Things I learned from Suzuki Violin

If there was an instrument that would "pull my heart strings" so to speak, it would have to be the violin/cello. The sound that both these instruments make feels enigmatic, nostalgic, classical and everything "emotional" for me. Although I like the fast pieces when it's played live, I prefer listening to the slow ones when played on audio players. So when we were thinking of having Julia learn an instrument, there was no question in my mind that it would have to be the violin (I do have the keyboard for her to "play" musical notes when she likes to and have tried with limited success in getting her to stick to it for more than five minutes). I looked around for a good teacher and was recommended to the conservatory of music here in Victoria. I learned that they have a Suzuki violin program for kids starting at 3 years old which surprised me. Could one really teach violin to kids that young? Julia is 4 years old, so the thought that she's a year older than the minimum at least made me think she might learn something..like maybe at least hold a violin. That would already be quite an achievement. If I found it quite challenging to have her stay for a few minutes 'banging' on the keyboard keys, I didn't think she would have the attention span of learning to hold a violin over her shoulder and putting her chin on it for a few minutes. But then, I was glad to find out later that I was wrong.

The Suzuki program required the parent to learn the instrument too and be the "second" teacher to the child. Sessions were only thirty minutes once a week, so the bulk of the "labor" in training the child daily falls on the parent.  "Parent" and "daily" are the key words that made the difference. For one, it was an entirely different dynamics when both child and parent were being taught at the same time. The child sees the parent as student and the parent sees her child as a colleague. It was a very different feeling and perspective to have and it worked quite well between Julia and me and her dad (as her dad and I take turns attending the sessions). The daily practice too was quite challenging for us at first specially after coming from a hard day's work and we would rather be slouching on the couch than practicing and learning violin. But we had to do it, else we won't be progressing in the next session. And after a while, it became a habit. While on the first few runs, it was us calling Julia for violin lesson time every evenings, these days, it's her gathering us up for practice.

I began to realize that it wasn't just music we were learning and teaching her, we were teaching her discipline, persistence, confidence and the reward of hard work. I remember distinctly of the many times we had to practice correct "bowing" and it was quite hard for her not to touch the other strings, move from one string to the next and at the same time keep the arm from moving and only move from elbows to wrist. It was hard work for me doing it myself, how much more for a four year old! But we kept at it anyway, everyday for a week, we struggled through.. then one night, she finally got it and she smiled and looked at me and said, "Mama, I'm better." I didn't have to tell her. She knew it by herself. I never could have imagined this happening with a four year old.

She had her first performance on stage two weeks ago. We had just learned bowing on two strings and haven't played any tune yet and her teacher said she was doing so well, it's good to include her in her recital and gave us the first two lines of "twinkle, twinkle little star" to play. Her teacher haven't even heard her play it when she played it on stage the next week. I got all types of knots on my stomache just watching her walk up the stage, take her bow and place her tiny violin on her shoulder and played. A month ago, I wouldn't have believed it if anybody told me that my four year old could do this. It was just admirable how she stepped up to it and walked gracefully and with confidence in front of everyone. I found myself thinking, "if she could do this, she could do anything she wanted in her life."

Her last notes squeaked a little as her bow touched another string and because of this, she was disappointed with her performance. At the end of the recital when we congratulated her and told her she did great, she pointedly said, "Why do you say I did great, mama, I squeaked." She didn't want to watch the video I made of her after that and said she didn't want to play in recitals anymore. It seemed, she had experienced her first "failure". It was hard to see it on her. It took a lot of time and convincing to get her to realize she did something extraordinary. I don't even know if she even realized it yet, but at least she's back to running towards her violin again the minute she gets home. And through it too I struggled and wondered if it was even a good thing to expose ones child, so young, to these things... to failure, to persistence, to hard work/practice..to adult stuff. Maybe we should have let her have her childhood and protect her from these "painful" stuff for as long as we can... We'd never know now because we have already chosen a path for her to try on, at least on this one. And with deciding to walk, there is always the risk of falling. 

It is hard to believe that a month ago, we didn't have any structure at all as we went through our daily lives. When we got home, Julia mostly played computer games while her dad and I did the chores. But these days, while we are still able to do our chores (but not as efficiently as we might have liked), we have developed the habit of practicing violin after she takes her bath, then subsequently developed the routine of "study" - which is either reading, writing, crafts or drawing. It is great having this routine and we could see her develop and grow more each day and most importantly, see her be happier and having the confidence in herself. She is into dinosaurs now, which drives me nuts trying to "read" those tongue twister names but it gets her all excited so we do it, one syllable at a time... just as we learned violin, one note at a time. Everyday. I guess that is what life is about. Taking things one day at a time.. We had enrolled her to learn violin but it seemed to me that we learned a lot more than play music, we learned about life, together.

Julia (Age 4)