"How much should we be listening to the recording at home?" from Suzuki Violin Instructor, Bekka Eöwind (3/21/25)

Many of the questions we ask ourselves about learning music can be related to speaking a language. Think of the way your child heard English or their first language spoken in the world around them before they could even speak. After about one year, they could form words, or put together short phrases, probably without having any structured training, and certainly not by reading a grammar book! Every day, they heard you speak to them in a soft loving tone, and they heard other people in their family or other surroundings talking to each other with many varied tones of expression, simple or complex phrases, and entire stories.

There is your first answer to the question, “How much should we be listening to the recording at home?”: Every Day

Within that goal, we can narrow it down to: “How much each day?” Every family has a unique home schedule that involves driving or commuting, having free time to play with toys and family members, getting up early and leaving the house, doing homework late into the night and falling into bed.

Within the goal of “Every Day,” how do we decide how many hours or how many times for each piece or record? The maximum is “All day, all night.” If you turn on your recordings on repeat and never turn them off, you never have to worry about forgetting to turn it on, never have to worry about missing a day of your child’s listening assignment. This advice came straight from my own family’s playbook, and it is accurate. My days began with soft Suzuki recordings in the background of breakfast, siblings practicing, scrambling to complete school assignments, sunrise. Nights ended
with soft Suzuki recordings in the background of reading, studying, falling asleep, moonrise.

How much really each day, though, you ask? My mother would still say all day every day! Then if you fall short of that extreme goal, at least you have still done more than nothing. She also pointed out that if you set it and forget it, leaving the recording to play ad infinitum, you will never have the excuse of having forgotten to press play on any given morning.

You, the parent or caregiver, are responsible for providing the sounds of music in your family’s environment. You create the atmosphere in which Music is your child’s language study, where they learn subconsciously what phrasing is, how to anticipate it within the patterns of Western European Classical music, or within the other genres of music your family’s culture celebrates. They learn what “in-tune” and “out-of-tune” sound like, based on the renditions of recorded and live music they hear. They take for granted the different moods expressed in slow or fast, major or minor, and other
nuances, which we learn to analyze and recreate in our instrumental study.

The listening environment is crucial to the development of musicians.

Therefore, choose thoughtfully how you can structure your own home-listening plan. You may decide to set it and forget it, as my mother advised! Or you might be driven by a different sense of organization, and have a very specific plan about when you can remember to turn on the recording each day. At a minimum, spend two hours per day dedicated to repeating the Suzuki book level your child is currently working on. If you have several instruments or levels represented among the students of your family, two hours will accommodate two-to-four different albums, depending. If you have only one album to focus on, repeat that one, and throw in the next level or previous level for one play-through.

Remember to provide this listening background even for your older children. Even though they may have their own device, it is your emphasis on the material that shows your support for their advancing musical studies. Be creative in your approach if you need to keep things interesting for them or yourself!

Using Technology and Creativity
What systems work best for your family’s listening plan?

- Have a family stereo, in a central location in your home.
- Listen at a low volume.
- Listen in the car.
- Listen during playtime, reading or study time.
- Listen during a nap or while drifting off to sleep at night.
- Turn on the recording before child awakes in the morning.
- Listen to other music in addition to the Suzuki recording.
- Have a separate, dedicated device for Suzuki recordings.
- Use an external portable speaker.
- Use paired speakers to broadcast to several rooms.
- Each child can have a speaker in their room.
- Have a device constantly playing Suzuki recordings in the background while listening to other music, news, tv, etc.
- Download mp3s.
- Upload your cd’s
- Play records or tapes.
- Duplicate your recordings in case one copy goes missing.

Occasionally listen loud enough to sing along!