The Suzuki Guitar Method. Pros and Cons.

A young girl beams with joy as she practices reading music and playing guitar, her enthusiasm lighting up the room.

Evaluating the Suzuki Guitar Method: Pros and Cons

I was skeptical at first. I mean, listening to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star played badly was not my idea of how I wanted to teach guitar. I had 30+ years of guitar teaching experience and a music teaching degree under my belt and a breadth of knowledge vast and wide and I wanted to share all of that. That puts me ahead of the game, right? I knew what was best for my students…or so I thought.

Yet, I had this niggling voice in the back of my head. It said, “Why aren’t your students as good as the violin kids in the room behind us?” It took me a while to realise that despite all the information I can give them and the fun tunes that often they, themselves request, they are practising very little and not progressing as well as I thought they were capable of.

I decided not to look toward guitar teachers on teaching strategies but rather violin and piano teachers and discovered that overall, they have a narrower teaching focus than me.

All these pieces I’d spent my career notating and recording for my students were about to go out the window. I wasn’t going to use them much anymore and my teaching strategy was about to undergo a 180-degree turn. I was going to align my teaching strategies with those of the string and piano teachers who make use of the Suzuki series of books.

The Suzuki books are wonderful. Even though the first few pieces appear quite corny, the kids don’t seem to mind them. I’ve come to accept that learning Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Lightly Row is just a part of the rite of passage in learning a musical instrument.

The Suzuki guitar books start with a 6-note piece - Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and variations and beautifully transitions to harder pieces, each time bringing a new challenge with it which is then built upon in subsequent pieces. I find that the kids move very quickly through the books and are engaged by its content. They are not embarrassed by it (as I mistakenly thought that they would be) but rather are motivated by it and the pace at which they find themselves progressing and the challenges that they overcome.

It's often said that Suzuki trained kids can play very well by ear but struggle with note reading. Well, I suppose that if you confronted a five-year-old child with a piece of music that has notes of six different pitches and several different rhythms, they would be bamboozled, confused, frustrated, not enjoying it, not wanting to practise and probably want to give up.

If you were to teach the first piece as a Suzuki practitioner would, you’d expect the parents to be involved in the lesson, they’d be repeatedly listing to recordings of the pieces to be learnt so the children are familiar with their sound. You would teach a child who has no understanding of musical signs and symbols and very poor fine motor skills to play by rote. Even though I know of a lot of Suzuki trained string players who come from families with a strong study and work ethic and motivated parents, I know of no Suzuki trained guitar students.

However. What if students could already read music? (at least the first six notes that are required to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Variations) What if they already had developed their fine motor skills and finger dexterity and were not phased by the fact that they have to sit in a certain way, have both their hands making different movements while simultaneously interpreting pitch and rhythm and enjoying the sounds that they are producing? Imagine all the potential top-notch students lost because getting past the first phase was too hard for a young child.

This is where Copy, Play and Learn Guitar comes in handy. Copy, Play and Learn Guitar is a pain-free and enjoyable way for a young child to learn to read music and develop their fine motor skills before tackling the Suzuki guitar method. The book is especially designed for young beginners and based around their developing cognitive and fine motor skills whilst making use of the natural way a child learns – through imitation. Even if the student only completes half the book, that is sufficient for a seamless segue into the Suzuki Guitar Method.

So, if you have young students starting out on their guitar playing musical journey, do them and yourselves a favour and check out www.copyplayandlearn.com

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