How We've Tackled Music Education in our Homeschool

I don't know the first thing about teaching music but didn't want to neglect musical education when we started homeschooling this year. So I've focused on exposing my kids to different musical experiences. As with art, there's been no overarching plan or sequence to my approach with music. We've taken advantage of some good venues near us and field trip opportunities to see live music whenever possible and I've leaned on good resources and recommendations from others. Here are nine things we've done to experience and appreciate music this year.

1. Watching Musicals
We have watched a few musicals this year, including Annie and Singin' in the Rain, but the first was The Sound of Music (over several sittings). My 9-year-old really enjoyed it. What's not to love? It's a beautiful movie with a wonderful spirit. The war-related suspense in the plot kept him captivated as well. (He liked it so much, we even watched the whole interview with Julie Andrews after the movie, reminiscing on production and on being in Salzburg fifty years ago.) Then, not long after we had watched The Sound of Music, we got to go see a live evening production of it. As we left the theater on a cold winter night and and were walking down the sidewalk to our car, W was so animated, talking about the actors and props and costumes and set changes, surmising why things were done differently than in the movie in some cases. He made a comment like, "Wow, I never realized there are so many decisions you have to make to put on a play!"

2. Instrument Lessons
Our journey in the Suzuki music program with our daughter this year has shifted some of our routines as a family, as music has become a regular part of our lives and as we figured out the best ways to make practice happen (almost) daily while keeping it positive. My son, too started an instrument not long after my daughter started Suzuki violin. His dad, who took piano lessons for years as a kid, gives him a little lesson at least once a week on an electronic keyboard we have. Even though W didn't ask for the lessons (as his sister had), we have been pleased how positive he has been about it. He likes having a little talent to show off. He's worked up to practicing for a solid ten minutes a day. He often uses piano practice as a break between academics during our school day. M doesn't want to be left out and requests her own piano mini lessons from Dad as well. There are also rare sweet moments when siblings play for each other (as W did when he learned "Happy Birthday" in time for his sister's birthday) or play a duet of a piece they both know.

3. Dives into Themed Music
Sometimes we've used holidays or units of study as a way to guide our music time. We came across the Music in our Homeschool web site, and took advantage of a few of the free sample lessons to help with this. We listened to recordings of patriotic music, and looked into the origins of various pieces-- "Yankee Doodle," "American the Beautiful," "This Land is Your Land." Also, near Chinese New Year, we did a mini study of that holiday and learned about traditional Chinese instruments like the pipa, gong, and erhu.

4. Core Knowledge Music Guidelines
The free, downloadable Core Knowledge curriculum has been helpful in our history studies and occasionally in other areas. Within the Core Knowledge K-8 Sequence of all subjects I found a two-page overview of music guidelines for grade four. It wasn't a whole curriculum (and I wouldn't have been able to teach it if it was), but it gave me a sense of some things to talk about and general guidance on broadening horizons. Sometimes I would go to this list of composers and songs and terms that the Core Knowledge Foundation has deemed fourth graders should know and we would look up YouTube recordings of the pieces mentioned. We'd also do a little research about the origin or meaning of pieces or styles. Because of this guiding song list, we heard all the official songs of the U.S. Armed Forces, which my son was fascinated by; we learned about how Gregorian Chant was a turning point in Western music as we know it; we learned the meaning of "Auld Lang Syne;" and we sang along with a children's choir to "I Love the Mountains" in rounds.

5. Following Kids' Interests
One day I asked W if there were any artists or songs he was interested in learning more about. He told me he really wanted to know what was so great about Elvis, "Like why was he so popular?" That was all we needed to set us off on a productive session. We researched this question online and read a few articles and looked at pictures of Elvis and Graceland, and we watched YouTube videos of concert performances and screaming, fainting crowds, catching handkerchief after handkerchief that Elvis would brush along his neck and then toss out. W found it hilarious and fascinating at the same time. We saw a couple of clips from movies Elvis starred in as well, and glimpsed the young and the old Elvis, and many impersonators. It was fun and a good reminder that following your kids' interests is certainly a great way to learn.

