Interesting research came out recently supporting Dr. Suzuki’s approach to music education. Specifically, a paper in the Journal of Neuroscience explains that while listening to relevant stimuli is not enough, practicing some, and then listening to the stimuli was as effective in improving future performance as if the participants had practiced twice as long (instead of listening to the stimuli).

Interesting. I wonder whether this effect can be seen in other areas of expertise outside of music? Perhaps instead of listening to Suzuki CDs, can an employee spend some of his time simply observing correct activity and be as expert as if he had been engaged in the activity himself? This lends itself to the “stolen knowledge” theory perhaps, as proposed by Brown and Duguid, implying that some knowledge is best stolen by observing others in situated, authentic activity?