This past Wednesday was the birthday of Shinichi Suzuki, born in Nagoya, Japan, on May 17, 1898. If his name doesn’t immediately resonate with you, perhaps thinking of the violin may help, as he developed a method used to teach even the youngest children to play what is typically considered one of the most difficult musical instruments to learn. Indeed, the “Suzuki method” has since been adapted to almost all musical instruments over the last half century and around the world. I became familiar with Suzuki and his method when our oldest child began learning to play the violin at age five. Since then, I’m not sure anything has...