“Do you teach Suzuki?” is a question every string teacher hears from inquisitive parents looking to sign their child up for lessons. They have seen the videos of the tiny four year old playing flawlessly; of course they want their child to do the same! There is no doubt that the Suzuki Method is one of the most influential pedagogical methods in music history. 

But does that mean it’s the best? 

While the method is most specific to strings, it does have some overlap in other instruments (mainly piano). I have found it interesting, however, that all the other instrument families, from keyboard to woodwinds to brass, do not view the Suzuki Method highly. Even as a violinist myself, I do not think highly of the method, though I am forced to use their books for many students. 

Why is that? 

Before I continue further, allow me to summarize how the Suzuki Method is supposed to work in a general sense. Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki developed this method around the 1930s and post-WWII around the belief that all children have the innate ability to develop musical skills. He reached this conclusion from one singular thought: children can quickly learn their primary language by ear and exposure alone. By using this philosophy, he taught many students from a young age to play violin with decent technique. The method took Japan by storm and eventually made its rounds around the world. 

While this all may sound amazing to an audience member, as someone who knows how excruciatingly long it can take to get a student studying the Suzuki Method to prepare ONE piece to a polished state for performance, it it not as perfect as you think. 

One of the most glaring issues surrounding the Suzuki Method is that it creates students who severely lack music reading skills. While even I can attest that exposure to classical music helps one’s ability to improve repertoire quickly, if we are to treat music as a language, there is a fundamental flaw in Suzuki’s philosophy. 

Yes, it is true that children initially learn their primary language from hearing their parents and teachers speak around them. But in order to continue progress in mastering their language, children must learn the alphabet. They must learn how to read and write. They learn phonics. They learn syntax. They learn how to write paragraphs. So on and so forth.

This all applies to music as well. If we are to continue to treat music as a language, music, arguably, has two alphabets: a tonal alphabet and a rhythmic alphabet. While there is a section dedicated the “rhythmic alphabet” of quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes by using Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in the early pages of the Suzuki Method, not much is dedicated to the “tonal alphabet.” Instead, the Suzuki Method heavily relies on placing fingerings above each note. This then causes the student to solely rely on fingerings to figure out how to play the music they are studying rather than actually reading the pitches on the staff. If the student is not listening as they are supposed to, this also leads to poor intonation.

If music is a language, then we must also realize that music has syntax. Students learn about this syntax aurally by studying scales and music theory. Naturally, as they grow into their ability, they learn about the complexities of the musical language. All of this learned music theory then builds to create paragraphs of larger musical works such as sonatas, concerti, and symphonies. 

See where this is going? The fundamental flaw of the Suzuki Method is not that it is inherently bad, it is sorely underdeveloped.

Let us return to my point about how excruciatingly long it can take for a student to prepare ONE piece. The Suzuki Method focuses on students to learn by ear (which is NOT a bad skill to develop, please do not twist my words). However, the main issue is that it HEAVILY relies on teaching students by ear. Because the method focuses on working with younger students from the age of 4 and up, this is most likely why Suzuki never saw it important to teach students music reading skills early on. 

How does the student learn the material exactly? By listening to their piece relentlessly and playing it from start to finish, with little to no target practicing, over and over. At best, this can take up to a few weeks. At worst, it’s much longer; it can take up to half a year to a year. 

Now, I am sure there are some certified Suzuki teachers reading this saying: “Are you using the method correctly? If you get Suzuki certified, you won’t have this problem!” I apologize, but I must politely say that I have completed three degrees in violin. While I still am a young teacher as I have been only teaching for nearly 10 years, I think I am already plenty certified to teach students the instrument, Suzuki or not. Additionally, I believe that no teacher should limit themselves to one specific method regarding teaching a musical instrument. I am not the same teacher I was 10 years ago, and I will not be the same teacher 10 years into the future. I do not believe that education is a finite resource. There must be flexibility in teaching and in learning, which is something the Suzuki Method does not necessarily allow.

Let’s continue. Another flaw of learning by ear (again, yes, still a good skill to have) causes is students are only taught to imitate what they hear and see. They do not develop a deeper understanding of music or a sense of music identity separate from their teacher or favorite performer. They are, for the lack of a better phrase, copying and pasting their technique.

Throughout my teaching, I encourage students to be creative. Because of my own vivid imagination, my personal preference is to create a story of whatever piece I am studying so that musical motifs and phrases can come alive. Every student’s imagination is different; some like the story idea, some prefer to imagine they’re creating a painting or a video game. You name it; as long as they are being creative, they can connect with their music on a deeper level.

However, the students I have taught who come from a staunch Suzuki background struggle with this, because they are only used to copying what they’ve been told. They lack creativity, which inherently, is unmusical. They must learn how to be musical later on, which seems counter intuitive given that they started violin to learn music. Overall, their musical abilities wind up being limited later on.

