Chorus from “Judas Maccabaeus”

After weeks of nothing but minuets I see hooked bowing everywhere. The dotted-quarter-followed-by-eighth note patterns in this piece are slurred – not hooked. Whoops.

I need to do a better job of arching my hand for the D-string to A-string slurs, to prevent the A-string from vibrating against the pad of one or more of my fingers on the D-string.

Watch my intonation, especially on the 4th finger. I also note that my intonation creeps towards sharp after a shift from 2nd position to 1st.

Hunter’s Chorus

Learn this piece by adding a note. Play the D, then the D plus a G, then the D, plus a G, plus another G, and so on. Play it s-l-o-w-l-y, with no thought toward rhythm at first.

In measure 15 especially use the add-a-note technique to work through the slur.

Watch bowing direction – don’t hook when not necessary

INTONATION.

Minuets

Continue to work on intonation issues, i.e., slow down and focus on hand and finger position. Improve fluidity and performance speed.

General

Make use of the drones to adjust intonation while playing.

The first night of playing I just wanted to make some music. My cello always sounds odd to me after I’ve not played for a couple of weeks – flat and non-vibrant. By the end of an abbreviated practice on Thursday evening I was a little frustrated. Being jet-lagged and tired wasn’t helping me to cope with the roughness in my playing or sound.

Friday night things sounded better, and things started to feel and sound like they had before we left. My focus lately has been on good intonation. When the pieces were simpler I had pretty good tune and stayed in tune throughout the piece. Now that we’ve introduced shifts and rapid string changes I tend to lose my hand shape, making the 4th finger notes flat and the 1st finger notes sharp. There was a lot of “collapsed hand” sound Friday evening.

Over the weekend I managed to get in three practice session, and spent a lot of time reorienting my left hand to the proper position and shape. I am learning to use the harmonics between 4th finger on a higher string and the open string one lower to verify that I am in tune. More and more of the time now I get a good ringing tone, but I still have to focus on my hand shape or I loss the tune on the higher notes.

My second practice today sounded much better compared to Thursday evening’s work. One more practice tomorrow evening before my lesson on Tuesday. I fear I haven’t accomplished much in the way of new technique or new passages since my last lesson, but I am pleased that I haven’t lost any ground given my time away.

Visualization was not something I did as a beginning student, however, it took several years for me to fully develop this ability, and to see its results in my physical techniques. As a beginning cellist I have tried to visualize as a way to improve difficult techniques or to find a way through challenging passages. Since the physicalness of bowing and stopping the strings is still relatively new, accurate visualization is difficult.

Currently we are on a two-week trip to Germany and, since it doesn’t readily fit in the overhead compartments, my cello is at home. While it would be a huge extravagance, trips like these make me wish for a collapsable electronic cello that I could take on a plane without purchasing an extra seat for it.

Without my cello here I am forced to practice mentally through visualization. In karate most of the visualization work was done sitting quieting with my body relaxed. I rarely moved my arms or legs – the activity was all in my head. What I’ve been doing this week has involved some movement, specifically the fingers of my left hand. Using my right forearm as the fingerboard I’ve been slowly playing through the various pieces I’m currently working on. Playing open strings is surprisingly hard, but that is countered by absolute perfect intonation. My arm cello is always perfectly in tune.

Much of the time when I play my cello my focus is such that I don’t consciously think about every little movement. Instead I have some mental cues that help me remember what is coming next. Sometimes these cues are bowing based and sometimes they come from fingerings, and sometimes they come from the piece itself. Playing without a cello exposes a whole new layer of understanding to the piece. I don’t have the bowing to cue me, and unless I hum or whistle the melody I don’t have the music to prompt me either.

Already I have discovered a couple of passages that I simply cannot remember but that I know how to play. Whether this means I’ve successfully made those passages part of my muscle memory, or whether it means I really don’t know the piece but can play it when prompted by the physical activity it entails I do not know.

I will be interested to find out what shape my minuets are in in 10 days time when I next pick up a cello. I know that things will have regressed a little but my hope is that some time spent in virtual practice will keep most things current for me.

Minuet in C

The only trouble spot left in this piece is the string-change slur in the second section, the part that goes C – slur – B, A – slur – G. Getting my fingers down on the D-string ahead of the bow on the D-string is still proving to be difficult. When I play through that phrase slowly it works, but as soon as I speed things up, I get squeaks and squawks.

Minuet Nº 2

I really like this piece and enjoy playing it. I need to speed it up a bit and I need to watch the length of the longer notes. I tend to truncate them. Also, I tend to truncate the first note of a hooked bowing pair, something my teacher assures me every beginning string student does.

