This past weekend, I taught at the Massachusetts Suzuki Festival. It was our biggest ever with more than 330 enrolled students for the entire weekend. The quality of the teaching, the caliber of the students, being in the beautiful spaces of the New England Conservatory, and especially the amount of sheer positivity and energy from everyone was truly inspiring. It was a blessing to be be able to take part in the festival. Even after knowing these pieces for a lifetime and teaching for 20 years, it’s still possible for me to be moved to tears by children playing music together.
Going to a Suzuki Festival is an experience unlike any other I’ve had. I suddenly see every single child in the light – each child an individual, unique, and yet each so wonderfully and specially unified in what can only be described as joy. What a world we could make if all children could experience joy, together, as unique beings, each giving their all, each accepting the other and the group, all united in a common purpose. If the joy of the child is in accomplishing great things, and if the true satisfaction of the child is to give maximum effort to the task at hand, as Maria Montessori said, then how can you describe the gravitas of children all doing this together at once? A cynical world can’t persist in the face of such unbridled joy. Not even the most pessimistic person could truly see this and not be moved.
Hearing and seeing these children brings me all the way back to original childhood memories of emotional imprints. Although I don’t have specific memories of events that created them, I remember those strong feelings. And because those experiences, including all those since forgotten, were experienced through music, they were encoded in my memory and built into my personality in a way from which it is impossible to detach.
Every time I go to a suzuki festival or institute, I wait for the moment to arrive, when I start to feel happy even if I’m sad, when I feel energized even though I’m tired. We owe it to all children to experience the world the way they do – so that we can reflect to them a joyful and vibrant way of living, and model the behaviour we want to see. The instant connection that these kids have to their own feelings and to the feelings of others – nothing could be more valuable to our society. You can see it happen in real time, see the feelings spelled out across their faces, see it change from moment to moment, the way clouds blow across the sky, from sunshine to storm and everything in between. What if we all allowed ourselves to feel this way? What if we all paid attention to each others’ faces instead of our own?
Dr. Suzuki said that of all the challenges facing parents in nurturing their children with music, motivation is perhaps the most difficult. But what could be more motivating for a child than joining in such a circle of fun? And what could be more motivating for an adult than creating the opportunity for them to do so? This is why I am a father, and this is why I am a teacher. See you next year.
