Suzuki Therapy

Suzuki Therapy: How music lessons can help cure our modern-day anxieties, distractions, and other first-world maladies.

In today’s age of social media and cell phone addiction, when community is shaped by your Facebook feed, and a time when kids and adults alike are experiencing an inability to be alone brought about by technology, how could you expect someone to tolerate sitting down at an instrument every day? To tolerate spending time alone every day? To feel proud having devoted an entire hour to a passage of music when there are texts to answer, instagrams to post, and your teachers and bosses expect to be able to reach you at all times?

So many chronic mental health issues in today’s society can be addressed in music lessons. We all know that music study improves self-esteem, it teaches overcoming obstacles and setting goals, and it brings respect and a loosening of ego into daily life. This is how you can focus that power to make a more lasting impact.

To have your students participate in the research, please have them fill out the following survey. Survey: The Perks of Studying Music.

To participate in an online and ongoing happiness survey yourself, go to https://www.trackyourhappiness.org/

Suggested Reading

Barron, Carrie & Alton. The Creativity Cure. Scribner:NY, 2012.

Burkeman, Oliver. The Antidote. Faber & Faber: NY, 2012.

Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, The. Peretz, I & Zatorre, R (ed), Oxford U Press, Y, 2003.

Coyle, Daniel. The Talent Code. Bantam Books: New York, 2009.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow. HarperCollins: New York, 1990.

Davis, et al. An Introduction to Music Therapy. McGraw Hill, 1999.

Duke, Robert. Intelligent Music Teaching. Learning and Behavior Resources: TX, 2005.

Dweck, Carol S, PhD. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. Ballantine Books: NY 2006.

Goleman, Daniel. Focus. Harper Collins, NY, 2013.

Gunatillake, Rohan. Modern Mindfulness. St. Martin's Griffin: New York, 2017.

How to Memorize Music. James Francis Cooke. Theodore Presser Co.: Philadelphia, 1948.

Levitin, Daniel. The Organized Mind. Dutton: NY, 2014.

Levitin, Daniel. This is your brain on music. Dutton: NY, 2006.

Miles, Elizabeth. Tune Your Brain: Using Music to Manage Your Mind, Body and Mind. Berkley Books: NY, 1997.

Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology, The. Hallam, Cross & Thaut, eds. Oxford U. Press: Oxford, 2009.

Suzuki, S. Ability Development from Age Zero. Alfred Publishing, New York: 1981.

Suzuki, S. Nurtured By Love. Alfred Pub., USA, 1983.

The Child as Musician; A Handbook of Musical Development. Gary McPherson. Oxford U. Press, NY, 2003.

Articles, Websites, and Links:

Teaching Lessons for Children with Special Needs
https://nafme.org/teaching-lessons-children-special-needs/

The Benefits of Playing the Piano
https://ogdenpianogallery.com/the-benefits-of-learning-to-play-the-piano/

Could Playing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker improve kids’ brains? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141223132546.htm

How Music Could Improve Language Skills https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141223132546.htm

Music Lessons Improve Children’s Cognitive Skills and Academic Performance https://neurosciencenews.com/music-cognition-academics-8689/

Benefits of Music Education
https://www.slps.org/site/default.aspx?DomainID=2046

The Decline of Play and the Rise of Children’s Mental Disorders https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201001/the-decline-play-and-rise-in-childrens-mental-disorders

"Develop Grit" Esther Fellows. American Music Teacher. Feb/Mar 2019.

Smartphones causing kids to experience altered childhood
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/smart-phones-causing-kids-to-experience-altered-childhoods#2

How negative is your mental chatter?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sapient-nature/201310/how-negative-is-your-mental-chatter

Working with your hands—the secret to happiness? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/working-hands-happiness-burkeman

Creativity, happiness, and your own two hands
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-creativity-cure/201205/creativity-happiness-and-your-own-two-hands

Handiwork: How busy hands can alter our brain chemistry https://www.cbsnews.com/news/handiwork-how-busy-hands-can-alter-our-brain-chemistry/

MTNA-PTG Scholarship Award, 2019 (Scroll Down! It's Me!)

Two ISMTA Members to be Honored at National Conference Congratulations to Frances Larimer, who has been named MTNA Teacher of the Year, and to Aubrey Faith-Slaker, who has been awarded the MTNA-Piano Technicians Guild Scholarship. Both will be honored at the MTNA Awards Brunch on Wednesday, March 20th, 10:30am at the National Conference in Spokane, Washington. Frances Larimer, NCTM, Piano Professor Emerita, created the master's and doctoral degree programs in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the Northwestern University School of Music and served as director of these programs for over 25 years.  Prior to this, she established the group piano programs for music and non-music majors. Since her retirement in August 1998, Larimer has served as consultant in piano pedagogy for Yamaha. Larimer has been active in MTNA for many years.  From 1975 to 1979 she served as national group piano chair for MTNA.  She has served two, four-year terms on the editorial board of The American Music Teacher and for five years was a music reviewer for Clavier.  She was honored as ISMTA Teacher of the Year in 2018. Read more about Larimer on the ISMTA Teacher of the Year profile by clicking here. Aubrey Faith-Slaker maintains a home studio in Chicago and also teaches at the Music Institute of Chicago and Sherwood, the Community Music School at Columbia College. She recently had her application to become a Suzuki Piano Teacher Trainer accepted and plans on finishing that process by the end of this summer. Aubrey has been active in teaching and studying in Central and South America for the past several years and will be giving a presentation on Music Lessons and Mental Health for Today's Distracted Children in Mexico in May at the first Suzuki Conference of the Americas. For some time now, Aubrey has been traveling to Lima, Peru to study and teach at the largest consistently-run Suzuki Festival in Latin America. Her award money from the MTNA-PTG scholarship, which is offered to MTNA certified teachers who use technicians in the technicians guild, will go toward teaching at the next Festival Suzuki de Peru. She has been MTNA certified since 2006. Aubrey received her BM in performance and pedagogy at the University of Illinois and her MM at Southern Methodist University. Aubrey is an excellent example of why becoming an MTNA certified teacher is so valuable! Learn more about MTNA certification here. You can also learn more about Aubrey Faith-Slaker on her website here.

