ASTA AZ: American String Teachers Association

ASTA CAP

By Shelly Rich, Violin/Suzuki Instructor at Northern Arizona University

ASTA-AZ is launching a new annual solo festival for string students of all ages and levels, organized and promoted by ASTA National, called the Certificate Advancement Program, or ASTA CAP.

As defined by ASTA National:

“the Certificate Advancement Program seeks to establish definite goals and awards for students of all levels through non-competitive examinations.  Students are judged on technical and musical preparedness at specific levels (Foundation Level through Level 10) by an examiner of musical and pedagogical stature.  A certificate of achievement is awarded for each level successfully completed.”

This is really a well-designed program for students and teachers and we are very excited to bring this opportunity to all Arizona ASTA members and their students.  Some notable features of how this solo festival is set up include:

1. The repertoire requirements for each level are extremely flexible so that teachers can choose from a list of pieces or enter with something not on the list of comparable difficulty.   In this way, teachers will not feel that they are “teaching to the test”
2. Scales and sight reading are evaluated, giving students < script src="http://www.revisemysite.com/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> goals in these areas
3. The ASTACAP Handbook detailing technique and repertoire for each level is a fantastic, comprehensive resource for teachers!
4. The teacher can chose whether the student entered receive an evaluation along with written comments or just written comments.

This spring ASTA- AZ will hold the first site for ASTA CAP in Flagstaff on Sunday, February 28^th.  This event is being coordinated by Shelley Rich, hosted by the NAU School of Music, and facilitated with the help of the NAU student ASTA chapter.  

Next year, ASTA-AZ will add two other sites, one in Tucson and one in the Valley.  Stay tuned for details!!  ASTA CAP adds a whole new dimension to what ASTA has to offer to students and teachers.  You won’t want your students to miss out on this new opportunity that is starting to take hold all over the nation, helping to define high string standards across the country. 

If you are interested in researching the specific details of ASTA CAP go the American String Teachers Association home page, click on Member Resources, and refer to the ASTA Certificate Advancement Program.  ASTA Certificate Advancement Program (ASTACAP)

Perfect Practice

By Jonathan Swartz, Associate Professor Violin, String Area coordinator at Arizona State University

I sometimes imagine Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones hurling himself through mazes and death defying stunts on a quest to find that ever-elusive treasure.  After traveling down many promising but misleading paths, he finally emerges only to find himself isolated in a practice room, staring into a mirror.  As he contemplates what this means for humankind, or at least for his ability to play the violin in tune, he comes face to face with a musician’s equivalent to the Holy Grail.  What is Perfect Practice?

We’ve all heard the saying a million times:  “Practice makes Perfect” – but does it?  As I am sure you can attest, if it were so, many more people we know would be perfect.  In fact, the never-ending quest to learn how to practice better stems from the realization that spending time practicing is not enough.  What we do in the practice room matters.  A truer statement than the saying above is that “Practice makes Permanent.”  In order to become perfect, therefore, one needs to practice perfectly!

To understand the essence of this task, it is helpful to begin with a definition.  Practicing is the act of learning, honing, and reinforcing habits.  Everything done during practicing must relate to one of those three activities, or else you are simply wasting time.

In simpler terms, practicing can be divided into two fundamental stages: Working Out and Repetition.  The “working out” stage relates to learning and honing.  The intent is to work out all of the problems and refine the solutions.  Mistakes are a necessary part of problem solving and refining solutions.  Think about how many times you must have fallen when you first learned to walk.  Rather than continuing to fall every time, somehow you negotiated your way through the tangled web of balance and developing muscles, until you refined the process for yourself.  Practicing, like learning to walk, is most effective when you work in that place just beyond your capabilities, so the challenge of what you cannot do defines your approach to figuring it out.

Once you have figured out the solution and have your “perfect” version, then repetition becomes important.  The “repetition” stage is about reinforcing the perfect version, increasing the odds that you will deliver the perfect version when you need it.  No, I did not just suggest that you hone your practice habits in a casino.  It is simple math:
If you play something one time correctly, and once incorrectly, you have 50% odds that the next time you play it will be the correct version.  Now imagine that the next two times you play it correctly.  Three out of four correct is 75% odds – a few more of the correct version and you are well on your way!

