It takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at anything (see This Is Your Brain On Music, by Daniel Levitin, and Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell). However, the investment of time is only part of the story; the practice must be meaningful and mindful. The Suzuki Method includes by design a rich variety of opportunities to practise with other people.

Practising with the teacher

If you have the opportunity to sit in on a Suzuki private lesson, you might notice that new concepts are not simply introduced, they are practised at some length. The teacher not only demonstrates and describes, but also coaches the student through a fairly high number of attempts at the new skill. The aim is to get the student up to a level at which the home practice will be good, accurate practice. When I was new to Suzuki Method, I was surprised at how much time was spent on one skill during lessons. Soon, though, I saw the students advancing rapidly because they really knew what they were supposed to practise at home. This approach is summed up in Dr. Suzuki’s statement that “Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus 10,000 repetitions is skill.”

Quality repetition, not mindless drill

The most effective teachers use a variety of tactics and activities to embed a single skill. They enable plenty of repetitions in a way that doesn’t feel like drill. For younger students, this may involve games or attractive charts for counting the ‘quality’ repetitions. Another approach is to focus the student’s attention on different elements of the same skill, to keep the student’s mind and body engaged in different ways. For example, the fingering from C to D requires nearly every finger to move in perfect synchronization if it is to speak cleanly. Attention might be directed to the following points for 5 repetitions each: listening for how clean the note change is, identifying a specific finger that is slow and getting it to move sooner, practising the fingering ‘in the air’ with no flute, getting all of the finger muscles to feel as relaxed as possible while moving them as quickly as possible, matching the tone quality on the two notes, and listening for a smooth air stream during the change. With six different things to think about, the student doesn’t experience the 30 repetitions as a 30-fold drill, but as six activities. This is the kind of effective learning that Harvard professor Ellen Langer talks about in her book “The Power of Mindful Learning.”

Practising with a parent

A parent is present during every Suzuki lesson, and is expected to practise with the child every day at home. We teach the parents practice games and activities to help prevent the repetitions from being boring. Suzuki parents become masters at re-directing their child’s attention in creative ways. After all, you might be able to ‘make’ your child practise something once by using parental authority, but to engage her over time you have to use a combination of enticement, reasoning, and making the learning process engaging in itself. Suzuki parents learn to be genuinely appreciative of their child’s efforts, and to offer plenty of authentic positive feedback. Although every child goes through periods of resistance, the Suzuki community offers plenty of support for keeping practice fresh.

Practising alone

At some point every Suzuki child begins practising alone. The intent is that by the time this happens, students are well trained in what it means to do quality practice. Most teachers use a practice worksheet that includes specific instructions and well defined tasks, so the student is not doing random, vague home practice. Now accountability for the quality of the practice is the student’s rather than being shared with the parent as occurred earlier. However, not all of the student’s development is happening during this type of practice. Suzuki Method provides a strong social structure that supports ongoing quality practice.

Practising in group classes

From the beginning, Suzuki students attend group classes. These classes are fun and engaging, and are used primarily for polish and mastery. (The foundational teaching occurs in the private studio.) At first the students play mostly in unison during group classes. This enables the development of intonation, musicianship, and listening skills. Furthermore, the group class builds a community of musicians, and socializes the students and families into what it means to work together to create a beautiful performance. Group class is a strong motivation, because music played together has so much power and beauty.

At some point most of my students go through the stage of loving group class and ensemble playing and tolerating the rest of the program, and this is exactly why Suzuki includes it all. Group class is group practice, which provides powerful peer role models, is social and sociable, and the musical result is much bigger than the sum of the individual students’ capabilities. It is in group classes that students can experience the unforgettable feeling of having the hair stand up on the back of their necks because the room is vibrating with resonance.

Practising in ensembles

The power of ensemble playing is not only found in the Suzuki world; El Sistema in Venezuela uses group teaching as its core method, with spectacular results. In the Suzuki approach, the first ensemble playing usually occurs through the learning of harmony parts for the standard repertoire, which is often done by ear. The focus is on the quality of the tone, tuning, and musicianship. Later – often around the second or third book of repertoire – they begin to read their ensemble music and play more complex harmony parts. Most students love ensemble playing, with its bigger sound, fuller harmonies and the chance to make friends while making music.

Practising in performances

Although we may think of performance as what happens after the practice is done, I see performance as a practice opportunity. Just as athletes need to get out and test their skills on the field, musicians need to practise through sharing their music with a live audience. It takes practice to do as good a performance under pressure as you do at home. Suzuki students are given multiple opportunities to perform the same piece, rather than preparing all year to do the end-of-year recital. Typically a student will play a piece as a solo several times at group class, then at performances at seniors’ homes or other local events, at a ‘home’ recital, perhaps at a graduation recital, and perhaps at a regional Suzuki concert. By the time they have performed the same piece in front of an audience this many times, they are well practiced at the musicianship and at the whole performance package – dealing with nerves, concentrating in front of an audience, and so on. Performance is great practice!

In closing, a Suzuki program is designed to provide many kinds of practice in a variety of settings, all of which contribute to the development of mastery. Rare is the child who would spend 10,000 hours alone in a room practising; by including all of the kinds of practice mentioned above, those 10,000 hours are not spent in isolation, but are done with strong support from a community that provides inspiring musical events. It is practising with others that leads to lifelong musical memories.

Pandora Bryce teaches flute methods at the University of Toronto and is a researcher in the fields of music education and adult education. She has taught Suzuki flute for over 25 years, and is a Registered Teacher Trainer with the Suzuki Association of the Americas and the European Suzuki Association.