SHINICHI SUZUKI AND THE SUZUKI METHOD
Posted on 10/27/2014 8:20:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A legendary music teacher famed for developing a world-renowned violin method and who boasted about his friendship with Albert Einstein has been been exposed as a fraud and a liar.
Shinichi Suzuki founded the Suzuki method in the 1950s and it has since been used by millions across the world.
The violinist died in 1998 and had claimed Einstein was his 'guardian' and that he spent eight years in the 1920s studying at Berlin Hochshule, in Germany, as a private student of top violinist Karl Klinger, The Telegraph reported.
Yet it has surfaced that the musician was rejected from the music school during auditions and that the only time he met Einstein was when he sold him a violin, crafted by his violin-maker father.
Critics have exposed the truth about Suzuki's training and background based on details of his failed audition in 1923 and thus the fact he was never taught by Klinger.
"I think it is one of the biggest frauds in music history," US violin teacher and composer Mark O'Connor said. "I don't believe anybody has properly checked his past."
"Shinichi Suzuki had no violin training from any serious violin teacher that we can find.
"He was basically self-taught, beginning the violin at the age of 18, and it showed. He was never allowed a position in any orchestra, never performed professionally or made a professional recording."
Yet in Suzuki's biographies, it is claimed from 1921, two years before he 'auditioned', he was Klinger's only private pupil.
(Excerpt) Read more at au.news.yahoo.com ...
Regardless, this doesn’t mean his learning method isn’t a good approach.
Hmmm...0bama also has Japanese lineage it seems.
So it would seem, although in his case, being a fraud and liar is seen by many as a good thing.
so what... those who can’t often teach... and sometimes teach well...
You gotta have a boy's band, I tell ya!
Yeah, despite the lies, Suzuki actually developed a teaching method that worked.
The community organizer is worthless all the way around except to Valjar.
His credentials, in retrospect, don’t matter at all. The method has made many good violinists. I know and have known a number of kids who started with the Suzuki method. All of them started at age three or four. . By starting a kid off learning songs he recognizes, the violin does not become simply a chore for the child and a pain for the parents. Mr. Suzuki’s method WORKS! I am sure many folks with virtuoso children who learned the Suzuki way would leap to the lawyers to sue the man were he still alive nowadays and many slipandfall lawyers who would be salivating, may yet be salivating at the prospect of suing the estate. My church has a whole violin and cello section of kids who were raised on Suzuki. People come from other parishes on Sunday to hear them.
The Suzuki Method worked well for me. I haven’t played in a long time now, but I did pretty well — the Einstein part may be fraud, but the violin part seems to have been OK. And that’s what matters.
I if he had been a fisherman this wouldn’t be a story.
So, I would say, since he isn’t here to protect himself, it might be good to remember the hundreds of thousands who learned by his methods and cherish the good over the effort to destroy his character and reputation.
One of the students of Professor Harold Hill, who was himself a graduate of the Gary Conservatory, Gold-Medal Class of ‘05!
Yet I wonder how many children have been taught by his methods and have done well?
He claimed to be coach of various European Winter Olympic Teams and all sorts of stuff that turned out to be bogus. Entirely boolshiite.
However, after one week at his "Boot Camp" in Jay Peak VT, one was either dead, or able to put one's head "down the fall-line" and ski any Black Diamond in the world. Graduation ceremony: everybody skied solid ice Tuckerman's Ravine and lived. FYI, NE skiing can be so icy and cold, that when you get out west with the Naturteknik to ski powder, it was all a piece'o'cake.
If he's still on the planet, maybe this fake Foeger ought to start a winter and summer camp with this Suzuki guy. Play Mozart while snowboarding? Heaven!
Does his method work? Is he dead and can’t defend himself?
It is spiteful of the person to pursue this.
As a flute performer and beginning teacher, I have played with a few players who were brought up on the method and are competent. I, however, learned the French Moyse Method. We all have our own way or learning. I had 16 years of piano training.....but still prefer to ‘play by ear’. My kid was the same way....and there is nothing wrong with that.
I do have to question under what authority these musicologists declare Suzuki’s method as fraudulent, especially since we have seen empirical results that it makes good musicians. After all, most musicologists were tutored under the same liberal arts claptrap which indoctrinates its practitioners into Marxism and feminism, all while giving its degree holders crushing debt.
Practice makes perfect, and rote memorization is one of many necessary tools to make a good musician/student. Liberal education ‘theorists’ have started ranting against rote memorization, perhaps because its usage reveals that some students are better than others.
I call it a cheap shot.
Being a fraud and a liar was irrelevant to his results.
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