Humoresque Student Video →

This video improved the sound of my rendition of Humoresque immensely. I’m eagerly awaiting her videos on La Cinquantaine and Allegro Moderato.

My lesson today was a very good one. Due to the Christmas and New Year’s break it was the first I’d had since mid-December. I presented four études and two Suzuki pieces to David today.

From the 40 Easy Studies for Violoncello in the First Position, Op. 70 book I’ve been working on 4 études.

Lee #36
For this piece the goal was to play faster. I managed to accomplish that, although measure 5 still gives me fits. With a slur spanning C-A-F-C (starting on the C-string and ending on the A-string) followed by a slur of the same notes in reverse order, this measure requires that you double stop the D and A strings with your second finger. Somehow getting into and out of that “mashed” position slows me down and throws off the tempo of the piece.

Lee #37 This one was fun. I even did a reasonably good job extending back for the E-flats.

Lee #38 Written in 3/4 time with each measure container three triplets the challenge of this étude was playing the tied notes. Rhythmically the ties threw me off. Initially I ignored the tie and just played two separate notes. Once I had the melody of the piece in my head I started playing hooked notes for the tie. This gave me “bowing parity”, if I can coin a phrase. By using a hooked bowing pattern for each tie I keep my down and up bows in sync with the music. Eventually I replaced the hooks with ties.

Lee #39 The slurs in this piece threw me. I tend to play slurred notes far shorter than their assigned values, which screws up the rhythm entirely. Separate bows helped here. Today when I played it for David I had trouble with measure 8. The first three note pattern is A-Eb-G, and the second is A-E-G. Due to my tendency to not point my 1st finger far enough back for half-position notes, the Eb wasn’t very flat. I need to polish this for the next lesson.

Humoresque This piece has really improved in the two weeks or so since I last played it for David. The only problem area remaining is in measures 34 and again in 38. I tend to make the first three notes a triplet rather than a 16th followed by two 32nd notes.

La Cinquantaine Oof. This piece is filled with shifts, and the occasional harmonic just to see if you are paying attention. The comment I am most likely to utter under my breath while practicing it is, “this is just plain mean.” I’m still working on the open three lines. Today in the lesson we worked on the grace notes in measures 2 and 4. This piece will be with me for a while.

For my next lesson David wants me to work on Lee #40 (the last Lee étude), La Cinquantaine, and to start Allegro Moderato, the “graduation” piece from volume 3 of the Suzuki books.

He also asked me to buy a copy of Schroeder 170 Foundation Studies for Violoncello, which I promptly did after the lesson.

Ever since I converted my other site, zanshin.net, to use Octopress I have wanted to convert Solfège too. Over the past couple of days I have taken the time to complete that conversion.

I find it very easy to create new postings and add content using Octopress - it has greatly increased the output on zanshin.net over the past several months. I am hoping to see increased activity on Solfège, my cello site, now.

Please let me know if you find any thing missing or broken via the new interact page.

Elgar Sospiri op. 70 →

Sublime.

My fourth solo recital opportunity is coming up on December 17th. David is hosting a recital that day for his pre-college students. Although I am old enough to be the father of all of the other pre-college students, and quite probably all of the college students too, I am only two-years old as a cellist.

At my first recital I played Long, Long Ago, and Minute in C. My second outing was the Boccherini Minuet, and my third was Berceuse. For the December recital I’ll be playing what Suzuki called Minuet No. 3. (For an interesting aside about the veracity of the Bach attribution given the piece by the Suzuki book, you should read Petzold Minuet on Suzuki Skeptic.)

For the first and third recitals I used my music, or at least had it on the stand in front of me. David asked that I memorize my piece for the upcoming performance, so I have been focused on that task in my recent practice sessions. Tonight, after about 45 minutes focused work, I was able to play the entire piece with only one or two memory slips. If you think the piece as having a “A” section, a “B” section, and a “C” section, where A is repeated, B is repeated, C is played through once, and then A once more to finish; then I have trouble with the starting measure or two of B, and again in the first couple of measure of C. Fortunately I have two weeks of practice time left before the recital. I’m out of town next week without my cello, so I lose six days of practice.

