Listen Like a MaNIaC!!!!

Listen Like A Maniac!!!!! 

Do you feel like you go to your lesson and work on the SAME THINGS over and over again?!

A wonderful Suzuki Teacher and Suzuki Parent, Michele Horner has the answer to get your child moving! This is one of the great videos from the 2012 Parents as Partners series from the SAA. 

Are you frustrated with SLOW progress? 

Do you wonder how to make learning new pieces easier?

Are you wanting smoother practice sessions?

Do you want a "magic button" to make your Suzuki journey more fun?

Well friends...... 

THERE IS A WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How do you expect your newborn to learn to speak ENGLISH (or any other language)? They hear ENGLISH all day! You talk to them in ENGLISH, you turn on the TV and it's in ENGLISH, you go to the grocery store and everyone there is speaking ENGLISH, everywhere you go ENGLISH is surrounding them!

How can you expect your child to learn to play a piece if all they do is play around with it for 20 min a day? How can they know if they're playing the rhythm right? How do they know if their intonation is correct? 

Michele has a great way to make all of this more enjoyable for everyone involved. All you have to do is Listen Like A Maniac! To do this, Make a SUPER CD/PLAYLIST. Play the piece your child is learning (at least) 10 times, then play the next piece the child will be learning 10 times, then the piece after that 10 times. She had a parent that thought that was too hard to play it 10 in a row - so she just puts on the "repeat 1" button for an hour for each piece.

Michele's thoughts....

*get the WHOLE family on board for this

*It's the PARENT'S responsibility to take the "LISTENING LIKE A MANIAC" CHALLENGE

*The GOAL is NOT to get through all of the Suzuki Repertoire as quickly as possible. It's to get through the repertoire as SMOOTHLY as possible. 

From personal experience - 

*I remember having competitions and festivals that I would be participating in and being SO NERVOUS that I would forget where I was in the music or I would get lost and wouldn't know how or where to start playing again. I found that if I left my CD on repeat while doing various activities, and while sleeping at night, I was still nervous for the upcoming performance, but I wasn't worried about forgetting the notes - because they were ingrained in me. 

*Growing up, I had a hard time reading notes - especially in orchestra. I would get the recordings of the music that we were playing and I would listen to the music. After many hours of listening and practicing and rehearsals, I would be able to play with the rest of the kids. 

*I come from a very strong "Suzuki Family." My Grandma is a Suzuki violin teacher and she has 10 Suzuki trained children on various instruments. Her youngest son, listened to all of his brothers and sisters practice the Suzuki repertoire, listened to countless Suzuki violin lessons as well as practiced all of the music himself. He KNOWS his Suzuki stuff! He can sing any of them for you. If you're practicing at my grandma's house, you better watch out - if he hears something that you didn't play correctly he'll come help you practice, even if you didn't ask for help ;)

LISTENING WORKS!

IT'S TRIED AND TRUE!