The Chicago Piano Lesson Weekly

For those of you who have expressed interest in the music psychology articles and local events I share with you regularly, you might want to check out my newsletter on those very topics!

The Chicago Piano Lesson Weekly comes out twice a week and can be accessed here, from my website, and highlights are posted regularly on my FaithSlaker Music Facebook page and Twitter.

For today, please enjoy this article on Parents as Engaged Partners in Music.

Winter Studio Recital Video, 2018

Congratulations to all my talented and hard-working students on this year's Winter Studio Recital! What a beautiful way to spend an evening!

Practice, rest, and enjoy the holiday break!

Allegretto 2 Endings

A group class activity helps students recognize the differences in the endings in Allegretto 2 and is a good introduction to form.

Back to School, Graduations, and the Summer Contest!

August Updates! Reminder - No Lessons August 20 through September 3. Summer break! Lessons resume after Labor Day.  Sherwood Registration: Please register for 15 of the 16 fall term lessons. Lesson Time Details to follow. I do have openings at FaithSlaker Music in Noble Square and at the Music Institute of Chicago in Evanston. I like to give preference to current families and friends, so let me know if you have anyone in mind that is looking for lessons! No Lessons September 7 - 9. I am participating in a Suzuki training course those days. A preview of Whitney's Senior Graduation Recital! Here she is playing some Hindemith this Summer! As many of you know, I am working on becoming a Certified Suzuki Piano Teacher trainer for North, Central, and South America. This is an enormous undertaking, and I'm hoping to make a bulk of the progress on the application this term. I am getting really close to having the application portfolio together and really appreciate your help with this. I'd like to thank the following families for their patience as I worked through the lesson-video process of this project: Declan's Family, Kabir's Family, the Amy's Family, Orson's Family, and the students in my Book 1 Suzuki group class! I hope to submit the entire portfolio by the end of September! Graham's Final Performance as a pre-college member of our piano community! In a small family gathering - August 2018. SUMMER CONTEST! Hello all PianoKids! You've worked hard all year and I'm so proud of all of you! I'd like to propose a contest for the remainder of the summer: send me a video by 8pm on Labor Day (Monday, September 3) of you playing your instrument in a creative, unusual, or impressive way. You may learn something entirely new, show us a new way of playing something old, incorporate technology or other instruments or even other skills that you have! Judges will determine the winner based on everyone's current level. The winner gets one free lesson to work on WHATEVER they want at the piano, plus their choice of where they fall in the order of the next recital. Have fun with it! I look forward to seeing everyone's submissions! September 1: Tuition Due September 3: Summer Contest Videos Due! September 6: Whitney's Senior Graduation Recital, Sherwood Recital Hall, 7:00pm September 7: Lyric Opera at Millennium Park September 12: Baroque in the Park September 20: Popular Classical Music by the CSO November 22 - 25: No Lessons, Thanksgiving Break! December 1: Britten's Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra (I'm super excited about this one!) at Symphony Center

Summer Updates 2018! ET with a Live Orchestra!

Summer Updates! Reminder - No Lessons August 20 through September 3. Summer break! Lessons resume after Labor Day. Fall Registration and Scheduling: Please fill out a form (below) by August 1st to share what your fall plans are so I can put together the fall schedule. SHERWOOD: I will be cutting back in my teaching hours at Sherwood starting September 1st. I will only be available two days a week.  There will be a slight increase in tuition fees at FaithSlaker Music this year. See my website for further details. I will be adding a day of teaching in Evanston through the Music Institute of Chicago starting September 7th. Congratulations all performers at the June 2018 Recital! With 88 keys and hundreds of internal strings, a standard piano produces a slew of unique sounds and tones. And mastering that complex system doesn’t only result in beautiful music — a new study says it can also help kids build up their language skills. See article. As many of you know, I am working on becoming a Certified Suzuki Piano Teacher trainer for North, Central, and South America. This is an enormous undertaking, and I'm hoping to make a bulk of the progress on the application this term. I am getting really close to having the application portfolio together and really appreciate your help with this. I'm still needing a couple of lesson videos and performance videos and if, for any reason, you do NOT want your child on video (this is used for educational purposes only), please let me know! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask! July 23: Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue at Ravinia, CSO August 1: E.T., live with full orchestra at Ravinia August 2: Raiders of the Lost Arc with full orchestra at Ravinia September 7: Lyric Opera at Millennium Park FaithSlaker Music Fall Registration Form HERE Sherwood Fall Scheduling Request Form HERE