Solfège

In karate-do, or the way of the open hand, you start with kihon, or basics. These basic techniques are combined into short two or three-move combinations called wazas. Kata is a ritualized form that combines basics and or wazas into longer routines.

The style of karate-do that I learned has 12 basics, things like front-snap kick or reverse punch. There are a nearly infinite number of wazas possible from the combinations and permutations of these kihon. A kick followed by a punch and then a block, for example. Kata were formal in that the moves were prescribed and variation was not allowed. However, interpreting the meaning of a move or combination of moves, or kata bunkai, provided the practitioner with an encyclopedia of self defense techniques.

I see a strong parallel in learning to play the cello. I am learning the basics now, things like fingering, bowing, hooked bowing and slurs. The introductory pieces in the first Suzuki book gradually introduce combinations of these techniques – musical wazas if you will. The pieces themselves could be considered musical katas, not open to technique interpretation (at least as a beginning student), but filled with opportunity to grasp and understand the underlying motivation and thought necessary to perform the piece correctly with the given techniques.

In my recent struggles with rhythm and tempo I have been trying to perform the finished piece (kata) without first understanding and mastering the techniques  (kihon) and the combinations of those techniques (wazas). Realizing the similarity between the layered approach I learned in karate-do and the layered approach necessary to learn cello has helped me realize that I need to constantly step back from difficulties and break things down to the basics first, and only attempt the completed piece after I’ve mastered the combinations it contains.

I devoted almost all of my practice tonight to rhythm work. Since I find it almost impossible to hear my metronome over the sound of the cello I turned it’s volume down and just watched the needle tic-toc its way back and forth.

Playing Rigadoon at 80 I was able, after about an hour, to more or less stay in time with the beat. I did discover what I am doing that makes me play too soon. When I count in my head for a dotted-quarter note, I count “1, 2, 3″ and then start the next note immediately. I don’t wait until “4.” I was surprised at how long a wait there was between when I finished the dotted quarter note and proper time to start the next note in the piece.

I fear that the only way I’ll be able to adjust Rigadoon, and other pieces where I currently short-change the longer notes is by memorizing little pauses and slightly longer notes. Trying to retrofit the proper rhythm on them will take hours. Instead I would rather learn my new pieces properly, starting with the rhythm and gradually adding more and more of the piece to my practice so that I can play it correctly from the start.

I did try to use the 50% speed copied I made earlier, but 50% is too slow. At least for Rigadoon. 75% of original speed would be better. Why the Suzuki people don’t include a practice tempo track along side the performance tempo one is beyond me.

Tomorrow is my last lesson for two weeks, as my teacher observes Spring Break next week. I need to make sure I come away from that time with a good set of attainable goals. And regardless of what assignments I’m given, I am going to incorporate 10 or so minutes at the start of each practice to playing scales in time with a metronome, working up from quarter notes, to eighth notes, to mixed quarter and eighth notes, and so on.

Last night’s practice session was very frustrating. I’ve played Rigadoon with the incorrect tempo enough times now that playing it with the correct tempo is difficult. I don’t have an innate sense of pulse, I can’t play a piece and then say, “I got the tempo right.” I have to ask to find out it I did it correctly.

I tried using the metronome some last night. However I can’t really hear it over the cello. I either need a louder metronome or a softer cello. I do have a small rubber mute, but it really doesn’t quiet the instrument very much. I need to get a serious practice mute to make the cello quieter so I can really hear the beeps of the metronome.

After a pretty discouraging session I finally just quit and put the cello away.

Later I talked to Sibylle, who is a life-long pianist and who has taught piano for over 20 years. I asked her to be my rhythm teacher. I told her my goal is to develop a sense of pulse, an internal metronome that I can trust and rely upon regardless of the piece of music in front of me. As a part of my practice each day I want to spend 10 or 15 minutes on rhythm.

I also decided that I am going to feed the Suzuki CD to Audacity and slow all the remaining pieces down to 50% of the recorded speed. Audacity can do this without altering the pitch. Listening to the CD (and I’ve listened to it a lot) certainly has taught me the melodies – I can (and do) hum them or whistle them all day long. I wake up humming them. But at a pace that is too fast for me to play. Sure, over time I can develop the piece to where I can play it at “performance” speed, but initially I just can’t. My head (which knows the piece from the CD) wants to play at performance speed, while my left hand and right arm are lagging behind.

My hope and belief is that reducing the speed of the tracks to 50 (or even 30) percent will allow me to learn the rhythmic patterns of the pieces correctly at a pace I can play, and then I can speed things up.