6. Can you Hear It? Book and CD
A friend who is a veteran homeschool parent recommended Can you Hear It?. Each two page spread shows a Metropolitan Museum of Art painting and is matched with a track on the accompanying classical music CD. The kids and I look closely at a painting, seeing what we can see and reading who painted it and what it is called. Then, with book in hand, we listen to the song that has been matched with it, also learning the name of the piece and the composer. The "clues" on each spread tell us certain instruments to listen for that are intended to depict certain things-- a woodblock that sounds like horses feet clip-clopping, or violins to sound like a bee hovering. The book also has a section on the families of instruments, with photos, which we read through a little bit at a time. The kids have gotten better at identifying instruments by sound, and when I have them close their eyes and I play one of the pieces we have covered so far in this book, they can always identify which it is. The Flight of the Bumblebee is a favorite, as is An American in Paris.

7. Concerts
We have some wonderful venues near us, and earlier this year (before everything was closed), we took advantage of some great opportunities to go see live music. I took both my kids to see Infinitus String Trio when they performed locally during the day. They are a "beatboxing string trio" made up of violin, viola, and cello. They were full of energy, playing classical music and contemporary. They did an awesome job of performing and teaching and kept a room full of wiggly young kids engaged. Before the show started, M kept bumping up and down in her seat that kept flipping up because she wasn't heavy enough. Once the show started, M was so engaged she forgot to keep bumping and just soaked it up. It was inspiring to watched really talented musicians and hear them say how much they practice. We had several school-day and weekend live musical performances lined up this spring that have been cancelled, and I look forward to when some inspiring outings can be part of our homeschool life again.

8. Online Performances 
Since we can't go out into our community to see live music recently, we've been taking advantage of the many performances there are now online. Some are live, but when we don't catch them live most are available to view after the fact as well. We watched Bocelli perform in the empty Milan Duomo and that inspired just a bit of research about him. We've watched Yo-Yo Ma on his Facebook page videos. Yesterday we watched a live afternoon performance of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 that one of M's music teachers did from his home. I've just begun to plumb this amazing list of live virtual concerts to watch during coronavirus shutdown that NPR is updating daily.

9. Sing Alongs
One of my children in particular loves to dance and sing along with popular favorites, preferably in costume. These consist mostly of hit songs to Disney movies she's never seen. She can't read yet, but she still loves sing-along versions with the words going across the screen so we can help her learn the words. We all had fun with the live Disney Family Singalong that was this past week. (We also like Barefoot Books sing alongs sometimes, which are sweet little songs, just not billboard hits.)

This is what we've done so far, but I'm always in need of more ideas, especially in areas like music!

Why Homeschool is Awesome: A Kid's List

A couple weeks ago a relative asked W if he was telling all his friends about homeschooling right now, since he's an old hand at it. We got talking about it afterward and he liked the idea of telling other kids, who might be mad they couldn't see their friends right now, the good things he thought they should know about homeschool. I told him if he wrote his thoughts down, I would type it up and it could be a "guest post" here. :) So without further ado, here is my 9-year-old's list, straight from him.

Why I Like Homeschool:

It's actually more fun than normal schooling.

You can go places (not right now).

You won't have to wait five minutes with your hand in the air.

If you want to learn something cool you can just do it.

You never have to be like, "I have no clue, this is way too hard" or, "this is too easy, so I'll just doodle on my white board."

You never have to feel lonely, because your family is there.

You can make up your own field trips.

I couldn't get over not seeing my [school] friends as much at first, but I got used to it and homeschool's awesome.

In school, you can't ever take a break to pet your dog or cat.

You don't have to worry about boring drives to school every day. With homeschool it's just like, aaaaannd, start!

More Fun, Free, Educational Resources

A couple weeks ago I shared a quick list at the end of this post of some free, easy to access ideas and resources for learning at home. There are so many varied, enriching things to do with kids, so I've been compiling this second list of ideas. Most of these we've used when taking a break between chunks of time spent on regular academics, or to supplement learning about a topic. While most of these are online things and kids don't need more screen time, in moderation I thought these were all worthwhile. (And plenty are videos telling how to do a real, hands-on thing.) It seems like every day right now I come across more and I'm excited to have them all in one place to go back to when we have a few extra minutes here and there. I hope some are new and useful for others!

Exercise

Cosmic Kids Yoga. Yoga videos for kids on YouTube. Jamie, who does the videos, has them on lots of themes: Harry Potter, Star Wars, Going on a Bear Hunt, Very Hungry Caterpillar. She tells the story of the book or movie while incorporating active yoga poses throughout. It's entertaining and a good stretch.

