Suzuki voice - any suggestions?

Early Learning Teaching Your Child Music
1

There is a suzuki voice program for kids aged 0-6 years in my area. Its a program where the teacher would sing some songs and give few vocal or breathing exercises. My 1 year old son has thoroughly enjoyed the introductory class.

Now I am in a dilemma if I should continue this program because I read in other forums that starting vocal lessons for kids younger than 12 year old might harm their vocal chords. Do someone have any thoughts about it? Is it really harmful for kids to begin vocal lessons so young.

2

I have heard that it is ok if you have a trained vocal coach who is knowledgeable in training a child.
The trained coach will also teach techniques to prevent damage to their vocal cords.

3

Hi There
I am a suzuki voice teacher in Australia and saw your post through google keyword alerts I have set up for suzuzki voice :slight_smile:

I wanted to reply to you because there are a lot of misconceptions about young children starting anything unusual and voice is a good example of this.

The suzuki approach is designed for little people. Typically children are able to start instruments around 3 years, depending on the child and family. The voice program is unique, as you may know, because we are able to start with expectant mothers and their unborn children who can hear from about 18 weeks. Amazing, isn’t it!

Suzuki voice teachers undergo specific training and instruction on child development, voice pedagogy and suzuki philosophy. The suzuki voice approach is designed for tiny people and their tiny voices. All the ‘exercersises’ and games are designed to be gentle, natural sounds and vocalisations that will not harm developing voices. We don’t sing scales or arpeggios with tiny voices!! It’s all natural and follows developing and emerging sound production. Technique is taught through the repertoire which is graded. That means you start with easy stuff and gradually move through the carefully sequenced repertoire towards more and more complex stuff as the child and voice matures.

Voice teacher training is difficult and very involved for the reasons I’ve mentioned and also because doing the wrong thing, as you pointed out, causes physical damage to a growing child. This simply won’t happen with an accredited voice teacher!!! We are constantly examined, constantly undertaking more training and must do a certain number of hours to even maintain accreditation as a suzuki voice teacher.

If you and your child are enjoying voice then keep going!! The younger the children start, the more intuitive music becomes for them. It’s just so lovely!! Also the younger kids develop the most amazingly sensitive ‘listening ears’. They can hear good tone, they can develop their own sound easily and freely. It is just a joy to watch.

Ok, final statements: check your teacher’s accreditation through your local suzuki association to make sure you are in safe, qualified hands. Otherwise, go to www.suzukivoice.com and all the accredited teachers are listed up there. Any dramas, contact your local suzuki association.

I think there are also a few youtube videos of the suzuki voice kids at an argentinean songs for sharing workshop, which are quite cool. Lovely for you to see where voice will take you (vocally and travel wise!!!). Those little folk songs in book one lead to beautiful, BEAUTIFUL music down the track.

Good luck!!!
If I can help you any further, please get in touch.

Ainslie

4

Thank you Ainslie for the very detailed explanation. That clears all my doubts.

May I ask you one more thing. What is your opinion about classical singing. In my culture, classical singing is a very professional field. But I have heard from other people in the western classical that singing is thought to be a low profile job in the music field. Only when they fail in all musical instruments, that a student chooses voice as an instrument.

Can you share your opinions on the comment that singing is not a high profile job. I am not musically talented, so I know very little about all these.