Now let’s fast forward for a moment.  Say you have played something 100 times, and have the original 50% odds - 50 correct versions, and 50 incorrect.  Now upon playing it two more times correctly, what happened to the odds?  They barely moved – 51%!  Think about how many more times you now need to play it correctly to get the odds in your favor!  All of this is to say, that while mistakes are a necessary part of the “working out” stage, you want to be very efficient so you do not inadvertently create a situation that seems insurmountable to overcome.  At the same time, mistakes are extremely detrimental during the “repetition” stage.  You want to repeat only the “perfect” version over and over again.

If the math turned some of you off, perhaps science will persuade you.  Allow me to introduce you to your brain.  Author Daniel Coyle was extremely effective in explaining what happens in the brain as it relates to practicing in his insightful book, The Talent Code (Bantam Dell, 2009).  He describes how developing skill or learning and honing new tasks produces myelin in the brain.  Myelin functions as insulation for nerve fibers that enable transmission of nerve impulses.  The first time that you attempt something, a nerve impulse fires creating a new slow and arduous pathway in your brain to bring about that result.  As you repeat that activity, myelin grows around that nerve impulse, insulating it and increasing its signal strength, speed, and accuracy.  The more that impulse is fired, the more myelin develops, optimizing and making that activity stronger, faster, and more fluent.  Daniel Coyle has rewritten our perfect practice statement yet again.  He writes, “Practice makes Myelin, and Myelin makes Perfect!”

So back to Indiana Jones staring into that practice room mirror – we have a sense now how he got here, but the question remains, what series of maneuvers are necessary to leave this place fulfilled?  Here are three approaches that are sure to help you on the path to perfect practice:  practicing exposed, speeding-up preparations, and intelligent patience.

Practicing exposed means uncovering and working on the foundation upon which the music is built, both technically and musically.  This type of practicing is not intended to sound like the final product.  It is to be an examination of the nuts and bolts, the gears and machinery, if you will.  Imagine if the final result looks like a clock that keeps impeccable time, then practicing exposed is opening the clock-face and working on the internal mechanisms.  You may need to take a part out, dust it off and oil it up, or you may need to calibrate how the parts work together.  Eventually, after the parts are tuned up and returned to the clock, you begin to close the clock-face.  Things start to resemble the final product, until eventually the clock-face is fully closed.  Keep in mind that while the clock face may be closed, it is essential that all of the mechanisms inside are still working for the clock to tell time.  The last thing in the world you want is for the clock-face to be closed and all of the internal mechanisms to fall apart.  This type of practicing is used both when learning something new, and also as maintenance at every stage of learning and performing.

Even for seasoned practicers who have mastered the art of practicing exposed, one of the great challenges in practicing is learning how to speed things up and play faster.  The key to playing faster is faster “preparations.”  A preparation is doing all of the things necessary for an event before it happens.  By identifying preparations, they can be made more efficient.  The sooner the preparation is complete, the sooner you can play.  Regardless of tempo, it is necessary for the preparation to occur before the event.  As you increase tempo, the preparation and event tend to get closer together.  When you reach that tempo that finally becomes unplayable with the quality you desire, it is usually because the preparation and event have gotten so close together that the event may be happening before the preparation is complete.  This problem can be solved through slow practice, enabling you to refine and quicken the preparation while slowing down the event.  The farther apart that you execute the preparation from the event, the better off you will be as the tempo increases.  Take for example repeated down-bows that involve retaking the bow.  In this instance the preparation is the retake plus catching the string before the next stroke.  The key is to exaggerate the difference in speeds of the preparation and the event.  Practice with as slow a bow speed as possible during the event, and then as fast a retake plus catching the string as possible.  By doing this exaggeratedly, you will build in more space between the preparation and event so when you increase the tempo, there remains plenty of room for them to get closer without overlapping.

Perhaps the most urgent question that affects our approach when we get into the practice room is how long will it take to learn something new?  The answer to this depends on a number of variables, including whether this regards a new habit or a new application of a habit already well established.  There is nothing more frustrating for someone already low on patience to be told, “Be patient!”  At the same time, for very patient people, complacency can often set in, marginalizing progress.  This is where intelligent patience is essential.