AmbyrFyt Training. Ambyr is a fitness instructor who is now at home with her two kids, so she is now doing half-hour + live FytKids sessions on Facebook Live. (Or you can watch them afterward through her page.) It was a real workout! Last week we did Cosmic Yoga four days and Ambyr's video one day and between the two I had sore muscles for days, but it was a great antidote to feeling cooped up.

"Donkey kicks." I sat that one out.

GoNoodle dance videos. As their web site says, this is "active screen time." Like all these resources in this list, this is free. Tons of short, free videos. Some are for calm and mindfulness, while some are energizing movement.

Science

Montshire Museum of Science online resources. Staff of our local museum are putting short videos online of do-at-home activities, like this fun seed-starting activity I was reminded of when we watched. We're waiting for them to sprout. I've done this with first graders before and it is so exciting to see them germinate up close.

Northern Woodlands treasure hunt. We have an interesting book, The Outside Story, published locally and detailing things happening in nature month by month. This list of things to look for outside this time of year (at least around us) is from the same organization. Lots of detailed information on things to look for, such as pileated woodpecker feeding holes and skunk cabbage. Speaking of scavenger hunts...

Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS). This list of resources for parents includes a scavenger hunt directed at preschoolers. M and I did this the other day and she was super engaged. We found everything on the list in our own yard, but some of them took some close looking which was perfect. (I could have easily made my own scavenger hunt but this one was ready to go and I just printed it off!) Other good documents and ideas are here too, including links to the Facebook Live events they offer. We watched a live talk with a staff person holding a barred owl, and got to submit a question and even had it answered live-- very exciting!

 

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has online science lessons and activities. We haven't done any of these yet but it's on our list to try!

Bioturbation with and without soil fauna. A quick time-lapse video showing the difference in soil with bugs and worms in it and soil without. Made me wonder if I should add worms to our compost.

Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium is a sort of eccentric science museum in Vermont that we've visited in person before. They now have some videos online, like one on how to identify trees in late winter, and live classes.

Music

Laurie Berkner Band music video. This particular one is a 42-minute video, so perhaps best to watch in portions, but it includes lots of cheerful preschool-friendly music videos including, "This is Me and My Energy" and "We Are the Dinosaurs."

Berliner Philharmoniker, German orchestra, has free digital access to concerts and films free right now with the code BERLINPHIL. We watched a Frozen song played by orchestra and the youngest member of our household was singing along.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is live streaming performances on YouTube while they are closed right now.

Barefoot Books. These are videos of preschool-friendly books on different themes, both read aloud and as sing alongs with words across the screen.

Duet by two kid violinists in lockdown in Italy playing "Viva la Vida." Their bouncy energy and cheerfulness was contagious.

Art

Dav Pilkey drawing videos and other fun links. We drew Dog Man and Big Jim the other day (then W went to get his actual Dog Man books and ended up drawing several other characters using the how-to-draw pages at the back as well).

  

Funny, short article with photos of people recreating famous art at home. The kids recently became familiar with a couple of these paintings so they could appreciate this, and our whole family was cracking up at some of the creative ways people who are staying home had "copied" famous works of art.

Stained glass sidewalk art. We actually got this idea and the next from a live Mystery Science mini lesson (Mystery Science is great, and free for the rest of this year with lots of things that are easy to do at home). Put tape down on a sidewalk to form a large rectangle (they used what looked like blue painter's tape). Then put more tape down within the rectangle, forming different smaller triangles and other shapes. Color each space in different colors of chalk, then peel off the tape for a pretty stained-glass look. I wish we had a sidewalk! But we may do some version of this anyway.

Aluminum foil sculptures. Take a sheet of aluminum foil and form it into a sculpture, simple or complex...snake, dragon, dog. My 9-year-old was very excited to try this right away.

Reading/Read Aloud

Grover reading The Monster at the End of this Book. A cute reading of the classic Golden Book by the Muppet himself.

Authors reading their books aloud. We've watched a few of these. It's neat to be at home with authors and realize they are quarantined now too, not to mention hearing an author read a book, period. We enjoyed a couple of Oliver Jeffers's quirky books and videos the other day.

Free books on Audible. Stream audiobooks for free while schools are closed! You can search what's available or browse by age.

Miscellaneous Enrichment
Virtual field trips links. This is a calendar of virtual field trips for families with a different place for each day. We've gone to this link a few times but haven't made it past San Diego Zoo which is listed first because they've got a great kids' web site with easy-to-digest information on lots of animals, live animal cams, and brief engaging informational videos. I'm looking forward to checking out some of the other destinations on here. 

