Repertoire Dates

The following table shows when I started each piece.

Nota bene:

• Between late May and the end of July 2011 I reviewed all of Suzuki Books 1 & 2, as well as those Lee études I had already completed.
• The Bach Prelude entry was my attempt to see how much of that piece I could play. I only tried the first two lines and haven’t touched it since.
• My record keeping isn’t perfect - the lesson notes from some lessons are missing, and I didn’t always write the date I started a piece in the music.

Repertoire Notes

Once upon a time I decided to keep notes about each of the pieces I was learning to play. While the effort didn’t last the notes have survived.

I Can Read

A simple single string piece that I initially played pizzicato, but now use as a tonalization exercise with the bow.

Merrily We Roll Along

A variation of Mary Had A Little Lamb. Again I originally did this pizzicato and now play it with the bow aiming for improved tone.

Seashell

Similar to I Can Read but involving two strings. More tonalization work here.

Let Us Chase the Squirrel

Again, a simple piece originally played pizzicato and now used for bow tonalization work.

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (6 variations)

This piece is heavily used by the Suzuki Cello book my teacher has me working through. There are 5 variations of the piece, each with a different rhythm, and he’s now added a sixth. Since it’s a tune we all know learning the music isn’t an issue. Which allows focus on fingering and bowing and the timing of those two activities to produce a good sound.

Morning Prayer, Op. 136 No. 1

One of the few piano pieces I can play is part of a duet. The student piece has a melody in unison, while the teacher plays an accompaniment. Playing on half of the student piece on the C and G-strings sounds really good, so I’ve “adapted” this piece to cello and enjoy playing it. Sibylle sometime plays the second part with me on the piano, making a nice duet for us.

Ode to Joy

Nearly every early piano method book has some form of this melody included. With Sibylle’s help I created a single page sheet of the orchestral violoncello part to learn for myself. The orchestral version is slightly different than what I new before, so it has been a fun challenge to play.

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

This is half of a duet Sibylle and I are working on together. She plays Canon in D while I play the Christmas carol. The two together are quite beautiful and we are often moved to tears when we play the duet.

Silent Night

Perhaps my all-time favorite piece of music. Silent Night has always moved me deeply and I am thrilled to be teaching it to myself on the cello. It involves three strings and some quick finger changes so it has been a good challenge.

French Folk Song

After Twinkle, Twinkle the next Suzuki method piece is this folk song. The song uses all the notes of a D-major scale.

Lightly Row

After French Folk Song, Lightly Row is another Suzuki piece. I’ve been using it to work on tonalization and also to improve my sense of rests. It is far too easy to cut rests (or even sustained notes) off. It introduces the concept of leaving a string stopped while playing another string, so that you can return to the first sting without having to reset your fingers.

Song of the Wind

Sibylle knows this as a German children’s song and can rattle off the lyrics. For me it is a new tune and one that continues the concept of leavings one string stopped while playing another string.

Go Tell Aunt Rhody

What makes this piece challenging is that it follows the European melody rather than the one I grew up with. There are numerous shifts between quarter and eighth notes in this piece which gave me fits at first but it is coming along nicely now

O Come, Little Children

This is easily one of the prettiest sound pieces in the first part of the book. This piece introduces a couple of new concepts. It starts on an up-bow rather than the usual down-bow, and it has some note pairs that are played up-up, instead of up-down, or down-up. Music, like spoken language, has phrasing and emphasis; using up-bow produces a lighter, less accented sound than using a down-bow. The new concepts in this piece demonstrate how a composer can alter the sound produced through the playing technique used by the musicians.

May Song

Allegro

Perpetual Motion

This is a bit of a torturous piece to learn and play. It is relentless. At first I didn’t think I’d ever be able to memorize it, but now I enjoy playing it as a warm up. Playing the double-stroke variation immediately following the original version is a good workout.

Long, Long Ago

Long, Long Ago introduces the G-string, and a whole new world of sound. Properly stopping the G-Sting is surprisingly harder that either the A-string or D-string.

Allegretto

Andontino

Rigadoon

Rigadoon proved to be a very difficult piece for me as I didn’t take time to learn it rhythmically first. After a couple of weeks of playing it incorrectly, relearning it with the correct rhythm was not much fun. Weeks of effort were required to undo the incorrect version I had memorized. The lesson I learned here was that every minute spent away from the cello working on the rhythm of a new piece is worth hours at the cello playing it.

Etude

In addition to playing this piece, and its variation, my teacher has used it to give me additional practice for hooked or linked bowing. It has only been in the first part of April that I have successfully played the opening section of this piece using a hooked bowing pattern.

Happy Farmer

Hooked bowing. I found it extremely difficult to grasp this technique and have spent weeks getting to where I think I understand it. Buying a copy of The Art of Cello Playing finally unlocked the mysteries of this essential technique. Unfortunately, Happy Farmer now suffers from the same problems Rigadoon had - I play it incorrectly. I will need to spend some time correcting this piece.

Minuet in C

This first minuet was the first piece I actively and with forethought focuses on rhythm before anything else. First saying the rhythm and then plucking it on an open string before adding the bow. I also forced myself to take the piece a measure or a line at a time. As of mid-April it is now in good shape for my next lesson.

Minuet Nº 2

Building on my success with Minuet in C, starting this piece rhythmically and then adding only a little bit each time I was able to get the rough shape of the music in less than a week. My capacity for learning has grown along with my technique and my ability to diagnose where I am getting it wrong.

This piece also introduces G# and extending or shifting the hand to reach it. As I started it while my teacher is on a recital tour, I’ll have to ask at my next lesson if I am performing these techniques properly.

Long, Long Ago (from Suzuki Book 2)

Long, Long Ago is presented in C Major at the start of book 2, and has a rhythmic variation filled with hooked bowing. The day I started it I was able to play it in C with relative ease, and I am able to fumble through the variation with some difficulty. Rhythmically it is simple, all eighth notes (with two exceptions), but it has lots of string crosses and uses hooked bowing through out.