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Downers Grove, IL —
Downers Grove’s Susan Shields insists her life could have been very different if her childhood neighbor had an old tuba in the attic instead of a violin.
The violin and piano teacher — who also teaches country and western line dancing — has been making music and musicians her whole life. She started playing the violin when she was 9.
“My whole life feels like an accident,” she said. “My mother said they were offering free lessons at the public school. Our neighbor has a violin in the attic and will let us use it. I said, ‘Sure.’”
After graduating college, Shields found herself in Japan in 1966 to learn the Suzuki Method of teaching from virtuoso Shimichi Suzuki, father of the revolutionary method of teaching violin. The method employs what Suzuki called the mother tongue approach — if children have the skill to acquire their mother tongue, they have the necessary ability to become proficient on a musical instrument.
“I was so excited,” she said. “He was the world famous teacher and I was the first American. I went to the first lesson and it cost 3,000 yen, which at that time was $8. I was astonished. I went back next week and when I tried to pay, he said $8 was for a month of lessons.”
Shields, who spoke no Japanese, found herself living in a rural city 100 miles from Tokyo in a 6-foot-by-6-foot room.
“I lived totally in a Japanese style,” Shields said. “I slept on the floor, went to the public bath. I was a tall red-haired person living in this village with a population of 150,000 Japanese and six Caucasians. Living in the sticks like that, I had to learn Japanese.”
After a few years of study, Suzuki invited Shields to teach, the first American to do so. She would go on to be the first to teach the Suzuki Method in the U.S., and would conduct workshops in Venezuela, New York, California and Japan, where she taught students and teachers.
A native of Long Beach, Calif., Shields came to Chicago in 1979 to take violin lessons from Roland Vamos at Northwestern University.
She has been teaching since she was in high school, 53 years.
“Nowadays I teach from all different styles and books,” she said. “Country and western, rock and roll , jazz, from the first few months of lessons.”
She also teaches violin and piano at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Downers Grove.
Shields also has been teaching line dancing for 20 years and holds classes for $2 at the York Township Center at 11 a.m. Mondays.
At 67, Shields said she doesn’t think much about retiring.
“Violin is my life, it’s fun, why should I retire? It keeps me with children and I think that’s important as you get older.”
All that because her neighbor had a violin in the attic.
“If the neighbor had a tuba my whole life would have been different,” Shields said.
Downers Grove’s Susan Shields insists her life could have been very different if her childhood neighbor had an old tuba in the attic instead of a violin.
The violin and piano teacher — who also teaches country and western line dancing — has been making music and musicians her whole life. She started playing the violin when she was 9.
“My whole life feels like an accident,” she said. “My mother said they were offering free lessons at the public school. Our neighbor has a violin in the attic and will let us use it. I said, ‘Sure.’”
After graduating college, Shields found herself in Japan in 1966 to learn the Suzuki Method of teaching from virtuoso Shimichi Suzuki, father of the revolutionary method of teaching violin. The method employs what Suzuki called the mother tongue approach — if children have the skill to acquire their mother tongue, they have the necessary ability to become proficient on a musical instrument.
“I was so excited,” she said. “He was the world famous teacher and I was the first American. I went to the first lesson and it cost 3,000 yen, which at that time was $8. I was astonished. I went back next week and when I tried to pay, he said $8 was for a month of lessons.”
Shields, who spoke no Japanese, found herself living in a rural city 100 miles from Tokyo in a 6-foot-by-6-foot room.
“I lived totally in a Japanese style,” Shields said. “I slept on the floor, went to the public bath. I was a tall red-haired person living in this village with a population of 150,000 Japanese and six Caucasians. Living in the sticks like that, I had to learn Japanese.”
After a few years of study, Suzuki invited Shields to teach, the first American to do so. She would go on to be the first to teach the Suzuki Method in the U.S., and would conduct workshops in Venezuela, New York, California and Japan, where she taught students and teachers.
A native of Long Beach, Calif., Shields came to Chicago in 1979 to take violin lessons from Roland Vamos at Northwestern University.
She has been teaching since she was in high school, 53 years.
“Nowadays I teach from all different styles and books,” she said. “Country and western, rock and roll , jazz, from the first few months of lessons.”
She also teaches violin and piano at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Downers Grove.
Shields also has been teaching line dancing for 20 years and holds classes for $2 at the York Township Center at 11 a.m. Mondays.
At 67, Shields said she doesn’t think much about retiring.
“Violin is my life, it’s fun, why should I retire? It keeps me with children and I think that’s important as you get older.”
All that because her neighbor had a violin in the attic.
“If the neighbor had a tuba my whole life would have been different,” Shields said.