Schoolhouse Rock videos. Recently rediscovered this and my 4th grader learned about conjunctions and interjections. So catchy. There are also a lot of history-based ones which I didn't realize or had forgotten. Dated but fun.

Newsela--- free access for the rest of this school year! We have used this site all year mostly to read kid-friendly news stories (you can click to adjust the reading level of most articles) and to research topics on which we don't have enough books, but there is even more good stuff here. 

Billings Farm and Museum is another local favorite of ours. Now, online, they have lots of crafts and activities, like quick-pickled carrots, how to make homemade toys, and coloring pages to print. Also there are very brief videos showing their animals and other Vermont farm activities like how to tap a maple tree.

Kid-Friendly TED Talks. A playlist of TED Talks to watch with kids. We watched one about the evolution of dance and one about the kids doing real science. Great conversation starters.

30 Days of Lego Play Calendar. W has not used the sequential aspect of this but loves it as a creative menu of things to do when he takes breaks during the day and he's made some neat things recently.

The fastest car

War robot

Roller coaster

Our Immersion in Talent Education

Our preschooler, M, loves music. A lot of her play has always involved singing, dancing, playing instruments, and doing "concerts" for us. She was drawn to a ukulele we had in the house when she was little and we came to think of it as hers. We took Music Together classes-- parent and child circle time to sing and make music-- a few times. Those were a big deal to her. When we had a teacher who played the guitar, M wanted a strap just like the teacher's so she could walk around with the ukulele hands-free. One summer morning, wandering around our yard, our three-year-old strummed and belted out verses about the hammock, the dandelions, the grass, the flowers. When we had a teacher who played the cello, at home she planted the ukulele on the floor and knelt behind it and all sorts of things stood in for a bow to scratch against the strings-- a magic wand, a ruler, a xylophone mallet.

Back in the ukulele heyday

I never would have thought about music lessons for a kid so young. As parents, we've never wanted to push our kids to do or be anything, but wanted to wait and see what they were interested in. But last summer, even though she was not yet four and a half, she was showing us how much she'd absorbed about making music already and was asking for more-- literally, telling us she wished she could play "an instrument with a stick."

Our local music center offers the Suzuki Method, or Talent Education, where kids as young as three can learn an instrument. The approach was created by Japanese violinist Shin'ichi Suzuki, who had an epiphany that very young children learn to speak their native language fluently-- first sounds, then words, then sentences. They don't learn to read and write until much later. Suzuki applied the way kids learn language to the way they are taught to play an instrument. We have been doing violin lessons twice a week since early September-- a private lesson and a group class with the other kids at her level. The group class is about community, playing for and with others. The parent is an integral part of the program. Parents have to rent a full-size violin for the year, too! Parents have to attend every lesson and learn everything the child learns. Parents are responsible for practice at home, and the goal is every day.

Kids learn by practicing not on an actual violin at first, but on a "box violin" you make at home with a small box (we used a mac and cheese box) and a paint stick attached to it. They learn to hold that appropriately, name the parts of the violin, and master some rhythms through clapping and other movements (I remember sliding our right hands up and down our left forearm for every syllable for "Mississippi, Stop, Stop"). Then there is a "practice bow" (a wooden dowel) to learn to hold and move around, and eventually kids earn their actual instrument to learn on. They have to master their grip on the bow (every finger has its proper position) through many repetitions. Eventually they learn to play songs that involve working the strings. All this time students regularly listen to a CD that includes the first songs kids would be taught to play so they can internalize them.

 We haven't looked at a sheet of music yet (because reading music, like language, won't come until later). But M can recognize and play several pieces. She can correctly hold the instrument in play and rest positions, she knows how to pack and unpack it, to put on the sponge (shoulder pad that goes on the back with a rubber band), to tighten and loosen the bow hairs, she knows to check for her curved pinky and bent thumb and hugger fingers on the bow, to make sure she keeps a just-right baby bear wrist and that she has her jaw-- not chin-- in the chin rest, to make sure her fingers sink all the way in on the strings for the right sound... There are SO many incremental, cumulative skills involved in learning this (any?) instrument. We are impressed with what she has mastered, and with the program. These are some memorable moments from this journey:

In October one day at her private lesson, M's teacher told her she had earned a practice bow (we only had the "box violin" up to that point), and signed out to us the wooden dowel in the basic shape of a bow that she would practice skills with, especially how to hold a bow. On the way home in the car that day, holding it and pretending to play with it, she said, "I earned this bow? What do 'earned' mean?" She was even more elated once she internalized this concept. So much pride, the words were catching in her throat, she couldn't get them out fast enough. "Does W [her older brother] know how to use this? I will be The Teacher. I will tell him he can't use it like a sword...I will be SO SO SO happy when I earn my real violin."

