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 ...
Very well stated, thank you.
if the system that he developed works, more power to him...obviously his past is irrelevant. Why is it important that he knew or associated with anybody???
He is dead, and it seems someone is dancing on his grave for money.
Thank you 99er. Kind comments coming from a journalist. Little Beirut, good one. Would never live in a state where I couldn’t pump my own gas. Don’t even like to contemplate going through such. Last time in Oregon, 1979.
**everybody skied solid ice Tuckerman’s Ravine and lived**
Heh. Long ago, last time I skied the Tuck....I took off my skis and walked down the pure ice cliff. That’s why I’m still alive today. :)
Good times.
I have no problem with truth coming out.
This isn’t criticizing his method. It’s about actual lies and his credentials as a violinist.
I am sure his lie bolstered his reputation and made people believe he was a better violinist than he actually was. That’s why people pad resumes and claim they knew people and did things with them when they never did.
agreed. no one knows who leonard shure is today but he was an incredible pianist. but his great grand daddy teacher was beethoven. orchestras don’t hire really excellent players. they don’t fit in. it’s not like football. and i don’t know if this guy could play or not.
I don’t know anything about the guy, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say I smell some BS in this article.
The article states he was “basically self-taught” and that no reputable person taught him, but that he had a violin maker for a father. I doubt there are many violin makers out there who can’t play themselves. Odds are, he was probably taught by his father.
“Think, men! THINK!”
Top athletes generally make lousy coaches. What they are trying to teach others to do comes so naturally to them they can’t explain how to learn to do it.
I suspect something similar applies to music.
Do they still teach that method? I’ve always wanted to learn to ski.
Sure! It's the method where you ski parallel (no snow-plow!) from day 1, starting, with rather shorter skis than were common ye olden days. Of course, it helps to have been in very good condition, and to have been a hockey player.
After a few short days of intensive Germanic accented risk of life and limb and NAZI ridicule ....Voilà .... you are a skier... a real skier. Worked for me and many others, despite whatever they said about Herr Foeger.
http://jaypeakhistory.com/published-works/walter-foeger-and-natur-teknik-an-overlooked-part-of-skiing-history/
Well I'll be dipped after all these years, it's on the web! I underwent the process in 1965. BTW, Herr Foeger was not the only crypto-NAZI ski-innovator out there. I submitted to the Winter Olympic Committee my ideas for improving that Biathlon thing, where you ski, stop, and shoot targets, by equipping the skiers with full-auto AK 47's, no stopping, and using live snowboarders as targets. They were making life on the slopes hell. Bastards turned me down cold!
IOW just like others, what his resume lacked since he did not fit an establishment endorsed mold, his deeds established.
Are they finding this now due to some music school fearing competition?
Und if Herr Foeger vere still arount .... he vood haff kalt you a Girly-Mon! Ridicule in front of the group was a key part of the "Naturteknik" training method in the days before Self-Esteem!
"Come back mit your skis, or on dem"..... was apparently his motto.
The Suzuki method isn’t designed to create great musicians but to let everyone learn to play to the best of their ability.
Ping
i disagree... i have had coaches who did not get as far as their students... could not do the things their students eventually accomplished, and they were good coaches... and come on, the Suzuki method has been around a long time... my sons have had a wonderful piano teacher who has taken them further than she has gone personally...
I think you misunderstand me, I actually agree with you.
Good coaches teach their students to be better than them. They’re able to do so often at least partly because what they’re doing doesn’t come naturally, so they have to figure out the details.
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