Many teachers, like myself, supplement the Suzuki method. But some do not. Many teachers only use the Suzuki Method and may consider any other method sacrilege. However, when a devout Suzuki teacher delays music reading as the method calls for, the student may eventually find themselves falling behind in school orchestra activities due to their lack of sight reading skills. They may start studying orchestral music that is beyond their ability to imitate what they hear. Then, if the student happens to switch private instructors who does not only use Suzuki, their new teacher must play a game of “catch up.” Which, from my own experience with many students in this scenario, is extremely difficult to rectify by the time they graduate high school and quit music forever. 

The Suzuki Method, if used alone, does a great disservice to students and teachers alike. 

Before anyone becomes too defensive, allow me to explain my own violin upbringing. I started violin on Essential Elements through my school program when I was 9 years old. I never once touched a Suzuki book until I became a teacher.

And yet, I am still an accomplished violinist.

This does not mean I think Essential Elements is a perfect method. While I do believe EE does a good job at teaching students to read, it has several flaws. For violin, it heavily focuses on the D and A strings, causing students to struggle reading G and E string notes. The Suzuki Method has a similar issue by focusing primarily on the A and E strings whilst ignoring the G and D strings. Another drawback to EE is that it is a method that is best used in a group setting; if a student is showing great progress beyond the group, then EE simply becomes too easy for them. Challenging the gifted student is one of Suzuki’s strengths, which ironically goes against what Shinichi Suzuki set out to do by creating his method for any and every child.

With all of this said, I must confess that despite my major qualms with this pedagogy, I still use Suzuki books when I teach. But I do not use them in the way you think. I personally view the Suzuki Method as a collection of books that have slightly more challenging pieces to retain student engagement. I do not view it as a method of beginning, I see it as a method of continuation. 

What are my goals, then, as a teacher? First and foremost, the wonderful thing about one-on-one teaching is that it is hands on for both teacher and student. Both parties can collaborate on finding the correct pace. I personally do not like to treat my studio like a dictatorship. I want my students to feel comfortable with communicating to me and I want our lessons together to be engaging.

One of my teachers taught me that the purpose of lessons is to teach students how to practice. I try to tell my students the same. For new students, I have taken a liking to using the Sassmannshaus Method, another violin method developed with young children in mind. Students not only learn how to read music, but they properly get to explore all four strings on the violin. With my older students, we spend time working on technique, intonation, and repertoire. I uphold the importance of studying all outlets of music; listening, score study, and individual part study. I spend a lot of time telling my students to be honest with themselves and to target practice the areas that they struggle with most. Yes, it is easier said than done, and it takes me saying this numerous times before it starts to stick.

But, in my opinion, this beats the alternative. What’s the alternative? The alternative would be Suzuki’s approach: listen to the music, copy the performer and teacher, rinse, and repeat. But here is my question: what use is a lesson, or an education for that matter, if the lesson plan is only mindless repetition?

I have spent years trying to find a replacement for Suzuki. I have spent years trying to develop my own. Yet, I always wind up returning to those plain, white books with the words “Suzuki” printed boldly atop. I have spent years teaching violin to countless students who have also studied piano easily pick up sight reading and ask myself: “What are piano method books doing that violin method books aren’t? Have we lost the plot? Surely we can do better?”

Yes, we’ve all seen the videos of the four year old violinist who can play flawlessly. But did we see the grueling journey it took for them to actually get there? Did the student understand how they actually learned the music? Do they know how to apply what they’ve learned? Yes, their technique may be “flawless,” but what use is flawless technique if you can’t read and understand the very music you’ve perfected? Music is an art, and surely art is more meaningful than perfection at the end of the day?

The Suzuki Method is, unfortunately, a necessary evil for violin methods. It has dominated the field for so long that it is impossible to think of teaching violin without it. There have been numerous violinists who have critiqued this pedagogy, and I am far from being the last. I do, however, think that it is time we are honest with ourselves and address the Suzuki Method directly: is it serving us well entirely? Or are there some of its aspects we can use while we discard the rest? If those of us who are tired of begrudgingly using the Suzuki Method to teach our students, why aren’t we addressing it collectively? Why aren’t we addressing it more directly?

I get it; we musicians tend to be stubborn. Don’t I know how long it takes to conduct research and create a new method? What can we do? If it’s not technically broken, why fix it?

But that’s the issue. The Suzuki Method IS fundamentally broken and we continue to do a disservice to our students by not creating something better. No other instrument seems to have this issue, so why do we, string teachers, continue to let it plague us?

With all of this being said, I am not saying that Shinichi Suzuki and the pedagogical method he created is bad. I am merely suggesting that he oversimplified music and violin learning to create a large swath of young musicians to appease the masses. He may have had a point that music can be treated like a language. Encouraging students to listen to classical music on a regular basis indeed aides their musical studies. However, just as students cannot entirely master their primary language by ear, music by rote cannot entirely be the only way students learn any instrument.

Yes, with the right teacher, the Suzuki Method works phenomenally. But I cannot help but think that if this method were truly the mass success it advertises itself as, all teachers of all musical instruments would praise and utilize it. Yet, the Suzuki Method seems to only remain popular amongst strings players.

Let us finally admit to ourselves that the Suzuki Method is flawed and outdated. It is in desperate need of adaptation. Let us be a better service to our students by taking its strengths with us toward a better musical future while leaving its glaring flaws behind.