(b Nagoya, 18 Oct 1898; d Matsumoto, 26 Jan 1998). Japanese educationist and violin teacher, founder of the Suzuki method. His father Suzuki Masakichi (1859–1944) was first a maker of shamisen (Japanese string instruments), but he later began to manufacture violins, successfully mechanizing production in 1900 and founding the Suzuki Violin Seizō Co. in 1930. The company became the largest violin-making firm in Japan, while Masakichi himself went on making instruments by hand. Shin'ichi went to the Nagoya Commercial School (graduating in 1915), and concurrently studied the violin under Andō Kō (1878–1963), a pupil of Joachim; he went to Berlin (1921–8), where he became a pupil of Karl Klingler, another of Joachim’s pupils. On his return he established the Suzuki Quartet with three of his brothers. In 1930 he became president of the Teikoku Music School; a few years later he founded the Tokyo String Orchestra and as its conductor introduced Baroque music to Japanese audiences.
Suzuki’s educational method is not a mere process of music education, but his philosophy and its application. In 1933 he realized that children of any nationality could freely speak their mother tongue regardless of their intelligence, remembering 4000 words by the age of five. He also noticed that young children accept high-level stimuli with hardly any pain, form voluntary desires and acquire excellent abilities, while learning their mother tongue as naturally as they develop their characters. He believed that good environments and conditions are conducive to the development of ability, as in learning speech, and decided to apply this principle to his violin teaching. Although not ruling out hereditary factors, he believed that any child could develop a high standard of ability by adapting external stimuli. The repetition of stimuli, and the period, the frequency and the time of stimuli given to the child are important conditions; his theory is related to the physiology of cerebra. His first pupil taught by this new method was Etō Toshiya, then a small child.
Towards the end of World War II Suzuki moved to Matsumoto, Nagano prefecture, where he organized the Yōji Kyōiku Dōshikai (Group for Child Education). In 1948 he won the cooperation of the master of Hongo Primary School, Matsumoto, where he organized an experimental class of 40 students. Pupils in any subject were given only a few exercises, easy enough to enable the whole class to answer perfectly; the next day the same exercises were reviewed before proceeding. In this way it was possible for everyone to reach the same high standard. Suzuki went on to found the Sainō Kyōiku Yōji Gakuen, where a class of 60 children aged three to five is taught Japanese pronunciation, Chinese letters, expression, calligraphy, drawing, English conversation and gymnastics, following his method.
In the Sainō Kyōiku Kenkyū-kai, Matsumoto (founded in 1950), Suzuki taught violin playing according to his method. As his main purpose was the development of character through musical education, or more specifically through violin playing, he avoided using the words ‘music’ or ‘violin’ in the name of his institute. 196 pupils graduated in 1952; in 1972 the graduates included 2321 violinists. At the annual meeting of the institute at the Budō-kan, Tokyo, there is usually a performance of such pieces as a Bach gavotte or a Boccherini minuet by 3000 children or of a Mozart violin concerto by a small group of older students. The Sainō Kyōiku Kenkyū-kai has 83 local chapters throughout Japan, with 280 classes, 160 teachers and 6000 students. The Suzuki method has also been applied to the cello, flute, piano and other instruments. From 1964 Suzuki frequently toured the USA with his students, giving lectures and demonstrations; violin lessons according to his method are given at several American universities and conservatories, including Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 1973 he visited England, Switzerland and the USA with nine violin pupils. In 1996 the Suzuki Shin'ichi Memorial Hall was inaugurated in Matsumoto. Among internationally known violinists those who were taught by the Suzuki method are Etō Toshiya, Toyota Kōji, Kobayashi Takeshi, Kobayashi Kenji, Suzuki Shūtarō, Urakawa Takaya, Kuronuma Yuriko, Shida Toshiko and Satō Yōko.
T.R. Brunson: An Adaptation of the Suzuki-Kendall Violin Method for Heterogeneous Stringed Instrument Classes (diss., U. of Arizona, 1969)
C.A. Cook: Suzuki Education in Action (New York, 1970)
J. Sperti: Adaptation of Certain Aspects of the Suzuki Method to the Teaching of the Clarinet (diss., New York U., 1970)
S. Suzuki: Sainō kaihatsu no jissai [The practice of developing talent] (Tokyo, 1971)
R.K. Keraus: An Achievement Study of Private and Class Suzuki Instruction (diss., U. of Rochester, 1973)
E. Mills and T.C. Murthy, eds.: The Suzuki Conception: an Introduction to a Successful Method for Early Music Education (Berkeley, CA, 1973)
S. Suzuki: Suzuki Shin'ichi Zen-shū [Suzuki's complete works] (Tokyo, 1985)
N. Nomura and Y. Nakayama, eds.: : Ongaku kyōiku wo yomu – gakusei, Kyōshi, Kenkyūsha no tameno ongaku Kyōiku shiryōshū [Reading music eduation – materials of music education for students, teachers and researchers] (Tokyo, 1995)
MINAO SHIBATA/MASAKATA KANAZAWA