As frustrated and discouraged as I was last night after my abysmal practice session, I am eager to try again today. I just need to be smarter about it. In karate-do we used to say that “old age and treachery win out over youth and vigor.” Meaning that working smarter is sometimes better than working harder. I’ve been working hard at cello. Time to work smarter too.

In watching some of the Cello Talk videos on David Finckel’s site, I coined a new phrase from something he said: intonation triangulation.

Intonation is a musician’s realization of pitch accuracy, or the pitch accuracy of a musical instrument.

Triangulation is a way of determining something’s location using the locations of other things.

Intonation triangulation therefore is realizing an accurate pitch though the location of the left hand, and to some degree the right hand and the cello itself.

I am a rank beginner, having played the cello since November. I still rely heavily upon an electronic tuner to adjust my cello before each practice session. And I am refer back to it periodically during my practicing to verify my pitch accuracy. In Cello Talk 45: 1st Position, Mr. Finckel describes three different ways to approach 1st position each with methods (triangulation) to verify correctness. Some are easier for me to understand and some are harder. I already make use of 1st position 4th finger on the G-, D-, and A-strings to create an octave with their neighbors the C-, G-, and D-strings respectively.

Mr. Finckel adds to that with 4ths and other intervals that I understand but can’t yet explain. Or recognizable hear. Yet.

For me the phrase “intonation triangulation” means building a set of muscle memories, reenforced by training my ear, to help me find the right pitch time and again. In practice I tend to look at my left hand and visually steer my fingers to the right locations. Recently, however, I have been able to play more and more confidently without watching my fingers. In some instances it feels easier to play without watching.

To some extend playing cello is a bit like juggling. You are dealing with one more object than you can hold on to at one time. With juggling you’ve got three balls, one of which is in the air all the time. In cello there are at least three things ongoing at any moment: fingering (hopefully) the correct pitch, using the bow properly to get good sound, using the right bow stroke (up, down, hooked, slurred), using enough bow pressure to get sound without it being crackly or wispy, and not introducing grace double stops. Oh, and doing all of that with the proper rhythm.

Developing a good solid sense of where my left hand is at and where it needs to be next is vital to being able to play smoothly, fluently, and correctly as I progress musically. I can type close to 60 words per minute and I don’t look at my fingers there, but I had to start by hunting and pecking. I like some of the practice ideas and exercises that I’ve gained from Mr. Finckel’s site, and I am looking forward to incorporating them into my practice

Tags: intonation

Tags: elsewhere

Rigadoon

This piece is finally starting to come together, although I have to focus on the rhythm and tempo to make sure I play each note long enough. The middle section, measures 9 – 24 are where I spend the most time practicing. At this point the one note that gives me trouble is the G in measure 18; I tend to play it too long, overcompensating for having played it too short for so long.

The goal with Rigadoon is to play it faster.

Two Octave C Major Scale

I’ve been using this scale to practice hooked bowing. Playing each note in the scale as a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note is relatively easy now. Changing to the next note in the scale progression for each bow stroke is considerably harder. Something like this:

Etude

This piece is difficult to memorize due to the lack of variation in the note durations. It’s a relentless stream of eighth notes. Oddly enough I find the double-stroke variation to be easier to play.

The Happy Farmer

This piece is the first in Suzuki book 1 that feels out of place. All the pieces prior to this one introduce a single new concept or technique. This piece skips over slurs and goes straight into hooked bowing. To my mind at least, slurs are easier.

After many practice sessions doing scales over and over to learn the rhythmic pattern used in Happy Farmer, played using hooked bowing, I was finally able to play this reasonable well. That the piece also requires string and fingering changes in the midst of the rhythm pattern only adds to the challenge. I am getting it now. Along the way I’ve discovered a fingering variation that seems to help me play the piece efficiently.

The first measure below is how measure 4 is written in the book, the second measure is how I play it. By keeping my first finger down throughout the last four eighth notes I’m able to play more accurately and, I think, more efficiently.

I like finding things like this in the music I play. Solving puzzles and problems have always been favorite activities of mine and learning to play violoncello combines aspects of both.

Minuet in C

I started this piece Friday night by working through the rhythm verbally and then playing it pizzicato. Yesterday I started in earnest with the bow and I can now play the first two lines (up to the repeat)  very roughly. This is the first piece that I have started deliberately breaking it down and thinking about what I was going to do before doing it. Even with Happy Farmer I tried to just plow through and learn everything at once. That process was frustrating enough that I am taking my time with the Minuet and trying to learn it layer by later rather than all at once.

