Cultivating the “Strong Arms of the Tree” Keeping teens in Suzuki community with student-to-student mentoring

An eighth grader who had begun Suzuki piano
lessons with me as a kindergartner came to me at
the start of her school year and told me that this
would be her final year of lessons. She would be in high
school the next year and planned on devoting all her free
time and attention to soccer. I had conflicting emotions. Of
course I wanted the joy of continuing her musical journey
with her through her high school years, but I had to admire
her planning (I had never had a student plan to complete
lessons within a year’s time!) and her devotion to soccer as
it extended beyond just weekly obligations but to the scope
of a high school career. I would not give up right away,
however. After all, her family and I had nurtured her in a
musical environment her whole school-aged life. She was
an accomplished pianist and, more importantly, a kind,
considerate, thoughtful, caring, and responsible individual.
The kind of person who fully considers the commitment
required for an ongoing challenge and assesses that they
are not ready is often just the kind of person who has the
habits needed for success! Sometimes a modification of the
goal is in order. Sometimes a modification of the concept of
success is in order. In this case the goal was simply continued
experience of music and dedicated attention to music, just
much less of it!
Given her firm statement of intent, I had to wonder if I
had any options. During the course of the school year, in
preparing (for the first time with a student) for her “completion of lessons,” we completed Book Five. I also I suggested
that she pick the pieces she remembered as having been her
favorites from Book Two and Three. I explained that in asking her to re-learn these pieces which she had learned at ages
seven, eight, and nine, that I wanted to empower her with
this experience to know that at any age, with some tenacity,
she would indeed be able to “go back” to piano. I have known
the disappointment that comes when opening the pages of
a piece I learned ages ago only to find that it does not come
back too easily. I have sometimes even wondered how I had
learned such difficult pieces in the first place. But I have
also learned through the years the patience and acceptance
which must ‘accompany’ one’s own practicing. Imagining
her at age 30 with a child of her own, perhaps hoping to be
a Suzuki mom, I wanted her to have some reference point
for coming back to the piano. Of course I also hoped and
guessed that with her strong Suzuki training (I did not have
such training until my teacher training), that coming back
to these pieces might not prove so difficult.
As the year came to a close I realized that I did have an
option for her. The relearning of her earlier pieces had
gone so well that it occurred to me that with my several
new families on board, her piano skills might be a form of
income for her. A few of the families were over scheduled
and a few of the moms were having occasional difficulties
with their children around practicing. If she would be willing to learn Book One to play it for me again, and to observe
a lesson of the family who wanted to hire her as a mentor,
and then have a post-observation lesson with me, then she
would be qualified to then go to that family’s home once a
week and give the mom a break as the practice partner. She
happily accepted the training, and the practice parents were
happy to supplement their child’s piano tuition with extra
help from the high school student whom their children
adored. Conveniently, this gave me opportunity to suggest
that she accompany some of the children at the next Duets
Recital. She learned the Barbara Meixner accompaniments
to several Book One and Two pieces. Over the next four
years, she continued to help a few of the families every week.
I had her come in to brush up on her Book One pieces and
to relearn Book Two pieces as needed. Then, in her third
year, she heard Saint Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” and thought
that perhaps she and her sister could play that at the next
Duets Recital. And sure enough, for the fall of her senior
year, they had a very well prepared performance. We had
had many rehearsals over the course of the previous spring
and then at the end of the summer.
At some point during high school, soccer fell by the
wayside. But it turns out that she never really left the piano
studio throughout high school.