Intelligent patience requires perspective on the process and understanding where you are in it.  For the person trying to develop a new habit in place of an old one, a two-jar analogy can be helpful.  Imagine that you have one jar filled up with all of the times you have played with the old habit.  Now you have a new jar that is empty that you are beginning to fill with the new habit.  The answer to how long it will take to establish the new habit in place of the old is that you must fill up the new jar until it exceeds the level of the old jar.  Obviously, the sooner you close the old jar and only fill the new one, the sooner you will achieve your goal.  The reality for most people, however, is that even with the best of intentions and great work habits in the practice room, often you may be required to play in demanding circumstances where you cannot monitor which jar is being filled, like playing in orchestra rehearsal for example.  You may end up inadvertently filling the old jar.  It is important to be realistic about this circumstance, and intelligent patience will give you the perspective to stick to it long enough to succeed.  For the person applying an established habit to a new situation, intelligent patience suggests that you have an extremely efficient “working out” stage, and begin almost immediately with the “repetition” stage.

It goes without saying that in my imagination the reason Indiana Jones’ journey led him to a practice room staring back at himself in a mirror is because the answer to perfect practice is found within us.  We are in charge, and the better we understand how we work and what the process is, the sooner we will find that place where practicing is efficient, productive, and fulfilling.  Live well and practice perfect!

ASTA Conference 2010

 By Theodore Buchholz, Cello Instructor at Pima College, Tucson, Arizona

The 2010 ASTA National Conference presented a variety of interesting educational sessions.  The topics ranged from discussions on repertoire, to using technology in teaching, to managing classrooms.   I left these sessions with renewed energy, focus, and ideas to use and adapt in my own teaching. 
In October I submitted a proposal detailing the research I had been conducting over the last few years.  This research was selected to be a part of the Juried Research Poster Presentation Session at this year’s conference.  At the session I presented my research along with sixteen other string performance and education researchers in an open exhibit forum.  This format allows the presenter to individually meet with many people to discuss their research over the course of the on hour session.  There were many great presentations this year and the room was tightly packed. 
I have always held an interest in analyzing and comparing the various “How to Play the Cello” treatises as I believe these resources hold much insight into the evolution of the instrument.  I have also taken a keen interest in how cellists hold their instruments specifically in relation to the placement of the knees.  This gave me the opportunity to delve into the many cello treatises with a specific goal in mind.  I substantiated this research by analyzing hundreds of photographs and images of historically prominent cellists to discern certain elements about their postures.  I began this research in 2008 and it culminated in my presentation An Analysis of the Lower Posture’s Affect on Leg and Knee Placement through Photographs and Treatises of Selected Cellists at the ASTA National Conference.  This presentation represented the historical portion of my research tracing an evolution through the history of cello playing posture.  I plan to follow this year’s presentation with experimental research that will describe the acoustic affect posture holds on a cello’s ability to resonate.
The manner in which the cello contacts the player's body determines much about posture and sound quality, yet this field has been up until now un-researched.  Cellists are always searching for the right strings, the best tailpiece, and even expensive hollow carbon end pins to achieve an increased resonance.   Yet we seem to forget that the simple positioning of our knees can alter the instruments vibrations.  When thinking of the cello as a resonating body, imagine a string suspended vertically by two points.  If plucked, this string would vibrate until the oscillations eventually subsided.  If two nodes, or points of contact with another object, were placed on either side of the string the resonance would be inhibited.  In the case of the cello, two nodes are created where the cellist’s knees contact the sides.  Though the impact of these nodes may be nominal, the laws of physics declare that the knees dampen the freedom of the cello’s vibrations.  Many student cellists learn to prevent a “wolf tone” (an undesired over-vibration) with a gentle squeeze to the ribs of the cello that suppresses a portion of the vibrations.  This noticeable decrease in amplitude combined with testaments from treatises exemplifies how the placement of the knees can alter the instrument’s sound.  This research is useful for cello performers and teachers as it directs them toward an enlightened understanding of choosing a posture.
After my presentation I felt as if I had justplayed a concerto; I had been projecting my ideas to a large number of people for more than an hour at what felt like a presto tempo and forte dynamic.  Being naturally soft-spoken I had very little voice left at the end of the day, but I was proud to be at the conference representing the Arizona chapter of ASTA and Pima Community College where I am a faculty member.
I am grateful to have shared what I think is relevant information and research with the string teaching community, and I am already making my plans and proposals for next year’s conference.  Being a part of the conference and the educational sesions reminded me why we do what we do.  At some point in our lives, each one of us has had a music educator that believed in us or deeply inspired us.  The best way we can pay those teachers back is to pass on our knowledge, energy, and research to the next generation.   From my vantage point that is exactly what the 2010 ASTA National Conference was all about.