Minuet Nº 1

That the opening measure of this minuet is the same as for Minuet in C both makes it easy to play and hard to play. I have to focus on the second measure to continue on correctly. In learning this piece I discovered modulation. The first two lines are written in C Major, the middle two lines are in G Major, and the last two lines return to C Major. I discovered this by remarking to Sibylle that I was curious about why there were some F#s in the piece and some F naturals. She pointed out that the first two lines (the first section of the piece) end with a C, and that the first two lines of the second section not only contain the only F#s in the piece, they end in G. The last two lines of the second section have no F#s and end in C again.

Rather than change the key signature for the two lines in the middle from C to G, the editor just added the accidentals to show the F#s required by G Major. Understanding now why a piece might have accidentals on notes in one section but not in another adds a whole new dimension to the music. Not only can there by a pattern with the notes, there can be a pattern with the key.

Minuet Nº 3

This is the first piece that I’ve been able to whistle or hum at first glance, what is known as audiation. I’m not sure I’ll be able to repeat that feat with the next piece, but it was certainly cool to do it with this one. The piece itself uses 2nd position and portato bowing and my current nemesis, string-change slurs.

By pulling out the 2nd position measure and practicing them as a mini-etude I’ve been able to incorporate that into my playing fairly quickly. My intonation suffers a bit on the 2nd position A and E when I don’t get my 2nd finger squarely on the the corresponding G or D, but I am getting better and the shifts.

Like the previous minuet, Nº 1, this piece modulates keys. And it adds a neat preparatory hand shift. The second section starts with a 2nd position E on the A-string and to prepare for that the second ending of the first section shifts to 2nd position. As does the first ending of the second section. It reminds me of footwork in sparring – the right footwork makes the technique that follows easy to perform.

The added layers of understanding and complexity are what make playing cello so much fun. For every new thing I learn or start to understand there are 5 or 10 more nuances to take in, and each of those have layers, and so on. Playing cello is the most dimensional thing I’ve ever done, and I love it.

4/4 is the easiest for me to play. I just get it. BUM-bum-bum-bum BUM-bum-bum-bum. It works. 2/4 work as well as it is just 4/4 time with an accent on the 3rd beat: Bum-bum Bum-bum. 3/4 time used to throw me for a loop when I was toying around with learning piano. I know it’s a waltz, I can visualize the waltz in my head, but sticking to that rhythm didn’t make sense. Learning to play a bowed instrument only added complexity to this rhythm, but I’ve finally “gotten” it. Bum-bum-bum, Bum-bum-bum, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.

The tail end of volume 1 and the start of volume 2 of Suzuki is littered with Minuets, so I’ve been getting lots of 3/4 time practice. May Time introduces 6/8 time, which is not just 3/4 times 2.

I’ve been using words with one or two syllables to learn rhythmic patterns. Cats and kitties, and big fat cats have helped me to learn half, quarter, and dotted half notes in all the time signatures I’ve had thus far. Unfortunately they don’t work for 6/8 time. You just have to count: 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4-5-6. Or 1-2-3-1-2-3, 1-2-3. Fortunately I’ve had enough practice breaking down new pieces into small parts to be able to sort out the rhythm of May Time relatively quickly.

I still need to work on the overall smoothness and sound of the piece, there are some string-change slurs that never quite sound right to me that I need to work on.

Hi, I’m Mark and I play cello with too much left thumb.

Hi Mark.

All kidding aside, I’ve been aware for some time now that I use too much pressure with my left thumb while stopping the strings with my left fingers. Enough so that first thing in the morning my thumb is stiff and sore. It always loosens up within a few minutes of waking, but it is indicative of improper technique.

I’ve talked to my teacher about it and tried to correct the habit unsuccessfully until now. Tonight I played most of my 45 minute practice without my thumb on the cello at all. My intonation suffered somewhat, but I was able to play. Previously I found that the cello’s endpin would squirt away from me when ever I tried playing without my thumb. Tonight I washed my little square pin rest so it wouldn’t slide on the wooden floor, And I tried to only pull as hard as needed and no harder.

By and large it was successful. Several hundred more practice sessions and it should start to feel normal.

It isn’t that I don’t have plenty to practice, it is that I, perhaps, have too much to practice. If I had one or two practice goals I think I would be better off, as it is I have eight items on my practice list. And I am starting my fourth week without a lesson now. Without some structure I could start to develop poor habits. Starting today I am going to lump them together into four groups of related tasks and focus each day’s practice on just a single group.

Hooked Bowing

I’ve got three hooked bowing exercises to work on. I’m working on a two octave C-Major scale using hooked bowing. I’m also working on a variation to the Etude on page 19 of Suzuki book 1 that uses hooked bowing. And finally I am rounding out my hooked bowing group with Happy Farmer on page 20.