I am now on my third “generation”
of high school mentors. I have discovered that when the interested
teens play Book One for me at age 16,
it is a profound—if low-key and lowpressure—rite of passage. These are
very accomplished young musicians
who performed Saint Saëns’ “Carnival
of the Animals” recently (thanks to
the inspiration of Malgosia Lis at the
2018 SA A Biennial conference!), and
who play in the local youth orchestra
and excel in school. Yet here they are
playing Lightly Row and engaged in
matching tone and articulation with
me. As those of you who teach teens
know, you cannot teach this interest,
only nurture it. We are cultivating
the “strong arms” of the tree that
their parents planted before they
were born. Dr. Suzuki uses a parable of planting a seed, of its unseen
germination, and of its development
into a tree—both in what we see above
ground and in what we don’t see
underground. He concludes:
These roots will become the
force of the growth behind the
tree. The “will of the roots” can
thus be considered a treasure
for those who persist to the end
of their endeavors.1
My teens, humble as they are to play
Book One for me, are also quite
confident and not necessarily in
search of their best pianistic selves.
How, then, do I gently alert one of
them to the need for independence
of hands in Mary Had a Little Lamb?
(So that each time the left hand chord
changes the melody does not then
“hiccup” in sympathy?) Inspired by
my teacher trainer, Caroline Fraser,
I simply show them. I have them play
with me. Now, because they are going to be playing with six-year-olds,
I get to articulate to them—or have
them articulate—the nature of the
work at hand: “When you play in this
way you are using ‘independence’ of
the hands.” When the teen arrives
at the child’s home and looks over
the parent’s lesson notes, and sees
the phrase “independence,” the teen
knows just the skill to be honed. More
importantly, the teen has recently
honed such a skill—consciously. Of
course that same teen unconsciously
uses independence of her hands all
the time, in the Blacksmith Variations
(Handel, Book Seven), another uses it
in Debussy’s “Reverie,” and a third in
playing and singing pop tunes. But
now the young musicians are consciously learning and experiencing
his Book One pieces whereas when
those teens were six, they, too, were
absorbing this concept unconsciously
through playing.
There has been a wonderful, tangential, benefit, too, in the area of
parent education. I can now work with
the parent weekly to be as specific as
possible in her note taking, and I can
assess her progress more obviously
and unselfconsciously weekly. In striving to make communication with a
potential mentor as clear as possible,
I have brought greater focus into the
lesson and note taking.
Each mentor must:

• Play Book One for and with me
  (a lesson and experience, not a
  performance).
• Observe a lesson of a Book One
  student and take notes.
• Play Book One with me again
  (a lesson and experience, not a
  performance).
• Have a mentor’s training group class.
  Then:
• After six weeks of mentoring, I observe the mentor working with her
  student and meet with the mentor
  to again work on the music.
  The teens don’t want to be told that
  what they are doing is wrong, or right,
  for that matter. They don’t want to be
  criticized or supervised. But I have
  found that when I observe the mentors, I learn much about what I have
  imparted to them. I have seen their
  delight in, engagement with, and
  connection to the young students. I
  have been surprised sometimes to see
  the mentors talking about form (with
  a six-year-old!), using a metronome
  (again, with a six-year-old!), or even
  playing wrong notes in their examples.
  Sometimes they give choices instead of
  managing the time themselves. Sometimes they allow too many mistakes
  and not nearly enough repetitions
  of the corrected mistakes. When I
  observe these oversights I learn from
  them. I then address them in the next
  teen lesson—perhaps directly, perhaps
  not. Equally as important, I absorb
  that there is more than one way to
  help a child learn. When I see a good
  relationship between the mentor and
  child, I know that anything is possible!
  And as the “branches of the tree”
  grow, there is a delight now in having
  the more experienced mentor mentor
  the new mentors! Now in the group
  class, I have the experienced teens
  mentor the novice mentors.
  The parent may simply need a break
  and a little help each week. But in hiring a mentor, that parent is inviting the
  teen back in not just to piano or music
  but in to the circle of the Suzuki community, so that now at the recitals the
  teens are not just the older generation
  of students but rather are active role
  models with real connections to the
  youngest students and their parents.
  In fact, I have been proud to tell a
  prospective employer, when the teen
  listed me as a reference, that the teen
  is comfortable interacting with people
  whether they are six years old or adults,
  is conscientious, reliable, and dependable. This is part of Suzuki’s legacy: in
  his book Nurtured by Love, Dr. Suzuki,
  speaking of his inspiration from his
  friend Dr. Albert Einstein, writes of
  his dream: “I wish to raise children as
  human beings who similarly possess
  a refined sensibility, modesty, and a
  profound love for humanity.”2 The
  teen student-to-student mentorship
  program aids the teens in becoming
  not just more refined musicians, but

