21 Extract from the Diary of Bernard Leach, 1952. Leach was the UK’s most presƟgious poƩer in his day. He travelled to Japan and met and worked with Hamada Sensei. He was tasked to work in Matsumoto village to paint post-cards to encourage tourism. It was there that he had in interesƟng encounter… S eptember. “Before I came up to Matsumoto this year, Kaneko Yanagi told me of a Mr Suzuki who has his School of Music in the city. She said that he was the leading teacher of the violin in Japan, and a remarkable man, and she hoped we would meet. In due course, he invited us to come to his school and hear his children play. We arrived just as he was about to start his aŌernoon class and he asked us if we would like to sit and watch and listen. There were about fiŌeen boys and girls between the ages of five and thirteen in the large room and a number of parents siƫng against the walls on chairs. He called the youngest, a boy of five, who came out into the middle of the room, quite unabashed, with a Ɵny fiddle under his arm. Without any fuss, fully concentrated, he put his bow to the strings in no uncertain manner, and played a short and simple piece by Bach which made me sit up in astonishment. It was so pure. Then one of the older girls played a Bach Chaconne, I was going to say like a concert arƟste only it was beƩer than many, there was no seeking for effects- it was just Bach. I had never heard a child play like that. Mr Suzuki then took the whole group in unison. Standing before them he started a few notes on his own violin on fragments of one piece aŌer another-Chopin-Mozart, without explanaƟon or warning, and in a second they were all with him as one, true and free. Tears came to my eyes and I saw that the rest of our party were also deeply touched. AŌer that, this strange Japanese teacher divided the group, waving to one half to stop, and then to the other, at any moment, leaving the rest to conƟnue without pause or break. Next he asked them all sorts of quesƟons whilst they conƟnued to play-'How many electric bulbs are there in this room?', 'Tell me what is wriƩen on that scroll', 'If you cannot see, go and look, but don't stop playing', 'Now, stand on one leg and play, now the other, now squat'. Then he asked half the group to go downstairs to the floor below, walk along the corridor and come up the other stairway and see if they could return to the room having kept perfect Ɵme with those who had remained. They did so. These children obviously loved their teacher, but directly they began bowing they were completely engrossed in the music. AŌerwards, we had much talk with Mr Suzuki and subsequently invited him and the whole class, with their parents, to spend half a day at our hotel. The proprietor and his wife and the staff entered into the spirit of the occasion and we had a wonderful Ɵme with good music and food and fun. It seems that Mr Shinichi Suzuki spent eight years in Germany and married a German. When she parted from him he returned home and gave up the idea of being a concert arƟst himself in favour of teaching children. He became convinced that the usual training in music for the highly giŌed overlooked the almost untapped latent potenƟal of, not only the average child, but even of those who are classed as tone-deaf. Mr Suzuki concludes that the latency is due enƟrely to post-natal condiƟons. This I find difficult to accept, but whether ante- or post-natal, a more or less infinite potenƟal seems to be revealed. The fact remains that the majority of the children Mr Suzuki teaches belong to the last category, as do also his best pupils, some of whom have been sent to famous teachers in the West for further study. It is Mr Suzuki's belief that the tonedeaf child, so called, is the product of an unmusical background, or of fear, and that it takes about as many years to undo the damage done as it takes to produce the condiƟon, and that is why he likes to start with the child very young indeed. He menƟoned one infant of only two years of age to whom he began playing the simplest tunes for a few minutes each day to penetrate and sustain the child's aural emoƟons by constant repeƟƟon. This man holds the magic of release, and not in music alone, as we discovered in conversaƟon. He saw the infinite potenƟal in the human soul, he knew his giŌ and was alight. So were his children. He told me that he had arrived at his original conclusion by considering the fact that all children master the complex instrument of their mother-tongue with ease. At one point I asked him why he was teaching Japanese mountain children foreign music. He turned to the group and they played various Japanese melodies; turning back to me, he answered, ‘Am I not right in thinking that there is only the music of mankind?' I am not sure that I can accept all Mr Suzuki's premises outright, but results speak with an inescapable authority and we have not only been deeply impressed but have also begun, at least, to relate his conclusions with our own concerning the teaching of craŌs.” The above is an excerpt from the published diary of Bernard Leach enƟtled “A PoƩer in Japan”. Thank you to Helen Brunner, Violin Teacher Trainer UK for submiƫng this interesƟng piece.
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