Having started originally as a Suzuki teacher-training program, the School is committed to the ideas, ideals, and educational practices of Dr. Shinichi Suzuki. Instruction from the elementary through the intermediate levels is conducted according to Suzuki's precepts, and the benefits of the Suzuki philosophy and attitude persist as students move into the mainstream of advanced study along traditional lines.
Suzuki's educational precepts are based on his conviction that every “child can be educated,” and the corollary assumption that every child will be educated. Success is built into his approach, both in the manner of teaching and in the choice of repertoire contained in the volumes of the Suzuki Violin, Cello and Piano Schools.
Suzuki contends that, since all children learn to speak a language by imitating what they hear around them, so can they learn the language of music in the same fashion. His approach to teaching music might be termed a linguistic one, or, as he puts it, a Mother Tongue approach.
In Suzuki study therefore, children learn to play their instrument at first by ear, learning the music they are to play by extensive listening to recordings of each piece. At The School for Strings, note-reading is introduced early in the musicianship/theory classes, but the two skills -- playing the instrument and reading music while doing so -- are not combined until the child has achieved enough technical control of the instrument to ensure comfortable success in reading and playing simultaneously.
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