‘Teaching music is not my main purpose. I want to make good citizens, noble human beings.’ – Dr. Shinichi Suzuki
After visiting Educators’ Trust India in 2011 I was determined to return as a volunteer. During the course of the year we established a link between them and our Suzuki group through fundraising at our concerts and collections of second-hand clothing to donate when I visited. I then went back for a month this Easter.
When I arrived in Goa I was told by everyone at Educators’ Trust that since I was a ‘music teacher’ I should teach the children music. I was very apprehensive about this as I was worried I didn’t have suitable classroom music teaching skills, I teach the violin! I also wondered what I could teach them that would be ‘of use’ in the long-term. But then I remembered that the philosophy behind Suzuki’s instrumental teaching was in response to the needs of a very poor, post-war Japan. Suzuki believed that everyone was born with ability and that whether or not this ability developed was largely dependent on the environment the child grew up in. His intention was that learning music should teach the child about their potential as a human being – it could show them their ability to learn through the discipline of studying an instrument, teach them to focus better and raise their self-esteem. So I took his philosophy and, using the three toy percussion instruments at the Leading Light school (there were no pitched instruments), decided to teach the children to read, write and play rhythm.
Using ideas I had picked up from Dalcroze teachers at Suzuki workshops we moved around the classrooms and playground to ‘walk’, ‘jogging’ and ‘running faster’. ‘Running faster’ was a favourite and soon became their greeting for me when I arrived at school.
In the time that I was there the children learnt to identify these rhythms as musical symbols, figure out which combination of words matched their names, and finally ‘compose’ and perform their own rhythms.
One morning during the children’s break-time I was preparing slips of paper for the children’s compositions and was joined by Bhartiya and Ramjan asking for pens and paper. While everyone else played the two of them sat with me and started to write their own rhythms without any prompting. I was astonished and really touched by just how much they had taken in and by their enthusiasm for what we had been doing.
The children there really want to learn and to experience everything they are offered – the opportunity just to play a tambourine was clearly a huge thrill for many of them. On one of my last days there some of the children watched a short video on my iPhone of 800 Suzuki children playing their violins at the BSI National Concert, they were clearly fascinated. One boy, Sarfudin, got very excited asking “You teacher? You teacher? You bring? You bring?”. I asked him “Bring what? You want me to bring a violin?” “Yes, yes, yes, you bring, you bring…!”. So, due to the enthusiasm of these children, a very exciting project has developed for me…
This week I finalised plans with Educator’s Trust to develop a Suzuki violin project within the school. The idea is inspired by the ‘El Sistema’ projects which started in the slums of Venezuela but it is important to me that the teaching method is Suzuki’s. I attended a one-day conference at the QEH a few weeks ago entitled ‘Art Can Change the World’ which coincided with the residency of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra so there were a number of speakers from El Sistema projects including Venezuela, Brazil, USA and UK. It was really inspiring and what was most resonant for me was that it’s a humanitarian project expressing the same values and intentions as Suzuki’s teaching did. Both Jose Antonio Abreu and Suzuki talk the same language when they describe their vision for music education – ‘feeding people’s souls’, ‘nurture’, ‘enriching lives’, ‘bringing social transformation’ and ‘excellence’.
Using the network of Suzuki teachers and families around the world I plan to provide daily group violin lessons for the children all year round. I am going to put out an worldwide appeal for second-hand violin donations and financial support via national and international Suzuki associations and a friend is writing an article about the project. We’re planning to name the project ‘Shining Light’.
To get started we need about 10 violins of various sizes, volunteer Suzuki violin teachers (each staying 4 weeks or more to give the children sufficient continuity) and funds to cover the teachers’ accommodation whilst they are in Goa. I’ll spend two months from December setting everything up there and then intend to hand over to other volunteers until I return at Easter. The advantage of using Suzuki teachers in this situation is that the repertoire and style of teaching are universal so the children will have continuity even if the teachers change from month to month.
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