abutterfly of music fluttered her wings in japan many years ago and the ripples are now reaching india to create magic in the lives of some of mumbais children it was after the second world war that a man called shinichi suzuki concluded that the only way to restore sanity in a generation of children ravaged by loss was by bringing music into their lives so he devised a curriculum and method of teaching the violin it could have been any instrument really the idea was that just as children have the innate skill to learn their mother tongue they have the ability to learn an instrument suzuki pioneered the idea that preschool children could learn to play the violin if the learning steps were small enough and the instrument was scaled down to suit their size the idea was not to create prodigies just people who would eventually love music and all the beauty that comes with it this humanist educator and philosopher who was nominated for the nobel peace prize believed if a child hears fine music from the day of his birth and learns to play it himself he develops sensitivity discipline and endurance he gets a beautiful heart so when the directors of the national centre for the performing arts ncpa mumbais premier cultural bodywhich has arguably been under threat for harbouring largely geriatric audiencesdecided to bring children into its fold it was only natural that the suzuki method would be the best one to follow it started with a pilot project at the avabai petit school in bandra three years ago within months the students transformed from being shy and quiet into confident little creatures who seemed to be saying look at me says zane dalal conductor of the symphony orchestra of india soi and one of the forces behind this idea the pride pleasure and this tremendous sense of individualism that learning music gives will stay with them and help in some way or the other he says today suzuki violin teachers farm out to eight schools across the city children also learn at the ncpa often on a windswept lawn next to the monumental theatres goaded on by a venezuelan cellist called lisamary guiliany who coordinates the program the last two weeks have seen particularly intensive rehearsals for a show at tata theatre on march 7 where more than 200 children will raise their bows together one of the ideas that drove dalal and marat bisengaliev artistic director of soi was to create future audiences for classical music as well as players qualified to apply to any orchestra in the world in fact the success of the programme has spawned the next levela conservatory along the lines of the russian school of music the programme which currently has 14 students was started last october and will be launched more formally in june this year the teachers are highly qualified musicians from soi santoor maestro shivkumar sharma speaking on the need to