Tags: fingering, hooked bowing

When I was a Boy Scout our troop used to take new members (usually on their first camp out) snipe hunting. Snipes, we were told, we afraid to fly in the dark so when spooked they’d run along the ground and look for a hole to hide in. The technique then to catch a snipe at night was to position the new scout somewhere in the woods with a large sack or bag while the other, in-the-know-scouts went off to beat sticks and carry on so as to scare the hapless snipe into the bag.

The numerous holes in this theory of snipe catching never seemed to appear to the new scout and he ended up in the woods, alone, while the others were back at camp, having pulled off their prank.

When I started playing cello last November the cello I was borrowing came with everything except a rosin cake. The lender assured me, earnestly, that I needed to mar the surface of the new rosin cake so that the bow hairs could pick up some rosin. It was the same kind of earnestness that was used when glossing over the fact that a bird afraid to fly in the dark would seek refuge in a dark hole.

I was dubious but used the edge of a coin to scratch up my new rosin. It worked.

Today, I picked up a second rosin cake. The first still has hundreds if not thousands of rosin applications left but I dislike it’s container and applying it to my bow. The cake is round and stuck to a small cloth. The tin that contains the cake in its cloth is only marginally large enough so it is hard to get it out of, or back into, the tin without getting rosin on your fingers. The cloth is now covered with rosin as well, making it impossible to handle the rosin without making my fingers sticky.

I had seen rectangular rosin cakes, with a nifty U-shaped handle on the two long sides and bottom. Since the application process to the bow involves long bow strokes, this shape seems better off the bat than the round cake. Tonight, as I got ready to use the new rosin for the first time, I thought about scoring the top of it to “get it started,” and wondered again if this was really true or just a thing that was told to new students.

A quick Google search for “starting new rosin” lead me to this excellent page: Violin Rosin.

So with pocket knife in hand, I’m off to mar up the surface of my new rosin in a nice cross hatch pattern before I practice.

By the way, my troop stopped snipe hunts after our scout master turned the tables on us on night. Unbeknownst to us he had let the new scout in on the secret and after we left him by the side of the path in the woods, he promptly went back to camp and then to bed in his tent. The rest of us spent more than a hour combing the woods looking for him, until the scout master asked us if we had searched his tent.

Tags: rosin

One of the recurring issues I have with my playing, and one that my teacher assures me happens to all beginning students, is giving each note its due. Following a series of eight notes I tend to truncate a quarter note. Dotted quarter notes, equivalent to three eight notes, get really short changed.

So I have been working at playing with the right rhythm. which isn’t always easy, especially once I’ve learned the piece with a slightly fractured rhythm.

First some brief definitions. Tempo is how fast or slow a piece is played. Pulse, or beat, is the recurring manifestation of the tempo. The beat can speed up or slow down, but it doesn’t skip and it doesn’t double up – that would be rhythm. Rhythm, besides being hard to spell, is the combination of short and long notes.

Learning a new piece is complicated. There are the fingerings, the bowing, the tempo, and yes, the rhythm. Learning all of that at once is too much. Even shortening your focus to one or two measures is sometimes too much. Music is three dimensional; the notes themselves describe the horizontal, the dynamics, bowing indications, slurs and other descriptive markings are the vertical, and the third axis is the rhythm. The key to success is to break each new section down into the smallest pieces possible and only add a new dimension once you are comfortable with the previous one. And the only way to learn the correct rhythm is to start with it, so that the incorrect rhythm doesn’t become ingrained while you learn the other two dimensions.

The way that Sibylle has been helping me to learn the rhythm for a new piece or a new section of a piece is to put the cello down, and focus solely on the relationship of short and long notes. She assigns words to each note type: cat for quarter notes, kitty for paired eight notes, long-cat for half notes, and purple-cat for dotted quarter notes. (At this point in my musical education none of my pieces have rhythms any more complicated than can be expressed with these mnemonics.) What the words are isn’t as important as the number of syllables in each. The syllable count needs to match the number of beats each note receives.

With mnemonics in hand the next step is to read the piece, aloud, assigning each note its proper rhythm word. I suppose you could also clap the rhythm, but it’s hard to clap and play the cello at the same time. You can play and say to your self, “kitty-cat kitty-cat cat cat cat cat long-cat long-cat purple-cat rest”. Only once I can rhythmically say the piece (or section) am I ready for the next step.

Adding the metronome to my practice has been frustrating until now. It’s hard to hear over the cello, and it is relentless. If you miss a note or play something out of tempo the metronome marches on without you. So the next step is not to play with the metronome but to rhythmically say the piece using the mnemonics in time to the pulse or beat the metronome is describing. Nodding your head or tapping a toe in time here helps too as it physically manifests the pulse in your body.

