Suzuki believed in training musicians not only to be better musicians, but also to be better teachers. Suzuki Associations worldwide offer ongoing teacher-training programs to prospective and continuing Suzuki teachers. Hermann, Evelyn. Shinichi Suzuki: The Man and his Philosophy. Warner Brothers Publications, 1981, ISBN 0-87487-589-7. The parent of the young student is expected to supervise instrument practice every day, instead of leaving the child to practice alone between lessons, and to attend and take notes at every lesson so they can coach the student effectively. This element of the method is so prominent that a newspaper article once dubbed it "The Mom-Centric Method." [3] Technique [ edit ] This includes attending local classical music concerts, developing friendships with other music students, and listening to recordings of professional musicians in the home every day, starting before birth if possible.

Preucil, William & Doris (November, 1985). "The Evolution of the Suzuki Viola School". Journal of the American Viola Society Vol. 1, #2, pp18-20. Instruments are adapted to meet the demands of a small child's body in various ways. This lowers the age at which people are anatomically ready to begin studying an instrument. Scaled-down instrument sizes are used for children studying stringed instruments. Curved-headjoint flutes with displaced keys (which are closer together than normal flute keys) and holes are also available, making it possible for children as young as three to study the flute through the Suzuki method. Height-adjustable chairs, benches, and footrests are used for piano, guitar, cello, and string bass. Although fractional-sized student violins were available when Suzuki began to teach, the success and popularity of his idea that pre-school aged children could also learn to play prompted violinmakers to scale violins down to even smaller sizes than before. Trumpet was added to the International Suzuki Association's list of Suzuki Method instruments in 2011. The application of Suzuki's teaching philosophy to the trumpet is currently being researched in Sweden; the first Trumpet teacher training course to be offered by the European Suzuki Association in 2013. (Suzuki Teacher Training for Trumpet, 2013).The core Suzuki literature is published on audio recordings and in sheet music books for each instrument, and Suzuki teachers supplement the repertoire common to each instrument as needed, particularly in the area of teaching reading. One of the innovations of the Suzuki method was to make quality recordings of the beginners' pieces widely available, performed by professional musicians. Many traditional (non-Suzuki trained) music teachers also use the Suzuki repertoire, often to supplement their curriculum, and they adapt the music to their own philosophies of teaching.

Eventually, the center of the Suzuki movement in education was established as the Talent Education Research Institute (TERI) in Matsumoto. TERI hosts thousands of people each year—students, parents, teachers, (and teacher trainees). Other organizations have sprung up all over the world to help oversee the movement and train teachers. These include the Asia Suzuki Association, the Suzuki Association of the Americas, the European Suzuki Association (which is currently assisting in the beginnings of the Suzuki movement in Africa), and the Pan-Pacific Suzuki Association.(International Suzuki Association, 2016). This is intended to raise technical and musical ability. Review pieces, along with "preview" parts of music a student is yet to learn, are often used in place of the more traditional etude books. Traditional etudes and technical studies are not used in the beginning stages, which focus almost exclusively on a set of performance pieces. At age 22, Suzuki travelled to Germany to find a violin teacher to continue his studies. While there, he studied privately with Karl Klingler, but did not receive any formal degree past his high school diploma. He met and became friends with Albert Einstein, who encouraged him in learning classical music. He also met, courted, and married his wife, Waltraud. (Suzuki, Nurtured by Love) Another innovation of Suzuki was to deliberately leave out the large amount of technical instructions and exercises found in many beginners' music books of his day. He favored a focus on melodic song-playing over technical exercises, and asked teachers to allow students to make music from the beginning, helping to motivate young children with short, attractive songs which can themselves be used as technique building exercises. Each song in the common repertoire is carefully chosen to introduce some new or higher level of technique than the previous selection.Kreitman, Edward. Teaching from the Balance Point: A Guide for Suzuki Teachers, Parents, and Students. Western Springs School of Talent Education Publications, Western Springs, IL, 1998. The violin method was compiled and edited by Suzuki in ten volumes, beginning with Suzuki's Variations on " Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and ending with two Mozart concertos. The first 3 books are mostly graded arrangements of music not originally written for solo violin, although book 1 contains several original compositions by Suzuki for violin & piano. These arrangements are drawn from folk tunes and from composers such as Bach, Telemann, Dvořák, Beethoven, Schubert, Handel, Paganini, Boccherini and Brahms. Books 4–10 continue the graded selection by incorporating 'standard' or 'traditional' student violin solos by Seitz, Vivaldi, Bach, Veracini, Corelli, Dittersdorf, Rameau, Handel, Mozart, Fiocco, and others. The Suzuki violin repertoire is currently in the process of being revised by the International Suzuki Association, and as part of the revision process, each regional Suzuki Association provides a recommended list of supplemental repertoire appropriate for students in books 6-8. The SAA supplemental repertoire list includes pieces by Bach, Kreisler, Elgar, Bartok, Shostakovich, Copland, and others (Suggested Supplementary Repertoire, 2013, and Preucil, 1985).