Minuet in C

This piece just needs time to mature. I can play it fluently once in a while. The string change slur from the open A-string to G on the D-string still squawks at me. I’ve figured out that I need to change strings faster so that the bow doesn’t drag across the A-string and the D-string at the same time. Playing it slowly works, speeding up at all results in a drop in intonation quality. I think a couple night’s focus just on this piece will have it sounding much better.

Minuet Nº 2

The final piece of book 1 is also coming along nicely. I still tend to shorten the quarter notes, especially the hooked ones in the second second going from E on the D-string to the open A-string. Something about changing strings makes me feel pressured and therefore (perversely) I want to play faster. I also tend to speed up during the slurred open D-string to open G-string section. After so many shorter notes having six quarter notes in a row seems to take forever to play and I speed up.

Long, Long Ago (in C) and Variation

I can play Long, Long Ago (in C) reasonably well; the only real mistakes are caused by lack of attentiveness. I know the pattern of the melody from the earlier version in G, but I am only now starting to see that pattern in terms of intervals. I can’t yet name the intervals without thinking about it, but I recognize that they are there.

The variation is starting to come together as well. I think I’ve now got it memorized. If my past performance is any indicator at all the overall intonation of the piece will improve dramatically now. Once I stop worrying about the next note to play, I can shift my attention to how things sound.

Flash Cards

Added to each of these practice groupings is work with my note flash cards. I am slowly starting to recognize actual notes instead of finger numbers. Five or ten minutes with the flash cards each night should get me over the note reading hump soon.

Pointing a camera at yourself is like suddenly having an audience. What normally is easy for me to play was difficult, everything sounded ragged. While these videos won’t be finding their way to the Internet any time soon, they are proving to be hugely instructional to me.

I’ve now got a whole list of little things to work on as I play.

Hand shape and positioning

I don’t play with a boxed hand, I play with a slanted hand. I’ve got large, very flexible hands so I’m not sure that the slant in and of itself is a problem, but the break in my arm at the wrist is a problem. And keeping my left elbow down by my side may also be trouble. And even with flexibility and long fingers I can see where my 4th finger has to really reach sometimes to get the note.

I also tend to pull my fingers well away from the fingerboard when they aren’t in use. There are two problems with this. One, it introduces tension in my hand and other fingers, and two my fingers are out of position for their next note. In Minuet Nº 2 when I need to play the C on the G-string I really have to work to get my 4th finger there in time. Turns out it is recoiled back as far from the fingerboard as it can get on the previous note. Whoops.

Remedy: Somewhere in the back of my mind is a dim memory of my teacher saying that I need to imagine holding a porcupine under my left arm as I play. I need to return to that style of thinking and palying.

Bowing angle

While I generally keep the bow at the same angle, what I thought was parallel to the floor actually is off a few degrees. The frog end of the bow is higher than the tip. Most of my playing tends to be just below the end of the finger board. There are times (I suspect when I accidentally relax my shoulders) that the bow starts closer to the bridge, but it never stays there for long. Some of my intonation issues probably stem from the angle of attack that I’m using.

Remedy: I’m not sure what to do here other than focus on bowing angle. I think now when I hear poorly intoned notes I’ll think about bow angle as much as correct fingering. And I will tape my self more often to see how things look.

Overall posture

I watch the bow on the strings. I glance at my left hand fingers as I play. Consequently I have my head down almost all the time while I’m playing. This is bad in so many ways, not the least of which is its being hard on my lower back.

Remedy: I’m going to raise my music stand and make myself read the music as I play, rather than playing from memory all the time. Thanks to failing eyesight and trifocals, with a taller music stand I’ll be forced to raise my head and sit up in order to read the music.

Watching yourself play is a bit like hearing your own voice on a recording – odd. However it is very instructional. I plan on doing it regularly from now on. And someday when my embarrassment diminishes I’ll post the videos for all to see.

Working from Suzuki Book 1 he wanted me to practice the C Major scale on page 19 using a penciled in hooked bowing rhythm. Since I found the penciled marks a bit hard to read I used Sibelius to make my own set of C Major scales, one as printed in the Suzuki book and one with dotted quarter and eighth notes.

I find creating scales or other pieces of music using Sibelius to be helpful. I am a very visual person and recreating music in this fashion helps me to “see” it more clearly.

Thanks to the Art of Cello Playing book, I finally get hooked bowing and playing scales this way is becoming easier. Not quite second nature yet, but headed that way.

Continuing the hooked bowing theme I was to practice the Etude at the bottom of page 19 also using hooked bowing, at least the opening section. This too has started to come together in the last few days. I still get turned around once in a while and play to regular bows instead of a pair of hooked ones, but by and large I can play the piece either way now.

Skipping the Happy Farmer, he next wanted me to work on Minuet in C at the bottom of page 20. This piece has come together very nicely and is starting to sound good, even to my ears. The odd part about playing for me right now is that I am not aware of what the music sounds like. I hear the notes I’m playing, but I’m too focused on their production to hear the overall presentation.

