pieces to reinforce what one has learned..you really need supplemental literature. I must have the perfect mother for this literature, because her kids have come to me well prepared. All i have to do is establish the music, hand, keyboard triangle and teach them to keep their eyes on the music. i love it.

I find it silly to blame the parents for their children's inability to read notes. I blame the teacher.

AZN piano - pleae re-read my post (piano2), as I wasn't blaming the parent for the child not reading notes. I was merely explaining that in Book 1 Suzuki, note reading is not taught yet.
As I'm sure you know, for Suzuki method to work, the parent assists the child at home by playing the cd, and practicing with the child. The hardest job is to be the parent, and lots of them can't handle that role and take their child out of Suzuki as a result.
Then you get transfer students who can't read becaus they haven't been taught yet. It's your job to teach them since their parents have decided to go with traditional lessons.

Does it become a problem that they are used to looking at their hands?

So you are blaming the parents.

Actually, the Suzuki transfers I've gotten are those who want to take CM, and then they find out that they actually have to (gasp!) do sight reading. I have several Suzuki transfers who have been doing CM several years, barely passing each year, and always getting "average" in the sight reading portion. BTW, "average" is the nice way of saying "you failed."

If most parents cannot invest that much time and effort in their children's Suzuki piano education, then maybe they are better off seeking traditional lessons. Do we agree there?

So what are you doing, AZN piano, to help these students improve their sight reading once they come to you? Do you build their confidence by giving them sight reading that is easy and then progressively more difficult as they are ready for it? Do you allow them to learn their new pieces hands separately, section by section so that they can use their limited sight reading skills more easily? That is the way Suzuki students learn their pieces. Do you allow them to listen to recordings of their new pieces?

If they are Suzuki transfers and doing CM exams, then they aren't really "doing" Suzuki, are they? There are all kinds of Suzuki teachers - some take training, some do not. It's just like traditional teaching, in that respect.

If parents want only minimal involvement in their child's musical life, and think of music as something only for fun, then they should go with traditional lessons.

There are ridiculous assumptions all over the place.

If parents do NOT help, the lessons are traditional. Whatever that means.

If parents DO help, lessons are not traditional. Whatever that means.

I teach scales, chords, foundation. I teach Bach, Beethoven, etc. I'm a fanatic about good fingering. And I absolutely insist that all my students begin reading music, in some manner from day one.

But I also insist that parents of my young students attend every lesson and help at home by learning WITH us. That's not traditional. That's not untraditional. It is just sane. I want educated parents.

In addition, the year is 2012. There are SO many kinds of music out there. I do not restrict my students to only one kind of music, so anything that is notated is fair game if they have the skills to learn the music. And part of being a fine musician is improvising, writing music. This is all TRADITIONAL.

Delaying teaching reading is not non-traditional. It is a mindset that justifies teaching one half of music, listening, playing from sound, exploring, without balancing it with the rudiments of the written part of the musical language.

So it's not traditional vs non-traditional. It is balance vs. no balance, where one aspect of music is hammered on while another is totally neglected. And when reading is neglected for two or three years, that part of music is hurt. The damage in tat area is often irreparable.

If, on the other hand, students are taught to reproduce written music like robots - even if said robots play "musically" - what in heaven's name is the good of that?

My point: don't talk about traditional. Talk about balance.

Thank you Gary, you read my mind, I agree to everything that you said upstairs!

For Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

Or for a Chopin Etude?

The issue is not about needing to look at the hands. The issue is that the looking takes the eyes off page too long, and then the eyes lose their location.

The solution is quick looks. The need to look often is insecurity about finding the keys without looking, and the cure for that is confidence. The confidence comes from better reading, and that automatically cuts down on the time the eyes are focused on the hands.

Are either of you aware of the mother-tongue approach to music? It compares music learning to the way children learn their language. Most children learn to speak before they learn to read - it is similar with Suzuki piano. The students learn to play beautifully before learning to read the music.

Does this mean that children are "robots" because they repeat what their parents say when they learn to speak?

A little more education into what the Suzuki method is all about might be in line here.

I think there are many great methods for teaching piano. It's only the Suzuki method that is constantly put down. Why is that?

Let me save some time:


These are all 100% on target. Why any of these things need to be said is beyond me, but apparently they do need to be said.

The skill of reading DEMANDS looking at the hands as little as possible. Therefore reading itself automatically forces the eyes to spend more and more time looking at the page, and something else is rarely mentioned:

Over time peripheral vision allows us to see the keyboard much better than we realize. I have tested myself often by playing something, not looking at my hands for one second, eyes glued to the page, but I still see the keys. If I then play the exact same thing, eyes closed, my accuracy when the hands need to move is hugely decreased.

I am aware of what Suzuki calls "mother-tongue" and also how it is done. It may be an effective way of learning. However, it is NOT how children learn their language. Suzuki himself learned to play violin in his teens by listening to recordings, and incorporated that experience into his teaching. He assumed that this was how language is learned.

Here is what happens when a child learns his first language:
He explores how his body produces sounds, so he will squeak, growl, chant rhythmically, do "bronks cheers" . He probably gets a sense that sentences and gestures have a general meaning: a bottle being offered plus "DoYouWantYourMilk?" An infant seems to be programmed to learn things in particular stages. He also thinks and experiments.

If children learned through pure imitation, then the parent would model "I want some milk." and the child would repeat it. But the child says "Me want milk". An imitating child would not say "Me runned." or "I runned." This shows thinking, creativity, and looking for patterns.

