As a musician and composer, I was greatly saddened to read in The Japan Times-incorporated International New York Times the Dec. 9 article "Fraud accusations stir violin world," describing an American violinist's despicable attack on the late Shinichi Suzuki, Japan's highly respected founder of the world-famous Talent Education violin method.
That Suzuki could be guilty of such a thing as fabricating part of his wonderful biography "Nurtured by Love: A New Approach to Education" is truly unthinkable.
In 1969, one of my jobs at NHK was interviewing leading Japanese musicians on the broadcaster's international "Radio Japan," and Suzuki was one of them. I traveled to his school in Matsumoto and watched him teach his groups of small children playing music by Mozart and Vivaldi.
I was astounded by their beautiful tone and style, acquired simply by hearing the music daily at home and then faithfully imitating their teacher over and over in class.
Suzuki tells in his book how it suddenly occurred to him that babies learn to speak fluent Japanese simply by imitating their mothers, proving the talent is innate. He called it the "mother tongue method."
I was deeply impressed because that was how I learned to speak perfect Japanese and French. And I thought if only I could have learned the violin that way too!
Suzuki's is a remarkable book with its marvelous philosophy that all children are born of Mother Nature's life force with potential talent that only needs proper development. I wanted so much for this knowledge to be spread abroad as soon as possible, so I helped Suzuki's German wife Waltraud to complete her translation of the book into English.
Suzuki's book is a truly uplifting and inspirational work.
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.