Early fall, before she'd earned the violin, when she used our ukulele as one

One day not long after that, we were in the car and M was "playing" her box violin and said to her brother, "W, I am bigger than you with my violin." In response he gave her irritated matter-of-factness about their ages, but she only persisted, sure of herself on this matter: "NO, with my violin I am bigger!"  

In early November, M had mastered all the things on her checklist that were needed to earn her (actual, rental) violin. We picked it up from the music shop a few days later. She was so excited. It was a big day with a LOT of violin playing that I will never forget. (I had never even known violins came in sizes but when I first saw this 1/8 size one, I was taken aback with how adorable an object it is.) 

Unpacking the violin for the first time

In February M wanted to bring her violin into preschool for her share day. With all her peers in a circle inching closer, she got it out and got it ready. There were a couple moments where she paused, made silly faces, and didn't respond to the questions and comments coming at her. And then, just when I was wondering if she'd actually do it, she put her violin up, paused as she got her fingers where they should be on the strings, marked by the tapes her teacher had put there, and played the most polished "Monkey Song" she'd done yet. She paused after and there was a flurry of comments, and she said, "Now I'm gonna do Descending A Scale" and played again. My daughter can take months to talk to a new person, she needs to observe for a long while before joining into a new situation. Yet she also has a side of her that really craves the center of attention; she would like to have us all sit on the couch for hours at home to watch her perform songs and dances, and a microphone is one of her very favorite toys. I can't help but wonder if the violin-- or something that involves music or performance-- is how this introvert finds her voice and confidence in the big noisy world.

We've taken the kids to concerts in our area when we can, and M is mesmerized when her instructors perform in group class. Often when she is supposed to be getting ready for bed, or when she is sitting at the dinner table, her eyes close a little bit, she holds a silent violin and bow and imitates the fancy fingerwork, her foot moving to the beat, lifting her bow off the strings with a flourish every now and then. (She also likes to play one string at a time while listening closely with furrowed brow, then pretend to turn the pegs and fine tuners like her teacher does, even though she knows she's not supposed to touch those.) She emulates the musical skills and styles she soaks up. In the beginning, I wondered if real lessons and practice every day really made sense with young kids. I knew that maybe someday M would look back and see the rewards of daily practice, but she didn't now understand the long term. I had a slight worry that if violin became something we do all the time or a have-to, we'd risk taking the joy out of music which she'd always done so freely. But I've been really pleased that her lessons and experiences this year have continued to fuel her interest in music and show us she wants to know more.

Loves to help use the tuning app

Now it's April and we're all quarantined in our homes. M had had a Suzuki showcase concert lined up last week. Of all the cancellations we've had, this may be the most heart-breaking because she still talks about it daily. Happily though, M's weekly private violin lesson is just about the one thing that we've not had cancelled because we now meet her teacher face to face via a Zoom meeting in our living room every week. M thinks practicing "with Miss Emma on the computer" is an exciting novelty.

Remote lessons

Finding Our Stride with Daily Practice
Practicing every day has been a learning curve. There were days practice started to become a battle and we'd all get upset. I quickly realized that we simply couldn't allow that to happen. We could not squash her joy in finally having her own real instrument. She might not always remember the pieces she was playing now, but she'd remember how practicing with us made her feel. We still make mistakes or lose our patience at times, but luckily she, like most kids, is forgiving and resilient. These are some of the things we've learned that help daily practice go better for us:

