One of the best things about learning a musical instrument using the Suzuki method is that usually your child will be learning in a community of children and parents, all with the same goal. Part of the learning process is to sit in on another child's lesson, so that the exposure to another child's playing and instruction can enhance the learning process. So much of Suzuki is listening! Also, the local Suzuki association will often organise one or two concerts a year, plus workshops. So there is plenty of opportunity for parents and children to hear and see what other children are doing.
Similarly, in a more traditional environment, such as school music lessons, the school orchestra, or when studying for music exams, children and parents can, if they wish to, compare their experience and achievement with others.
These opportunities to share in musical learning are usually beneficial for many reasons. There is a sense of community, the chance to share tips or offload concerns and worries, and the pleasure of hearing others play, to name but a few. Sometimes, however, there is a more negative side to this situation.
Parents want the best for their children, particularly the parents who go to the trouble and expense of providing them with a musical education. Children also want to do their best and not feel as though they are worse at anything than their peers. We all approach learning with baggage from previous experiences, our individual personality traits and our pre-formed expectations of what will happen. Unfortunately, any of these factors can occasionally cause things to go awry.
Personally, I had a crisis of confidence when my son started sitting in on lessons with a girl about a year younger than him. She had an older sister who was also learning to play the piano so she had been exposed to everything her sister had done, as well as the endless hours of hearing the Suzuki CDs. Consequently, she progressed very quickly until she caught up with my son and they are now roughly at the same stage in terms of the songs they have learned.
My son is naturally competitive and noticed very quickly that this little girl was learning new songs far more quickly than he had done. He also had that perception of an age hierarchy that is instilled in children in mainstream education, so was disturbed to realise that a younger child was 'catching up' with him. On top of this, because I lack a musical background, I also lack confidence in my ability to guide my son through this process. The result was my son spiralling down into a mire of self-doubt and unhappiness over his playing, compounded by feedback from a concerned mother who was convinced that somehow she was to blame for his apparent lack of progress.
I became convinced that I should pull my son out of his learning programme, because it was clearly becoming detrimental to his self-esteem, and practice sessions were becoming tortuous ordeals, very far from the enjoyable industry that is the ideal. I had failed. After a rather emotional email to his teacher, asking for help, we had a long talk about how children progress at different rates and her perception of what he had achieved so far, and also about how parents can unconsciously influence their children's feelings about their learning.
It wasn't a good time for either of us, but I feel it was so helpful to my son and me in the long run. I learned not to mirror back a negative attitude to learning and to concentrate on praising the things my son could do, not to worry about what he couldn't do. I stopped acknowledging his comparisons of himself and this other child and concentrated on making his practice as much fun as I could.
I now understand that learning anything is not an even path. Sometimes we struggle uphill and the going is slow, other times we are racing downhill at a pace. There is no predicting when these times will come. Sometimes many months of patient repetition pays off all at once. Other times the progress is by such small steps that achievement arrives almost unnoticed.
I've found it helpful not to think in terms of the number of songs learned when it comes to my son's musical acquisition. Each time that a child or adult practises, as long as it is a striving, purposeful practice, then that is one step forward. Whether the effects of that practice are immediate and noticeable or not doesn't matter. When learning an instrument, there is so much to learn in terms of technique, knowledge of the instrument, and general musical knowledge, that to think in terms of simply learning more and more complex songs is deceiving and prosaic.
For children, though, this is often how they measure their progress and maintain interest. The novelty of a new song is preferable to improving technique while playing an old song. It is something simple and easy to understand, some tangible evidence of the work they have done. If a child is focusing excessively on number of songs learnt, this means they don't perceive or value the other ways that they progress.
I realised with my son that something I could do to develop his perspective on his work was to make apparent the results that he had achieved. These days, I take time to talk things through with him before and sometimes during practice. He knows what he's doing and why, and could write his own practice schedule now if he had to (though he would probably be shorter than the one indicated by his teacher!) I also keep recordings of performances and parts of practice sessions, so that in years to come he'll be able to see how far he's come and how well his hard work has paid off.
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