As I was thinking about my students and the upcoming Playathon, I started pondering how we are motivating our students to practice. The Playathon is

one way, engaging our students to think about how their musical skills are appreciated and how they can help others who need financial help.  As I was looking for more ideas, I did an internet search, and I came upon this article "8 Proven Strategies to Motivate Your Child to Learn" by Dr. Jody Sherman LeVos:

https://www.beginlearning.com/parent-resources/motivate-your-child-to-learn/

In this article she mentions three psychological factors as being at the core to motivation: 1) autonomy, 2) mastery, 3) relatedness. While this

article was written for all types of learning for young children, it is right on target to our Suzuki learning!  I believe that the second and third points are very clearly demonstrated by the Suzuki pedagogy.  Mastery is accomplished through repetition of small steps, review of repertoire until a polished level is achieved, and a culminating solo recital performance. For the third factor, "relatedness,"  we find it essential to engage the parents to attend lessons so that home practice has a support system.  We require group class as an opportunity for students and their parents to learn from peers and garner a support system. This might leave the first factor of "autonomy" a little more elusive to understand in the Suzuki pedagogy.

When people describe the Suzuki method, we tend to emphasize the step-by-step approach and the learning through doing rather than through explanations and verbal instruction. We learn through the senses, and by watching the teacher, feeling the vibrations of their instrument, hearing their tone, and allowing our teachers to guide our

students' physically through touch. This enables our very young learners to succeed and is an alternate approach from traditional musical instrument instruction. Suzuki teachers are trained on the "how" to play the instrument and this is shared with the student.  For example, rather than saying "make a crescendo here" the teacher is going to demonstrate the crescendo and help the student understand the physical adjustments needed to make the crescendo. Because of this very specific teaching, one might not think that there is much autonomy in a Suzuki lesson. However, if one is aware of the layers of our teaching, one can present opportunities for choices and decision making in the child's practice.

A Suzuki lesson is often made up of a warm-up with an emphasis on good tone like the Variations or tonalization, a working piece consisting of practice spots that need extra repetitions, several review pieces that are at a proficient level but could use more details towards musicality, a new technique (like vibrato or use of the pedal) with a specific exercise to learn this, and reading pieces. These components of a Suzuki lesson often happen in a specific order, but they do not need to be.  The important thing to keep in mind is that these elements all get practiced.

For busy teenagers, I ask my students to evaluate their energy and concentration level at the time they are about to practice.  Depending upon these and perhaps their general mood, they should choose where to start with their practice.  On a particularly difficult day emotionally or filled with activities and projects, perhaps that is the day to focus on making beautiful sounds and beautiful music with their review pieces. On a day that they have particular energy and focus, practicing the new technique carefully, slowly and repeatedly will help solidify their understanding and lead to more automatism. On a normal day, a warm-up, their working piece, a review piece and some sight reading could easily follow the pattern of the lesson.  The importance of understanding that each element of the lesson has a slightly different purpose allows for understanding that the practice session could have a slightly different emotional goal. Understanding this can lead to allowing the student to participate in the choices of the order of practicing, or the division of time spent on each portion.  On a day that a student is ill, please listen to the recording!  There is value to all elements of a practice session and allowing choices is the principal means that a child feels more autonomous and not forced.

While motivation comes from many factors, the deepest sense of motivation comes from the family environment.  Dr. Suzuki said, "Where love is deep, much can be accomplished." This is why we want parents to attend the lessons. Children know that if a parent takes this time for them, it is a symbol of their love.  If music is being played by others in the family at home, or the family attends concerts together, or even listens to the radio together--this creates a musical environment. The style of music does not matter, although listening to the Suzuki repertoire accelerates the learning pace of the student. When we have an environment filled with music and with love, we can take these moments to relieve our stress, and then can face our daily lives with more energy and purpose.