• Practice absolutely must stay positive.  
• Practice needs to be about love and connection between parent and child.
• Don't practice every skill every day, as that becomes tedious. 
• Keep sessions brief (not more than 10 - 15 minutes).
• Always name and reinforce what she's doing well.   
• Go with the flow when she has a different idea about what to play next. Letting her have some control makes the whole practice go better. 
• Not every practice will be equal. There are days or weeks where energy for violin is higher and more focused and others when it is less so. Even getting it out to play for two minutes on a busy, non-ideal day helps her grow and fosters the practice habit. 
• Practice when it works. We haven't found a time that's always good. So we practice at different times-- before breakfast, after school, before dinner, before bedtime-- depending on the day. If we haven't done it yet, she tends to remind us. 
• Timers can help. We sometimes set a timer and say, when it rings it will be time to practice. Or, tell her to have her violin unpacked and ready to go before it goes off. We set the timer generously so she can almost always beat it but it keeps her motivated and saves us from saying, "Time to practice" over and over. 
• Be patient and have age-appropriate expectations. For example, I learned that practicing something "one more time" to try to get it more solid or work on a part of it was incredibly disagreeable to M. So I stopped asking her to do that and learned to just wait till we tried it again tomorrow. Now, she's reached a point where sometimes she suggests playing something again herself either because it's a fun new piece or because she realizes something doesn't sound right.
• Play fun games during practice to keep it interesting... 

Learning how to hold the box violin

Playing a duet

Motivators and Ways to Make Practice Fun and Kid-Friendly
A couple times as a parent I have briefly thought external rewards would help train a behavior and it never does, at least with our kids. It causes undue stress when the thing is not earned, and their focus becomes the prize not the skill. The motivators that have helped keep her going are silly, preschool-friendly games we play as part of the ritual of practice. Most have worked for a while but not forever, and then we move on to something else...

1. Light a candle at the start of practice and then let her blow it out at the end, to show the effect of incremental practice with the shrinking size of the candle.
2. Make a list of the skills to practice for the week and let her put checks or tally marks next to them each time we do them.
3. "100 days of Practice" chart. Her teacher just gave us this in February, and she makes that special "x" on each number after another practice. (Helps her learn counting patterns, too). 
4. Let her set up a stuffed animal to "watch" her practice.
5. Put a tiny little toy up on the violin and see if she can keep it balanced as she plays.
6. Barrel of Monkeys: hang one more monkey up for every ___ during practice (rhythm played/portion of practice/whatever the goals are that week. Find different places to hang the chain of monkeys. We've hung them on the pegs of her violin and on the branches of our Christmas tree for a while. 
7. Let her be "the teacher" and parent is the "student." She demonstrates a skill and then we practice it. Some days we can even make lots of requests as the student: "Can you teach me the first line of Twinkle?" "Does my hand look right?" It's a simple difference in how we use language, calling her the teacher. But it seems to inspire her to do her best and we've had some of our best, longest practice sessions like this.
8. Draw a picture for her incrementally, adding one more bit to it for each skill/song she does in practice. She loves to guess what it will be. At the end of practice, it's a complete monkey or house or butterfly. Like all of the above, the drawing is not dependent on her tasks being done perfectly. It is simply to represent that she did it. 

Our son also started learning an instrument this fall-- the piano-- with his dad as teacher for now. It's been a very natural extension to expect him to practice each day too (and it's nice that he can be more independent in his practice sessions). When and how long we practice might be up for grabs, but whether we do it it is not a question now as it's become a routine. I've come to see it as a little gift to our kids that we invited the idea of daily practice into our family. M can have fun pretending to be Natalie MacMaster with her jaw-dropping fiddling and simultaneous food stamping but she is also beginning to understand that daily practice is how she got there. That developing understanding is bigger than violin. After M's 7 months so far on violin, we can already say, "Remember when you were just learning how to hold the violin?" And she can look back and feel the difference from where she is now. She's learning that not everything is easy right away, but it can be learned. Our Talent Education violin experience connects with a book I read several years ago, Carol Dweck's Mindset. It's a great book with a lot in it, but my take away was that I want so much to foster a growth mindset in my kids-- willingness to try, perseverance, knowledge that we can be good at things with effort and by choosing the right strategy.

In his book Nurtured by Love Suzuki wrote, "I am not engaged in Talent Education in order to produce musicians, nor do the children participate because they want to become musicians. But anyone who has cultivated her musical ability to a high degree of accomplishment will demonstrate equally outstanding ability in whatever other field she chooses to enter." He felt that cultivating an ability-- educating a talent-- helps a child develop "sensitivity, discipline, and endurance. He gets a beautiful heart." Suzuki discussed all sorts of evidence for his beliefs-- including Albert Einstein, whose parents had him learn the violin from the time he was six, crediting his physics discoveries with his own talent education: "I owe my new discovery to intuition honed in the world of music." All I know for sure at this stage is that music is a bigger presence in our home than it ever has been and it has had good effects on all of us.

She wants to learn the piano, too