Photo by Greater Pittsburgh Suzuki Institute
Most of us have had the experience of our older children and students referring to the earliest Suzuki pieces as “baby songs.” They consider themselves too grown up to play or review these pieces. When I hear this phrase or sense this attitude, I ask these older-and-wiser children to examine their language. I help them discover that what they are really saying is that they think of these songs as “baby songs” because the “babies” can play them and because they themselves played them when they were three or four years old. True enough. Then I ask them if doing something that a baby can do automatically makes them a baby. With some thinking about walking, talking, breathing, eating, etc., these older students start to think a bit differently: yes, I do many of the same things a baby does but I do them in a more advanced and grown up way. So far, so good.