My goal is to have it completely memorized at a good performance tempo shortly after I return from my business trip, and to video myself to add pressure to the practice sessions. In the dojo I belonged to we used to say that sparring in a tournament put you under a different kind of stress than we could generate in the dojo. Playing a recital is stressful, and any and all things I can do to duplicate stress while I play at home will help make the performance that much better. Pointing a video camera at myself seems to halve my playing ability, so that is one good way to practice. I may also ask my wife to accompany on the piano, as David will accompany me on his cello during the performance. Playing with another person is also added stress.

I’m looking forward to my recital, and I hope that being this far along with my piece this early in the process will help to make it a worthy performance.

Two years ago today I had my first ever cello lesson. While that initial lesson was less than satisfactory, it was still a start. Today I am nearly through book three of Suzuki, and on the 32nd of 40 Lee Études. Best of all I am loving playing cello and look forward to my daily practice sessions.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? We just learn differently, that’s all.

Last night will adding some rosin to my bow just prior to starting my practice session, the wedge holding the bow hairs in place at the tip of the bow came out. One second I’m gliding the bow across the rosin cake and the next there’s bow hair laying loose in my lap and bits of rosin and the wedge bouncing around on the floor.

Whoops.

Last spring I had my bow re-haired and ever since then the wedge at the tip as been slightly loose. After an hour’s practice I could, when the hair was loose, press on the tip and move the wedge back into place. It never moved very far, and it was easy enough to “tighten”, so I choose not to return it to the local shop and have it looked at. Apparently I hadn’t paid enough attention to how loose it was last night, and it popped out.

I’m not sure why the rosin cake chipped, but I suspect I hit it against the bow stick when the hairs let go.

I was able to find the wedge on the floor, amidst the bits of rosin that had chipped off the cake, and after a few false starts I figured out how it, and the knot at the tip end of the bow hairs, went together and fit into the top of the bow. I had to remove the knob so as to take the frog off the bow to allow enough slack to get the tip assembled, but, fortunately, it all went back together perfectly. I actually think, after using the bow for an hour, that the wedge is in tighter now than it has been since the bow was re-haired.

I was luck that I found the wedge on the floor (it isn’t very big) and that I was able to put things to right. Since I only have one bow I was motivated to get it working again so I could practice. So I guess there are two morals to this story. First, if the bow isn’t 100% right after it’s been re-haired - take it back immediately and have it addressed. Secondly, I should have a second bow on hand for when the first bow is out of commission for some reason or another.

This gives me a good excuse to take my cello to the nearest string store (125 miles) and spend some money.

Yesterday I attended the inaugural Joyful Noise Music and Prairie Family Camp at Camp Wood YMCA, about 70 miles south of Manhattan. The day camp was organized in conjunction with the Symphony in the Flint Hills organization and offered music work shops for people of all experience levels, nature hikes, horseback riding, instrument making, and, at the conclusion of the day, a concert by the Emporia Symphony Orchestra.

From the list of offered music workshops there were two that were most interesting to me, one on string techniques and one on string ensemble.

The string techniques workshop was very good. There were only five participants, three violins, a bass, and myself on cello. We talked about bow weight and bowing arm movements, contrary motion, shifts, and vibrato.

Getting good bow weight isn’t simply a matter of pressing down harder, but rather learning to transfer the weight of your arm into the bow. Good posture, a good bow grip, and proper placement of the instrument all factor into transferring weight to the strings. We worked on producing even tone over the length of our bows, from frog to tip.

Your bowing arm is moved largely by the large muscles in your upper back. Your upper arms controls the positioning of your forearm, and the muscles in your forearm are what move your fingers and wrist. We worked on feeling our upper arm move first in bowing, with the rest of the arm and bow trailing behind.

Contrary motion is moving the instrument in the opposite direction as the bow stroke. On cello, for a down-bow, you rock the cello slightly to the left, away from the direction of the bow stroke. Since cellists are seated while playing they can’t move their instruments as far as a standing violinist or violist can, therefore you tend to move the cello slowly a little bit while moving the bow faster, so as to use the entire length of bow hair. At first this contrary motion is contrary indeed – it feels awkward and cumbersome, but after a few minutes of practice it started to feel more normal. It does allow for an easier reach to the A string in some cases, and, since the contact point between the bow and the string stays more in front of you, more centered, it is easier to transfer arm weight to the string for a better tone.

