This particular rereading of Ed Kreitman’s chapter, “Rote Versus Note,” did not reveal anything new to me. I think this is in no small part due to the fact that this chapter fundamentally shaped the way I think about learning by rote, by reading, and by ear in the first year that I began teaching. In the five years that I have been teaching, Teaching From the Balance Point, has been an indispensable companion for this exact reason. In so many areas of teaching violin, such as tonalization, posture, intonation, sight reading, vibrato, and ensemble playing, it is Kreitman’s words, Kreitman’s thinking models, that structure the way I think.

After reading the chapter I began reflecting on how Kreitman’s models have stuck with me so consistently, even though I’ve read the work of many other teachers as I’ve honed my craft. I’ve concluded there are two reasons for my attachment.

First, his manner of thinking and writing is logical, precise, and concise. After completing a large scale annotated bibliography in Prof. Shanton’s research class in which I studied the relationship of  Zen philosophy to Dr. Suzuki’s methodology, I see the vague, contradictory, and anecdotal style of Suzuki’s communication as profound and confounding as those of master Zen priests. Suzuki’s books and speeches are philosophical treatises, not practical approaches to teaching violin technique. The day Sandy Reuning visited us he talked about needing to provide Suzuki, when he was invited to teacher train in the United States, with a daily agenda of logically sequenced instruction. This is not to say that Suzuki lacked any ability to think about violin playing from an analytical perspective, as the order of pieces in the method and his revolutionary techniques for tone production obviously confirm, but that Suzuki’s structure of thinking isn’t communicated to new, English speaking teachers in his own writing and speeches. Kreitman’s thoughts, black and white as they are, can feel like a refuge, an island of systematic instruction, in a sea of philosophical idealism.

It was far easier, especially in my first few years of teaching, to grasp onto (like a buoy) Kreitman’s unambiguous interpretations of the Suzuki method. His understanding of Book 1 as a technical foundation, Book 2 as tone development, and Book 3 as a musicality playground, became the way I think about each book. His approach to principles and priorities, conveniently listed in order, changed the order in which I address student issues. The way he talks to his students about beginnings, middles and ends of notes is the way I now talk to my students about bow control. His sequential approach to teaching tonalization transformed my approach to teaching tonalization. I adopted his solutions because they were simple and elegant. And in my first few years of teaching, simple and elegant were the types of solutions I was grasping for.

The second reason I think I took to Kreitman’s model of thinking from the start is because I started with Kreitman’s thinking. I was certainly not a clean slate when I began to think as a teacher. As a 16 year old, I had interacted with Suzuki violin daily for close to 12 years. Beyond the method itself, my parents and grandparents were all teachers. A commitment to education, and the silly jargon and inside jokes that accompany the life of a teacher were a critical part of my environment. The idea of teaching the Suzuki method was not foreign, it was just new. We spend our time with our instruments, especially at such a young age, integrating their characteristic quirks into our functional abilities as human beings. Our goal is to intertwine ourselves so closely with the instrument that to play it is just to be ourselves. In that way, learning can sometimes feel more like unlearning. We want our unconscious to know the instrument, not our intellect. Which is why making the transition to being a teacher can be so hard. All of a sudden we are tasked with unpacking, untangling, dismantling the things which we have worked so hard to interweave.

When I made that decision to be a teacher, or at least to think like one, I picked up the book off my teacher’s bookshelf that looked practical and approachable to the broad range of teaching Suzuki violin. The book happened to be Kreitman’s.  Looking back now, I believe my new, impressionable teacher’s brain was waiting to grab onto a model like Kreitman’s. Because his model was the first introduced to my new brain, extremely clear as I discussed earlier, it became the fundamental structure of the way I think about teaching. This is the structure on which I hang all new information. In other words Kreitman built a framework for my mental compartmentalization of information related to Suzuki, teaching, and music.

It is eerie to consider one person’s thinking has had such a profound impact on the way I think, but in many ways I’m grateful. I’m grateful that it is Kreitman’s models, extremely thought out and grounded in Suzuki philosophy, and not the models of another, less careful pedagogue. I’m also grateful for the work that Kreitman, his mentors, and Suzuki before him, did to develop and trial a comprehensive approach to music education. Their work allows us, the new generation of teachers, to follow the path they worked so hard to clear. Once at the frontier, the new generation can work to clear more of the path for a future generation of teachers.

The passing down of philosophy, methodology, and mental models made the growth the the Talent Education movement possible, but could also keep the new generation of teachers from being strong enough develop further philosophy and methodology. Just spending the time to reflect on Kreitman’s chapter has illuminated for me all the ways in which my thinking has been shaped. I have biases, misunderstandings, blocks I need to be conscious of. As I work to become the best teacher I can be, it is crucial I don’t just adopt mental models because they are easy to understand or because they are the first of their kind I’ve come into contact. I need to integrate models into my way of thinking because I believe in them. The further and further we depart from those who first began teaching, perhaps the first music teachers, or Suzuki, or the first Suzuki teachers, or the first Suzuki teachers in America, the more important it will be for us to think critically on our own. We need to be able to evaluate which paths we want to follow, who we want to walk with, and how we can best train ourselves to clear the path on our own in the future.  Reflection, like this form of writing, is one of the best ways to work critically. It is something that I try to do as often as I can.