ASTA Certification For Levels
of Proficiency and Progress
So much private studio teaching is done with no clear
cut goal or plan. We use the excuse that progress and
proficiency depends on the talent of the student.
Teachers in many cases dismiss their own responsibility
for a young student’s achievements. A clear given goal
must be established. The teacher must nurture and inspire
a student to accomplish some established goal regardless
of the innate talent that the student might possess. In
the fifty five years that I have taught, I have had many
students develop and become successful in teaching strings
who came to me with very little background or technical
proficiency. It is easy to teach the student who has the
gift of talent and good background. The challenge is
taking the average talent and establish a foundation of
fundamentals, good posture, and a thorough
knowledge of the principles of sequential pedagogy. It is
then possible for a student to build a respectable technical and
musical foundation. It prepares them for the
necessary training to continue and grow as a successful
string teacher. The gifted move on in the venue of
performance, and find their own way in a thousand
different careers great and small. They still make a major
contribution as professional performing musicians. Even
among the great talents that had gone through the studios
of Galamian and Dorothy Delay, there are only a very few
that make the international scene of the concert stage.
Yet, in the venue of their given working professions these
other talented students have become successful and
reknowned in a given perimeter of location of an
established musical scene.
Based on the above premise, the ASTA has put in place
a national certification program that offers to private
studio teachers a quest for a viable commitment for a long
term instrumental study program for young string players.
It designs the program for all levels of students and
raises standards of performance that results in a child
truly experiencing accomplishment at all levels of
proficiency. This is done in Canada, Great Britain, and
Australia. The hallmark characteristic of the ASTA’s
program is the flexibility of the choice of repertoire and
studies in which a teacher can choose from. This adds a
visible emblem of prestige to a teacher’s studio in a
given community. Over time, the studio is given more
support and the enthusiasm of the parents makes for a
better relationship between the home of the child and the
studio. This is important. I think there is a consensus
that the success of any child must start with the
nurturing and fostering of the parent in any endeavor that
a child undertakes. A good analogy is that any athletic
endeavor that a child undertakes, the parent always is
actively involved. The same goes for music lessons.
The initiation of this endeavor must begin with
the enthusiastic leadership of the teacher. Start small.
Enroll only a very few of your choice students to
participate. Personalize and hand out a letter to the
parents describing the advantages their child will gain
participating in the program. Get the handbook which is
available on line of the web site of ASTA. It goes
without saying that every teacher who teaches privately,
should be a member of the ASTA National Professional
Organization. It is inconceivable for any private teacher
to teach without professional credentials that go beyond a
diploma or degree. I don’t think any lawyer, doctor, or
any other profession that has private practice would be
allowed to practice their professional expertise based
only on a degree. They also display their profession by a
license and a certificate of membership to their national
professional organization. All members of ASTA usually have a certificate of membership hanging
on the wall of their studio (or certainly should have).
The final and most important point is the advantages
this offers to the students. The preparation of the
Certification for Strings is no different than preparing
for a studio recital, a youth orchestra audition or a
festival except it is non competitive and the examinations
are not public. This program make future auditions and
performances more successful. They receive well-deserved
Certificates of Achievement as they complete the tasks at
each level. It becomes an expected annual activity for
all students, crowning the progress made each year.
Ultimately with a track record the student will gain a
national recognition that carries to universities, music
schools, youth orchestras, and summer camps which the
national standard will be a measuring stick for which a
young string player has an accomplished level of
advancement for these above institutions. Remember this
again, is a national standard that was built by the well
recognized and internationally respected American String
Teachers Association for the advancement of string playing
in America.
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