14 I was five years old when I started my Suzuki journey. My mother saw an ad at the local newspaper that a new Suzuki violin group was just about to start. My mother signed me and my sister up via a lottery, due to the limited space in the music school. We were both lucky to get a spot in a group. My family knew nothing about playing the violin - my dad suggested that we warm up the rosin because otherwise we couldn’t get anything out of it! Luckily, we had our first violin lesson before he tried this out. I liked the violin from day one. I loved my teacher and loved playing with my friends. I don’t remember practising so much but I remember concerts at the park and little trips to neighbouring towns to play small concerts there. I remember summer workshops and Christmas parties at my teacher’s house. I remember the good, somehow dignified smell of the old music school and all the friends I had at the group. Then there was the time my little 4 year old sister fell asleep during her violin lesson and also when I went to my lesson with an empty violin case. I have a feeling that Suzuki always meant something fun, happy and interesting in my life. After my formal studies in a Conservatory, I worked as a violinist in an orchestra and thought that playing was the thing I really want to do. But after having my first child I began to think differently. Teaching children started to look like an interesting job. I still felt that I was missing tools to teach, and I looked for different methods and ways of teaching but somehow the Suzuki Method seemed too familiar to me to really study that. It took me two more pregnancies and some more years before I was ready to find my real passion and started my Teacher Training with Hannele Lehto. Suzuki training really changed my life. With Hannele I got to see the other angle of Suzuki Method and I started to appreciate the work of a good teacher very much. Nowadays I can say, I truly love my job. When Hannele retired I was very happy to get her teaching position in Käpylä Music School in Helsinki which specialises in the Suzuki Method During my Teacher Training years, my youngest child also started her violin lessons with Hannele Lehto. I was very lucky that I got to follow Hannele´s teaching during those years. Also, the group lessons of Marja Olamaa were a huge source of inspiration and influence for me. Being a Suzuki mum was very giving but for me it was also the hardest part of the Suzuki triangle. Becoming a Teacher Trainer is an incredible honour and a huge responsibility. I want to pass on the things that I have learnt and consider to be so important. I realise that I am at the beginning of my journey and I have much to learn. I feel so lucky that during my instructor years I was able to follow the exams of different juries, take part in different workshops and got to see the international openness in Suzuki Method It is so wonderful that even on this very week we are going to welcome friends from Central Europe to our music school to share some group classes and a concert together with students and teachers of from another country. When there are wars going on in the world, it is so important to show children that we are all the same although we come from different parts of the world. We live in a moment when children’s concentration is really challenged. Different screens are magically attracting children and there are so many hobbies that children can choose from. It is lovely that, as a violin teacher, I am allowed to concentrate on facing the child, I can look him or her in the eyes, listen to them very carefully, guide his or her hands and the whole body and nothing is interfering with our concentration. Even the parent can and must stop and concentrate during the lesson. Sustainability and being able to stop for a moment, are the best things we can offer for a child. Add to that the group lessons, where a child may make friends and learn from his or her peers, and I am super happy. How did I end up in this fine situation? I have a job that really has a meaning! 2024 Teacher Trainer Appointments Kirsi Patrikainen VIOLIN, FINLAND
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