Friday night I had my second to last cello lesson of the year. (Not the calendar year, the school year. Yes? Yes.) On the way there I was thinking that it would be nice to just play music. The last few lessons have been really focused on the polishing of technique and they were great, but I wasn't certain I was in the mood for it this time. (My brain also absented itself as I drove there and took me the way to orchestra instead. I found myself on Donegani wondering what I was doing. Was ten minutes late as a result.)
Anyhow, got there, set up, my teacher asked me what we were doing and I said we'd been putting the final touches on Grenadiers and we'd started prepping Gavotte. She said we'd warm up with the Gavotte prep exercises, so we worked on them, focusing on the minute readjustment of the left elbow necessary to stay in tune, and the release of the first finger guiding the bow to wrap around the string in order to avoid audible string crossings. Then we started playing the C section of Gavotte, then moved to play the whole piece. (Although I played through the A and B sections for fun I hadn't worked them, and evidently I have been playing it much too quickly.) And then we were turning the page and looking at Bourrée, which I hadn't played in, well, a decade, and we worked on similar issues with the addition of one of my banes, maintaining constant bow weight and not doing tiny accents on every new note when I change bow direction. She played with me during both pieces, either doubling my line or playing the cello accompaniment, and we played the whole piece I hadn't prepped, which explained the lack of solid shifting halfway through. I really enjoyed it.
She said I'd handled the things we were addressing well, and I said I was glad, seeing as how I hadn't prepped the Bourrée. She may have forgotten, or mixed me up with another student. Or maybe she was just determined to get me to the end of book 2 before we took our summer break. Whatever the reason, I said that I was glad we'd done what we did; I'd been hoping we wouldn't drill the final phrasing bits of Grenadiers, and was thinking how nice it would be to just play music. She told me to just ask whenever I felt like that; she knows how things get, and she cheerfully accommodates students when they need that kind of lesson. I got it without asking, sort of, and still got to work on technique stuff. The last couple of lessons have been very technical and stop-and-start affairs focusing on single phrases, and sometimes I really get into those. This past lesson wasn't one of those nights, though, so everything worked out just fine.
And so here we are, working on the end of the Suzuki book 2 review. I have my schedule of what pieces to review on what day of the week over the break, and my photocopy of handwritten prep exercises for book 3, and instruction to start messing about with it this summer. It feels like it has arrived somewhat suddenly, although we've been working on it since Thanksgiving interspersed with recital stuff and orchestra stuff. Everything I work on ties in somehow, and lots of what I'm working on in the technical sense is universally applicable.
When I think about the mental list of things I wanted to accomplish through lessons (becoming more familiar with the geography of the finger board, a more solid foundation in theory, improved intonation, a better bow hold, more efficient left hand movement, accurate thumb position, a better vibrato) we've done so much work on most of them. I no longer panic when a conductor uses most solfège terms (although I still can't keep dièse and bémol and bécarre straight, and when someone starts using movable solfège terms I panic because why can't we all just agree that do is C, why does it have to shift to indicate the tonic of whatever key you're in?), my bow grip no longer causes cramps or locking of joints, my left hand can fly all over the place, and I know where notes are in different places with more certainty than ever before. I still trip a lot, and over- or under-shoot shifts, and my wrist keeps trying to reassert its reign over my right arm and lift the damn bow instead of leaving it on the string, but in general, I can tell that my technique has refined by leaps and bounds over the past eight months. And I'm filled with a smug kind of glee to think that I will only get better, and better, and better.
I am so glad that I decided to do this, and so very thankful that my teacher and I seem to fit one another's teaching/learning styles. She charges so little and waves her hand at me when I say that we go overtime pretty much every lesson; apart from the buying of the new cello thing (which is two-thirds covered by the now-confirmed pending sale of the 4/4!) this is very affordable financially, and time-wise is worth it. The discipline and reward are good for me in many different ways.
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* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
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