There are three fields of study which will shape my teaching career.

Zen. Fine art. And technology.

Suzuki and Technology

We know that Shinichi Suzuki was an avid user of technology– even working closely with Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka. You could even speculate that technology is the reason the method is sucessful.

Technology was used to bathe students in reference recordings. Technology enabled the first recordings of young Japanese children to make it to America. Technology enabled students to send their graduation recitals to Suzuki and receive written feedback from him. Suzuki’s embrace of technology is what made the method possible.

But I see a limited embrace of technology in our community today.

Sure a few people have podcasts, and a handful make videos, and some teacher training has (finally) been adapted to online training. But we could do so much more.

Today I’m going to spend a little bit of time discussing my commitment to data collection, how I do it in 2022, and how I hope to do it in the future.

The Value of Data Collection

Students experience us vertically (we are their only violin teacher each week), but we experience them horizontally (in the stream of all of our students each week). Their experience of us is different than our experience of them.

In order to track what is happening objectively with each student I believe it is essential to collect data on them.

Data allows you to study one student over the span of years. You can see where they surged. You can see where they lagged. You can take note of how many performances they gave, which group classes they spent the most time in, and how long they were on a certain violin size.

When you have data you can also study groups of students at once. For example, you can look at the cross-section of your studio based on age, or which group class they’re in, or when they started with you.

We are incapable of holding all of the data about one student in our mind, let alone holding all of the data for 35 students in our mind.

Instead of relying on entirely on your guts and feelings, collect and process data. With a combination of data and instinct you will be able learn powerful lessons from your studio past that will inform your studio future.

Which Data to Collect

I currently track the following…

• Name and Biographical information (family, birthday, etc.)
• Current age
• Book history
• Group class history
• Start date for learning violin
• All recitals performed
• All book graduations performed
• Current violin size and shop
• Interventions (hard conversations where we pivot or recommit).

I have a separate notebook, one for each year, where I take notes from every lesson.

As of November 2022 I record every single lesson and keep an archive of each semester’s lessons on a LaCie hard drive.

At the beginning of each semester I develop a vision for the student which includes (1) destination goals for Winter, Summer, and 3 years away. I also name our (2) Top Priority and the issue that is (3) Most Likely to Derail Us.

Software to Use

I already mentioned where I store my video archive and teaching notes (hard drive and journals).

The other data points are stored in a Notion Database.

I really love notion because it allows you to edit a file on a student while also storing all of that student’s information in a database. Within the sheet view (pictured above) you can simply type text into each cell or set up drop down options. There is a lot of versatility to the sheet and it is completely free to use!

I enjoy using Notion as basically a very fancy, extra functional version of a spreadsheet.

Metrics to Attend To

In the business world they have something called KPIs which means “Key Performance Indicators.” An example of a KPI might be COA or “Customer Acquisition Cost” or CLV which means “Customer Lifetime Value.” These metrics are easily calculable places to look for some indication of the health of the business.

Mr. Beast, the second most subscribed to private YouTuber in the world, is famous for his emphasis on YouTube metrics. The one he values the most is Audience Retention. He even has a checklist, which he talks about in the video below, that he has reverse engineered from successful and unsuccessful audience retention that his employees hold each video accountable to.

I think there are many excellent teachers who are excellent because they are subconsciously tracking metrics. I think there are a lot of teachers who have no clue what they are doing week to week, month to month, year to year.

If you track metrics you can determine for yourself what is important. But here are a few that I’m leaning into.

• Number of recitals per year
• Sticking points and bottle necks (are there any places where many students are spending more than a month learning a new piece because they haven’t been prepped well)
• Pacing per student (for each book, each piece, and total time studying the violin)

By tracking metrics such as these I’m able to ask important questions about my own teaching and uncover links (perhaps ones that I would have never noticed) between certain teaching strategies and environmental cues and learning pace.

A metaphor I have for this is if I recorded a video of my playing and used an analytical tool to measure my decibel level over the whole piece. Then I could speculate what violin techniques I used, and what tools I could use, to raise dynamic contrast. I might notice that when my bow is closer to the fingerboard that results in lower dBs. When I play closer to the bridge it is louder. Of course as violin teachers this is obvious, but I don’t think studying teaching (especially when studying an entire studio charted over the course of a year) is as obvious or has been studied as comprehensively.

I like to think of my own studio as an experimental laboratory. Anything I wish existed in the outside world or for other teachers or had been comprehensively studied in the past, I’m just jumping in and trying it in our own laboratory.

Do I think I’m the best person to collect data on? No. But do I wish everyone collected data and shared it across the whole community? Yes!

So if that’s the case, we’re going to lead by example and collect all the data we can.

Future Opportunities

On that note, I think there are some awesome metrics and tools that could be developed for future use.

1. Automated video processor. You could take footage from a video and have it automatically collect data like date, piece worked on, elements taught in which sequence, elements taught for which duration, did the student bring in the piece at a successful level (10/10) or did it come in unsuccessful (3/10), did the teacher leave it/improve it/or give a simple instruction for improvement in practice, the ratio of positive to negative feedback in lesson, the amount of time the student played, etc.
2. Automated data generation. It would be incredible to see the above data alone, and then charted or graphed over time, automatically without teacher calculation. Then you could look at a similar aggregated chart for the whole studio, or contrast two students to each other.
3. Data sharing. It would be amazing to have a way to open up another teacher’s data stream and study their teaching through their numbers, too. This could lead to much more rapid and specific instruction from terrific teacher trainers. This would open up the opportunity for some experts to write meta-studies about both trends and counter-cultural successes by studying many, many teachers’ data points.
4. Machine learning. It might be possible for the aggregation of data and statistics to allow for AI generated suggested lesson plans. Just like how chess players have learned to use computer aided chess playing in their practice, teachers could do the same. Nothing will ever replace a human being, but machine learning could certainly augment a teacher’s ability in the lesson.

I want to underline, once more, how much potentiality there is for the use of technology in the Suzuki Method. Suzuki teachers are underusing what is possible with computers today. What used to be tedious but necessary (recording on massive camcorders, mailing each other tapes, writing letters) we now do in a matter of clicks on our phones instantaneously. It is time to reach into the full capability of our computers to bolster, educate, and study each other and this method. I feel like I’m just scratching the surface, but that so few people even think there is a surface here to scratch.

I hope you join me in this project of depth.