Once I can say the piece rhythmically in time with the metronome it’s time to add air bowing. Holding the bow in my right hand I move it back and forth as if I was playing, in time with the metronome and using the cats and kitty cats to describe the rhythm. Like nodding of the head or toe tapping this physically motion incorporates the pulse of the piece into my body.

Next I may play the rhythm on an open string, making no effort to play the right notes, only focussing on the pulse and the rhythm. None of these iterations are very long, perhaps two or three times through for each step, but the accumulation of the steps makes a huge difference in the next step: actually playing the notes.

Up to this point I have been focused on a single dimension, the rhythm. Adding actual notes adds a second dimension and usually upsets the whole thing. Slowing the tempo down considerably allows enough time to prepare the proper notes, and to play them in the proper rhythm. After a few repetitions through the selected section with actual notes I can start to add the final dimension, all the dynamics, bowing directions, et cetera.

By making the foundation of a new piece a solid understanding of it rhythm, I have something solid on which to base the rest of the piece. Starting with the notes and trying to play the piece is attractive because you are making music, but trying to retrofit the rhythm onto a piece once it is committed to muscle memory is difficult and frustrating.

Until now, piece 15 in the first Suzuki book, I have gotten away with playing first and bolting the rhythm on later. For the remaining pieces in this book, and for those that follow, I’m going to discipline myself to learning the rhythm first, and resting the notes on top second.

Tags: rhythm

As I am learning to play violoncello via the Suzuki method, my playing thus far as been through listening and memorization. The music in the method book is notated with finger numbers so I haven’t had to learn to read music.

However, some of the pieces toward the end of book 1 only show the finger number for the first occurrence of a note or sequence, forcing the student to remember the finger or pencil them in or, I suspect preferably, learn to associate the note with the correct fingering and string.

One of the things Sibylle gave me when I started lessons was a set of note flash cards; it’s now time to get them out and start using them. At my lesson last Friday my teacher suggested that I add the string and finger information to the answer side of the cards, so that instead of just saying “F”, for example, I’d need to say “F, 3rd finger on the D-string.” This will not only help me to recognize the notes, it will help to reenforce how they are played. He said the goal is to instantly recognize each note and be able to name it and its position on the fingerboard.

He also taught me a trick to find the open strings in the bass clef. The A-string is the top line in the bass staff, the D-string is the middle line in that staff, and the G-string is the bottom line in the staff. The C-string is two ledger lines below the bass staff.

With these landmarks in mind it is already easier to identify other notes. From the little bit of piano I know I already knew that the clef itself identified the F (3rd finger on the D-string). Hopefully some daily drilling with my flash cards will soon have me able to read music, without the finger numbers as a crib.

In the martial arts, at least the Japanese based ones, there is the concept of mushin, or mind of no mind. Basically it means something that you do without thought. The example I like to use is tying your shoes. When you first learned as a child it required effort and thought. You had to break the process down in to steps and perform each step deliberately in order to get your laces tied.

After a while the actions became automatic. As an adult I am unaware of the act of tying my shoe laces – it just happens. I’ve achieved a state of mushin with regard to tying my shoes. There are aspects of mushin in learning to play a musical instrument. Skills that are required which you must learn step by step at first and, only after many repetitions do they start to become fluid and automatic.

For me right now playing using hooked bowing is still at the step by step phase. The notation is two notes connected by a slur, with the first note having three times the duration of the second note by virtue of being thw next longest note plus a dot. In other words, a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note. Or a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note. The two notes are played with the same bow direction, either two up-bows or two down-bows.

The first step for me was to play the rhythm on an open string. Long-short, long-short. Up-bow-up-bow, down-bow-down-bow. Over and over until the bowing pattern began to feel more natural. Next I started moving from one open string to another. A long-short, long-short rhythm on the C-String using up-bows followed by another long-short, long-short on the G-String using down-bows. Again until the pattern began to feel natural.

Next I started playing a C-Major scale, using a long-short for each note in the scale. Finally I played the scale changing the note for each bowing. This last step proved to be the hardest as it requires changing your left hand fingering at the same time as you are repeating or changing the bow direction, and, every four notes, change which string your are playing. The first few attempts at this were halting and surprisingly difficult. After several repetitions things began to flow together and the bowing was less conscious and more automatic. The beginnings of mushin.

It will take weeks of focus on this technique to really begin to make it completely automatic, and years before it is as natural as tying my shoes.