more importantly, more sensitive and
caring people.
I have other ways of maintaining
teen involvement: Reader’s Club, Singing Pianists, and Duo lessons across
ages and abilities.
Reading Club relieves the busy
student of the group classes, observations, All Studio Classes, and the
cumulative learning associated with
the Suzuki philosophy. It also relieves
the parent, in most cases, of being
directly involved in her child’s daily
practice and gives more ownership to
the student. That is why most, but not
all, RC students have completed Book
Two and have a strong foundation
in my Suzuki community. And, in
accordance with the Suzuki method,
it continues to support the teen or
preteen child at a rate comfortable
to him, it continues to keep him in
a musical environment. This is why
one RC student, after several years of
only a 20-minute lesson every other
week, got so motivated at one point
that he was able to learn several pieces
that caught his attention, was able to
perform with a violinist and cellist,
and identifies as a musician.
Singing Pianists are a great way in
for the youth who are not so interested
in practicing piano but want to keep
the community they have found in
their group lessons. We might sing
positive message songs (Lean On Me,
for example, by Bill Withers), and then
go to the piano and learn to play the
piece by ear across two pianos. They
gain harmonic knowledge, deeper
rhythmic sense, and best of all identify
strongly with their music and with
their ensemble.
Duo lessons across ages helps the
teen gain more skill as a reader, as an
accompanist, and as a mentor by providing a chance for the teen to learn
in the context of helping a younger
student in her weekly group class.
I hire students to be my website
manager and to be my cameraman for
recording lesson segments. These both
continue our community together,
generate a powerful sense of identity
for the teen with the studio, and help
me stay connected in a goal-oriented
way with my teens.
Finally, after I attended the SA A
Biennial conference in 2018, I was
inspired to give to the greater good as
a Suzuki Studio. I have been producing
two “Musical Soulmates” concerts annually, raising thousands of dollars for
sister arts organizations (Shakes-toGo, an outreach of UC Santa Cruz, for
Music in May, an incredibly powerful
chamber music festival with a strong
musical outreach program) and for
Hospice of Santa Cruz. While myself
and my professional colleagues provide most of the music, I have featured
my graduating seniors as performers,
and they have been my page turners,
attending rehearsals to practice. All
the families participate by providing
the hospitality table, by buying seats
for the performers and their guests,
and, best of all, by attending not only
the concerts but the rehearsals as well.
I have hired students to be my website manager, my publicist, and my
cameraman for recording lesson segments. All of these activities continue
our community. My goal is that these
teens continue to grow, regardless of
their time commitment, at whatever
pace, as capable musicians, so that
when they are off to college or with a
family of their own they are unhesitating, when passing by a piano, to play
for fun, read a new piece, or re-learn
an old, beloved piece.

Notes

1. Shinichi Suzuki, Nurtured by Love, Revised
   Edition, trans. Kyoko Selden with Lili
   Selden, 57.
2. Suzuki, Nurtured by Love, 100.

Kate Saphir Alm grew
up in a musical family,
attended New England
Conservatory and received
her degree (BMus,Piano
Performance) from the San
Francisco Conservatory. She is an accomplished
organist (Colleague level of the American Guild of
Organists) and has a 25 year career in African
American Gospel music as a director, singer,
writer and musician. She has taught piano for 29
years….15 of those with the Suzuki Method and
is delighted to discover that with implementing
Dr. Suzuki’s philosophy she is able to pass on
the gifts she has been given. Her studio is her
primary focus; it offers a multiplicity of programs
and events to continue the circle of community.
Kate has trained most of the last 14 summers
with Caroline Fraser, is trained through all 7 of the
Suzuki Books, group classes, teaching reading,
and several practicums. More information at :
www.katealmsuzukipianostudio.com