Review of Play and Read by Dr. Merlin B. Thompson

At last! A n introductory
reading program for Suzuki
Piano School, Volume 2
students!! This approach naturally
follows the experience of playing
Volume 1 pieces. I have been searching
for a reading method that works for
my students literally for years, and I
am so happy to discover this!

The author, Dr. Merlin B. Thomp-
son, is an internationally recognized

authority on the Suzuki Piano
Method, and the first Canadian to

graduate from the Matsomoto Tal-
ent Education Research Institute,

where he studied with cofounders
Drs. Shinichi Suzuki and Haruko
Kataoka. Currently he works with
parents and teachers in workshops,

institutes and conferences through-
out the world, and maintains an

active teaching studio.

In this groundbreaking resource, the first of its kind, the
student is introduced to reading by using segments of
the pieces he already knows how to play. Each of the six
lessons is based on a different Volume 1 piece. The student
sees the patterns of notes, and by pointing and playing,

singing, writing notes names and
fingerings, then mixing up the order
(scrambles), s/he thoroughly learns
to “read what s/he has played“. In the
final exercise, the student transposes
the segment into G major, and creates
his/her own scrambles. There is
enough flexibility for this approach
to work with younger students, with
plenty of opportunity for repetition,
as well as with older students.
A good sight reader has a concept
of what the music sounds like before
he/she plays it, and this program sets
the stage for developing this skill.
Rather than learning note by note,
the student sees the pattern and can
hear it interiorly. By working out
each segment, the student learns
the actual note names as well. I
think this approach is brilliant! As
the student moves from the known
to explore the unknown, he is very motivated to succeed,
and enjoys the process and accomplishment of reading.
I highly recommend this reading program for our new
Suzuki piano readers, and I hope Dr. Thompson will soon
follow up with more reading books! 