European Suzuki Association - Teachers Newsletter Vol 38 2018

12 Foster Intuition Dr Shinichi Suzuki A mong my young students is a blind boy by the name of Teiichi Tanaka. He was five when his father brought him to me. The father said, "When this child was a baby, the doctor said he would not live unless he had an opera- tion on both eyes. Although we pitied him, we finally went through with the operation, thinking that eyes weren't as important as life; so he lost his sight as a baby and both his eyes are false. As a parent I wished to bring the joy of at least one candle to this boy's dark and unfortunate life, and so, I thought, be- ing able to perform and understand music might give him the greatest hap- piness. This is why I have come to ask you to teach him violin." "Right now I have neither a method nor experience, so please let me think about it for one week," I answered, and we parted promising to meet again after a week. After finishing my students' les- sons that evening, I withdrew into my study and started to think seriously about my new assignment. First, I shut the light in my study and sat in the dark. Imagining myself blind, I thought about what could guide a blind man to whom the world is pitch dark with no distinction between up and down. He cannot see the shape of the violin that is put in the hand, yet he has to move the bow straight and across a single string without so much as touch- ing the other strings. If the bow posi- tion is even half a centimetre off, the bow will rub the next string. How was I going to be able to teach a blind child to do such a delicate thing with ease? Starting with this question, I tried to study this way and that, placing myself in the position of a five-year-old blind child who holds something called a vio- lin and is handed another thing called a bow. After a while I rose and, taking my violin in my hand, started to play in the dark. Of course, I could play with no differ- ence whether in a light place or in this dark room. Then why was I able to feel the same in the dark as in a light place? Even in total darkness I knew how my bow moved and where its tip was; I could feel the locations of the four strings perfectly. Why was this? While I played thinking of these things, my mind reached a clear solution: "If I help the blind boy see the bow and violin as I can see them when playing in the dark, he will surely be able to learn to play as well as children who can see." In other words, I realized that he would be able to do it if I could give him the mind's eye. Here finally I felt confident about teaching the blind boy. After a week, Mr. Tänaka came with his son as he had promised. So I told him what I thought, and, asking him to co- operate with me in helping the child study according to my instruction, I decided to begin. First, I wished to give him the most important training, which would help the boy see the bow. "The violin bow is this kind of thing," I said, placing the bow in his right hand and having him feel the bow to the tip with his left. Then, I said, "Move your right hand, which is holding the bow, up and down." Teiichi moved his bow hand diagonally up and down. "Up and down goes this wa!," I said, taking his hand and teaching him the vertical motion. When I said, "This time move it left and right," the bow moved again diagonally up and down. "Right and left is this way!," I said, again taking his hand in order to teach him the horizon- tal motion. "Practice this at home every day, all right?" I explained well, then went on: "Now, let's try an interesting game. First hold out your left hand; then prac- tice poking your left with the tip of the bow, which is in your right hand, five times in a row. Now, try it." This was the project to which I attached the greatest importance. When he tried, the tip of his bow wandered in unex- pected directions. It was even danger- ous, the bow threatening to poke his ear. Because intuition had not devel- oped, he had no idea where the tip of his bow was. "Try holding the tip of your bow with your left hand. Right, right. That's where the tip is. All you need to do is to poke your left hand with that tip." The boy tried to do as told, but it was not easy for him to poke his left hand with the tip of the bow. "This is all for today. Practice it every day until the next time you come, and see how many times out of five you can poke. I will be looking forward to the next lesson, so work hard at it," I said, concluding the first lesson. For a little child, even something like this means a new world: he seemed very happy as he left. At the next lesson Mr. Tanaka said, "I had Teiichi try, but it is so hard that he couldn't do it well." So I had the boy try just to see: he could move the bow up and down more or less perfectly, but could poke the left hand with the bow only two or three times in five tries. However, even this was great progress, and I thought that a tremendous amount of effort must have gone into it. "You have improved a lot. Let's con- tinue practicing the up-and-down and left-and-right movements, and the ex- ercise in poking the left hand with the tip of the bow until you can do it five times in a row correctly. Today I am adding another new thing, so please practice this one, too," I said, adding a new exercise. This was to grab with the left hand the tip of the bow held in his right hand in one try, without groping in the air but moving his hand directly to where he believed the tip was. It was an exercise in sensing where the tip of the bow was. This, too, was diffi- cult to accomplish on the first day, and I finished the lesson leaving it at that. However, through daily training, in two weeks or so Teiichi was able to poke his left hand with the bow with precision five times in a row, and also grasp the tip of the bow. So then I gave him a new assignment: "Let's practice poking the left thumb with the tip of the bow. Learn to do it five times in a row." The object to be