For shifting we talked about using the angle of the elbow to determine where the hand goes. Certainly you need to focus on the finger(s) involved in the shift, but rather than trying to target the finger on the string, think about the elbow and it’s shape and let that determine the length of the shift. Also we talked about the idea of visualizing where on your body your hand would be at the endpoints of the shift. If you took the cello away and moved your left hand for the shift where would it be? On the sternum, the abdomen, the upper chest? Certainly as a beginning player I have a better kinetic sense of the relationship between my left hand position and my torso than I so with my hand and cello.

The string ensemble workshop was difficult. Actually it was extremely frustrating. I always go into an ensemble opportunity excited and eager to play with other people, and I always come out frustrated, upset, and humiliated. I simply don’t have any appreciable ensemble playing experience, and any group playing exercise beyond something extremely basic, overwhelms me.

Since I started playing only two years ago I never had any school orchestra experience. The average college freshman who plays an instrument in the orchestra or band typically started playing in 6th or 7th grade. They could have as many as six years of organized group playing experience, and probably no less than four years experience. Five days a week, 36-weeks a years, for four years. I, on the other hand, have had four ensemble experiences. Two one-and-a-half day string orchestra experiences, a cello camp comprised of three half-day sessions, and yesterday’s 2-hour workshop.

I don’t have experience tuning my instrument by ear, I can’t hear my own instrument over the sounds of all the other instruments so playing in tune relies solely on proper hand position. I can’t sight read music fast enough to keep up. I can play the first note or three and then I miss a note, and next thing you know, I’m a spectator. In the cello camp and string orchestra experiences I was playing with children, all of whom seemed to be able to fly through music they’d never seen before with ease.

Yesterday, after have a miserable time in the ensemble workshop, and wanting to skip the participant’s performance opportunity prior to the symphony concert, I had an epiphany and realized why it was so hard for me - sheer lack of experience. Unfortunately, as an adult beginner in a small town, there aren’t too many ensemble opportunities open to me, and fewer still that are designed to teach ensemble skills.

My cello teacher does have a youth orchestra made up of 5th through 12th grade students. In the past he and I have talked about my “joining” that orchestra, and now I realize the importance of that experience. It is likely the only way I will gain the experience I am lacking. Grade and high school orchestras are the apprenticeships of the music world.

Most of my summer was spent reviewing all the pieces in my repertoire. I started over again with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in Suzuki book 1 and worked my way through all the Suzuki pieces again. Also, I started over again in the Lee Études book with the first étude and replayed all of those. It was a good review. Some of the pieces came back to me immediately while others took more effort. Best of all I was able to see, feel, and hear a difference in my playing. If nothing else this was a good exercise for my ego as it allowed me to see how far I’ve progressed in the not-quite-two-years since I’ve started playing cello.

For the last few weeks I’ve been working on new material again. New scales, new études, and new repertoire.

Scales

I now have nine scales (more or less) memorized. C:, D:, d: (all three), Eb:, E:, F:, G:, A:, and a: (all three, one octave only). Each night when I practice I warm up with scales, usually playing all of them. I try to vary the bowing speed and patterns used to play scales to keep it interesting. Lately I’ve been on a long, slow bowing kick, which really lets me hear the tone and helps me to improve my overall sound.

David has a drill he calls “finger patterns” that I work on after my scales are complete.  There are six basic patterns with a couple of alternate fingerings thrown in for good measure. The first pattern starts on the open D string, then has E, F, G, and finally the open A string. You play each note in time with the metronome starting with whole notes, then half, quarter, eighth, and finally sixteenth notes. I’ve struggled with sixteenth notes until quite recently; rigorous practice (i.e., every night for at least 15 minutes) has improved this immensely. With the metronome set at 60 the whole notes require careful bow speed so as not to run out of bow, and yet the sixteenth notes are still attainable.

For the most part I can now play all six base patterns up to eighth notes. Those patterns that have shifts in them tend to fall apart at the sixteenth note level. Hopefully another week or two focusing on this will improve those levels as well.

My new repertoire consists of Lee études 20, 21, and 22. 20 is very much in the vein of a Bach prelude, with slurs and some complicated chord-like finger movement for the left hand. 22 also is filled with slurs. In the Suzuki book I’ve been polishing off the Beethoven Minute. The summer of review seems to have helped this piece tremendously. I set this piece aside in May when we started the review, and at the time it was pretty rough. Now, three months later, it came together almost immediately. I’m actually able to play through it with relative ease and have started to add dynamics.

It has been a wonderful summer of cello for me, and I am looking forward to easing in to my third year of playing later this autumn.