In 1961, Pablo Casals, one of the great cellists, attended a concert of 400 Suzuki children in Japan. After hearing the performance, he went to the stage, and as he wept, he said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I attest to one of the most moving scenes that one can see. What we are contemplating has much more importance than it seems. Perhaps it is music that will save the world.”

Shinichi Suzuki was born in 1898 in Nagoya, Japan. His father and grandfather both worked at home making Japanese samisens (three-stringed banjo-like instruments). His father began making violins in 1888 as they were first introduced in Japan with the Meiji Restoration. The story is that young Shinichi would play in the factory with his brothers and sisters and use the violins as baseball bats. How things would song change for young Shinichi!

Shinichi was a favorite playmate in the town where he lived. When the young ones would see him, they would come running to him to play! He thought children of four and five were very precious and he wanted to be more like them. He noticed these things:

“They have no thought of self-deception. They trust people and do not doubt at all. They know only how to love and know not how to hate. They love justice and scrupulously keep the rules. They seek joy, live cheerfully, and are full of life. They know no fear and live in security.”

Suzuki, Nurtured by Love

Suzuki’s family bought a phonograph. One night, he was listening to Schubert’s “Ave Maria” played by the violinist Mischa Elman. His soul was deeply moved by the beautiful tone of the instrument. He soon brought a violin home from the factory, and tried to imitate the sounds of Elman as he played a Haydn minuet. Eventually, he was able to play the piece entirely by ear, and he began to love the violin more and more.

Although Suzuki perused other interests along with his violin, he studied violin in Tokyo. Sponsored by the Marquis Tokugawa, he soon moved to Germany to study with Karl Klinger. Upon arrival to Germany, he began to notice that despite his own struggles to learn new languages, all children can speak their own native tongue. This realization would soon shape his teaching ideas. During this time he was put in the care of Dr. Albert Einstein. He enjoyed going to concerts with Einstein and spending evenings playing music with Einstein’s intellectual friends. Suzuki wanted Japanese children to grow up to become like his friends in Germany. Suzuki wanted his students to demonstrate the sensitivity and high intellect that his friends demonstrated in Berlin. Einstein encouraged Suzuki to move forward with his ideas for the “Talent Education” movement for small children. While he lived in Germany, he also met, courted, and married his wife Waltraud.

By 1945, he was encouraged to move back to Japan, to teach violin in a town called Matsumoto. Devastated by what the war had done to his family and young students, his decision to move was contingent on one condition. He sent a reply to the voice teacher saying:

“I am not very interested in doing repair work on people who can play already…What I want to try is infant education. I have worked out a new method I want to teach to small children-not to turn out geniuses but through violin playing to extend the child’s ability.”

Suzuki, Nurtured by Love

And so, he moved to Matsumoto to build the Talent Education institute. Using his ideas about language learning and those he worked out with Einstein, Suzuki went on to create one of the most positive learning environments for music. Although Suzuki students play to a level not seen in the world before, Suzuki’s goal was not to create child prodigies. Suzuki believed that through violin playing, one could nurture loving beings. The Talent Education movement gained much attention when in the 1960s John Kendall, a violinist and student at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, traveled to Japan to meet with Dr. Suzuki. He soon brought the ideas back to the United States and arranged world tours of Suzuki students. Pablo Casalas, a famous cellist, attend a concert in Japan where 400 Suzuki students performed. At the end of the concert, he addressed the crowd, as tears streamed from his eyes, saying:

“I feel in ever moment that I have had the privilege of living in this country such proof of heart, of desire for a better world…The superlative desire of the highest things in life and how wonderful is to see that the frown-up people think of the smallest like this as to teach them to begin with the noble feelings, with the noble deeds.”

Suzuki, Nurtured by Love

And so the Talent Education movement, or the Suzuki method, began to impact the world. Suzuki education is offered in violin, viola, cello, bass, piano, flute, recorder, guitar, harp, organ, and voice. Teachers are trained through either a long-term teacher training course at a university with one teacher, or through several short-term courses with various teachers. When choosing a teacher, be sure to ask how many books your teacher is trained to teach.