Another Post on Listening

I love a quote from the SAA Journal I got in the mail yesterday by Debbie Meece, "Not listening to the CD is like putting a baby in a sound-proof room where he cannot hear his language spoken. He will not learn to talk without listening to his language. And so it goes that the young child will not learn to play music without hearing music played."

My baby is just learning how to talk, and like with each of my other children I'm amazed at the progress. The other day she came up and pointed to my elbow and just said, "e bow." Each day I point to her body parts and say the name. It's starting to click.

I have some people ask how my daughters move so fast through the Suzuki literature. I'll admit - even though I have this practicing blog - we are not amazing practicers. I contribute most of their success to listening. They've been listening since they were born - we listen when we are in the car - they hear my lessons when I teach. My 4-year-old whistles pieces way beyond her level because she knows them.

My 8-year-old is now learning Vericini Gigue from book 5. After one week of preview spots she played through the piece almost flawlessly. She was so happy and exclaimed, "Mom, forget everything I said about listening (referring to her grumbling when we turn it on every day in the car). This is awesome! I know this whole piece because I've been listening to it."

Listen listen listen! I cannot say it enough!

listen!

Listen!

LISTEN!!!

Beethoven's Wig

Do you hear your kids sing songs they hear on the radio? Sometimes you may notice that your children know all the words to a particular song and wonder how they learned it....did they study it? No, they probably just listened to it over and over and over again. This is one of the fundamentals of the Suzuki Method: LISTENING!

 

I have found an awesome CD to listen to in the car or in the kids' rooms. It's called Beethoven's Wig. There are four different CDs (I checked them out from the local library, but you can also look online to buy them.) This CD puts creative words to popular classical tunes. The words are hilarious and fun to sing. I have found that after listening to all of these CDs a lot while driving in the car my kids have a huge repertoire of classical music in their heads. It brings me so much joy to hear my kids whistle a little Beethoven or Liszt. They'll know this music for the rest of their lives!