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PLAYING BY EAR IN THE SUZUKI METHOD: SUPPORTING EVIDENCE AND CONCERNS IN THE CONTEXT OF PIANO PLAYING

Gilles Comeau
University of Ottawa

Abstract

The Suzuki method is based on the assumption that the most natural way to learn music is through repetitive listening and ear-playing. It is through playing by ear that a child is introduced to the instrument and no printed music is used in the early stages. A review of existing theoretical and empirical literature will show strong evidence supporting the importance of ear playing. This paper will also demonstrate that there are reasons to be concerned about the development of aural skills, but no reason to associate ear playing with poor reading skills.

In the 1930s, the violinist Shinichi Suzuki experimented with a new method of teaching music to very young children and he became convinced that the best way to learn to play a musical instrument was to follow a process similar to the learning of one‘s own native language (Suzuki, 1969, 1981, 1986, 1989). Later known as the mother-tongue approach, the method is based on the principle that by immersing young children in music, mainly by having them listen repeatedly to the pieces they will learn to play on their instrument, their musical abilities would unfold in the most natural way. The idea that in the initial stage a child should learn to play by ear instead of relying on note reading was in sharp contrast to the more common practice of the time (Landers, 1984). But when Suzuki‘s young Japanese students were heard, first in a film presented in the United States in 1958, then during a tour in 1964, the quality of their performance was for many a testimony of the success of this method (Herman, 1981). Many influential musicians and dedicated music teachers became advocates of this approach (Bigler & Lloyd-Watts, 1979; Hargrave, 2010; Herman, 1981; Kataoka, 1985; Kendall, 1978; Koppelman,
1978; Powell, 1988; Starr & Starr, 1983). Since then, the Suzuki