The sticky place in this piece for me is the slurred transition from the open A-string to G on the D-string midway through the second repeated section. I finally figured out last night that the trick is how fast I move my right hand to the new string. Any delay results in extra sound from the A-string while trying to play the G. Slowing that section down helps, now I just need to gradually speed things up again.

David also wanted me to work on Minuet Nº 2 on page 21. This is the last piece in book 1 and I am very happy with how quickly it has started to come together. I started it in earnest only 9 days or so ago and it working quite well now. I nearly have it memorized and have started to play it all the way through with both repeats.I find it fascinating how much my focus or intention changes from one repeat to the next. Passages that are easy, fluent, and sound good the first pass often fall apart on the second. I need to maintain my focus through to the end of the piece.

This piece introduced two new techniques: the extension to reach G# and triplets. Slurred triplets at that. Actually the triplets weren’t too hard to play correctly. I spent considerable time “talking the rhythm” before playing the piece at all. Once I felt I understood the patterns in the piece I played through it many times pizzicato, again focusing on the rhythm. Even after I started playing arco I would set the bow down and return to pizzicato any time my rhythm started to wander from where it should have been.

Tonight I was able to play both Minuets from start to finish, both repeats, without any real difficulty. They both need some polish, and I’m not entirely sure I could play them back to back three times without getting flummoxed, but I am close to that point.

The last piece assigned to me was Long, Long Ago in C and its variation. These pieces are the start of book 2 of the Suzuki system. Long, Long Ago is one of my favorite pieces from book 1 and learning it in a different key didn’t prove to be too difficult. I actually find the middle section with the, in C Major, low G to be easier to play as I don’t need to move my left hand.

The variation is starting to work. I nearly have the pattern memorized which means my intonation will now improve. When I have to watch the music my sound tends to be the first casualty. The alternating slurs and hooked bowing is fun to play. All the work getting hooked bowing is now paying off.

I’ve covered a lot in three weeks and I am looking forward to my next lesson. Hopefully I am able to perform most or all of this well under David’s scrutiny.

]]> http://cello.zanshin.net/2010/04/14/three-weeks-worth-of-practice/feed/ 0 http://cello.zanshin.net/2010/04/07/touch-typing/ http://cello.zanshin.net/2010/04/07/touch-typing/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:17:36 +0000 mark http://cello.zanshin.net/?p=229 When I was in high school in the late 1970s I took a touch typing class. We weren’t allowed to use erasable typing paper and assignments handed in with more than two errors per page were downgraded severely. By the end of the semester I was able to type about 22 words a minute.

In the thirty odd years since then I have spent considerable time in front of keyboards of one flavor or another interacting with automated systems. My words per minute number has greatly increased but I am not a touch typist. I use the first two fingers of my left hand and the thumb and first two fingers of my right hand to reach about 60 words a minute. I get the job done, but in a manner that would make my high school typing teacher cringe.

It occurs to me that playing a string instrument like the cello has some similarity with touch typing. Ideally one is able to train themselves to quickly and accurately intonate notes without having to watch their fingers. As my teacher puts it, “you have to see with your ear.” For the first several months of playing I had two slim pieces of tape across my fingerboard, one for 1st finger and one for 4th finger (notes D-A-E-B and F-C-G-A respectively). At my teachers suggestion I have removed those visual guides now, and I am worried about developing a six-finger typing approach to cello.

No, I can’t play cello with only some of my fingers the way I type. But I can develop muscle memory of the wrong finger position for notes. I can develop my ear to become accustomed to a slightly flat F# or a consistently sharp C on the G-string.  Several weeks ago I had a chance to visit a large string instrument store in the Kansas City area and saw in their display case a vinyl fingerboard sticker that had all the fingerings through 4th position. I had just removed the tape from my fingerboard and didn’t want to buy a crutch that I hoped I no loner needed.

In hindsight I wish I had bought the vinyl sticker as I could use it for scale practice and take it off for the rest of my practice. It seems to me that the most critical foundation cornerstone I can lay right now is perfect intonation of each note. The hundreds of notes played in a practice session times seven days a week times 52 weeks in a year adds up to tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) repetitions of the action of playing each note. The old axiom about “practice makes perfect” is wrong. Practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

Rather than fret (pun intended) about playing my notes incorrectly, rather than try to watch the tuner as I play a scale to adjust my fingers, I am going to order a fingering sticker for my fingerboard and make good use of it until my ear can truly tell me that my 2nd finger F on the D-string is flat, and hopefully until my 2nd finger just goes to the right place with out adjustment.

As for typing with 5 or 6 fingers, thirty plus years is hard to overcome. I think I’ll stick with my unorthodox but effective approach.