A Practice Tip: Sing It Before You Play It
Our Suzuki pedagogy is based upon the Mother Tongue approach. Just as a child hears words spoken at home before they learn to speak, we listen to music before we learn to play it. Today, I want to encourage you to “Sing it, before you play it.”
There are songs in Suzuki Piano book 1 that we are often familiar with like "London Bridge" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Sometimes the hardest songs to learn are the ones that are new to us. I recommend singing it before you play it. For example, before learning French Children’s Song, make sure you can hum the tune, or sing it on a syllable. “la, la-la-laaa,” or better still, use solfege: “mi, mi-mi, so-ol…” -- in the same way as we do in our Musicianship classes. Learning any new piece, we recommend listening to it often enough that you (the parent) can hum along, and that your child can, too! This way, whenever you are working on a new piece, the best way to help your child figure out the notes, is to sing it first and also to sing along with the student: “Da, da-da. Da-ah, etc.”
For Piano book 2 students, can you sing the left hand part? This is very useful from a musical standpoint. The Minuets are written in a style called “polyphony” -- this means “many voices.”
If you can sing it, it will take much less time to figure out the notes and learn it because the music is “in your ear” and we call that “playing by ear.”
In Book 3, the Spiritoso Movement of the Clementi Sonatina op 36 no. 3 has fast sixteenth notes in measure 7: if you can sing it clearly, your fingers will play these fast notes cleanly: La-fa-mi-re, La-fa-mi-re, mi, sol, mi, do ; re fa re si ; do do re re mi.
La-fa-mi-re, La-fa-mi-re, mi, sol, mi, do ; re fa re si ; do do re re mi.
Finally the notation for ornaments can be tricky for the Book 4 student. In the Beethoven Sonata, opus 49 no. 2 there are several ornaments: one of them is a trill that is abbreviated "tr". Knowing what notes to play when you see just these two letters can be confusing. If you sing the notes to the trill, you will play it better and more smoothly: Si-re’-do-re-do-si-do-si.
Even if you do not use solfege, but can sing it on "da-da-da" you will figure out the notes faster and will know what to play if you can sing it first! Remember -- use your ear, and “sing it before you play it!”
Sachiko Isihara
Executive Director