So a true mother tongue approach seeking to imitate how children learn languages would proceed differently. You would have the child experiment what kinds of sounds he can produce on the piano, and be creative with it. You would have him hear general patterns in music, then specific things. You would let him discover and work with patterns, and be inventive as well as learning to play pieces.


Parents do a lot of modeling. But strictly speaking, that is not how children learn language. As per above. No, they are not robots, but this is also not what they do.

I disagree. Children learn to speak the language that they hear in their environment. Sometimes it is more than one language - it is completely dependent on their environment.
Plus, when mom and dad get so excited about those first words and sentences - wow, what a lot of reinforcement and motivation to keep trying.

How does this relate to the process of learning that I described? How is this disagreeing with that process? You have stated that children learn to speak the language they hear. Have I said anything different? Only, I described how this happens.

I'm sorry to hear that you haven't ever heard or worked with a good Suzuki piano player. Perhaps the teachers in your area aren't trained in the method.
I have heard lots of great Suzuki students, and was a Suzuki student as a child.

Anyways, I'm happy to agree to disagree.

My 11 year old is an advanced Suzuki student (Suzuki book 6). He's been taking Suzuki piano for 6 years. I will also say our current teacher has a PhD, has taught traditional, and has taught at a college level.

Our teacher we had at the beginning and the one we have now start note reading right at the beginning. He encourages kids to be looking at their Suzuki music in book 2. The problem comes when 1) you have an extremely aural kid, who just has a hard time learning note reading. 2) you have a kid or parent who is enamored with racing through Suzuki repertoire and does not practice note reading. This does happen and there are teachers out there not doing a good job with note reading. There are teachers out there using Suzuki rep, but are not Suzuki trained and they often don't do a good job either. But often, I think it lies in the hand of the practice at home. Our teacher has some weak note readers, but he can't follow them home and make them work on it everyday.

Starting at book 2 and book 3, my kid started doing a bunch more outside repertoire. Like 2X-4X as much as just what is in the Suzuki books. Now, memorizing is more of a struggle than note reading and he could transfer to a traditional teacher without a problem. We also are working on some theory/scales/technqiue drills. He is given leeway in his own interpretation now. Looking at his hands too much is not an issue at all.

Anyway, I'm happy to share my son's youtube channel if people are interested (PM me). I think his earliest video I have of him online is at age 7 and book 2. The most recent is of him at piano camp last week playing a book 6 piece.

Again, the problem is with the words "traditional" and "non-traditional".

There is nothing non-traditional about not teaching people to read music. There is nothing traditional about making sure that people do learn to read music.

I am extremely "aural", and I also read music effortlessly. I have at least two students right now who would have failed to read at all because their natural ability to play by ear is so strong. But they both read well.

If reading is not taught, people end up "blind". They play be ear, but they can't read music, or they read it painfully slowly.

If people are not encouraged to use their ears, they end up "deaf", unable to play what they hear but what is not written down.

It's really very basic, but not simple. There needs to be a balance.

I'm just a parent, but I don't disagree. At the end of the day, if you don't practice reading, you don't learn to read.



I don't understand what you mean here? They would have failed with a Suzuki teacher? My point was I have an advancing Suzuki student who is a strong aural learner AND a strong reader. I would say the majority of the more advanced students in our teacher's studio are the same. We go to a large music school with a few hundred Suzuki piano students, and this is the path the majority there are following should they choose to continue. In our experience, it is completely possible to develop ear training and develop note reading at the same time.

I think kids from all types of teachers can come out unbalanced or unprepared for a "career" in music. I don't understand why it seems all Suzuki teachers get grouped as "bad" in the piano world, but this doesn't happen to other piano teachers? There are good and bad teachers using various sorts of pedagogy.

Anyway - that's as long winded as I'll get. Just gets old hearing stereotypes about Suzuki kids when I know some really amazing Suzuki kids. I also know some mediocre Suzuki kids. The same goes for the kids at our music school using a traditional approach. It seems to come down to kids who practice vs. kids who do not practice.

Thanks for this, kck. I am glad to hear your son is doing so well.

I am really interested in Suzuki, and still have a few questions. If you say the teachers started note reading from the beginning, then this is *not* what Suzuki method (as I have read about it) is all about. Everything is about starting out with listening, respecting teacher, posture, etc, and leaving note reading for later. So do the teachers depart from the method? Is that OK?

Now, if the teacher encourages students to look at the book from book 2, then this is already far in, possibly two years down the line, as there is a lot in book 1. And if someone starts to look at the book, they will have no idea what they are looking at. They will need to start out reading one note at a time. So, did you mean that book 2 was the beginning? Sorry, I'm just confused here.

This is my main problem with Suzuki. I understand it was a method developed for violin and now rolled out to other instruments. But reading for violin and for piano are very different. Reading for piano is more difficult because you have to read two clef, and often many notes, at once. Violin is one clef and mostly one note at a time. And the expectation of any pianist is that they can walk into a ballet class or a choir rehearsal and sightread. Now I'm not saying that violinists don't need to sightread, just that it's more of an issue for piano.

I quite hear what you say about the problem situations. tbh, those are problems no matter what technique is being used.

I am saying that with these students if I had not stressed reading from day one, their ears would have taken over, and they would have memorized everything. Suzuki is just a name to me. I don't care who uses it, or how. If reading is taught from day one, in some manner, very few people will fail to learn to read. If it is delayed, many students will become so successful at using ONLY the ear that their reading will never get fully on track.

It's that simple.