AutumnCello

Second-Guessing The Gavotte

2010-05-07T05:01:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday morning I had my first cello lesson in just under a month (twenty-six days, to be precise). Suddenly I had to decide between the Lully gavotte and the Bach gavotte for the June recital, which felt slightly unfair because we’d set the deadline at the last lesson at the beginning of April and I haven’t had a chance to work on it with my teacher since then. I really do want to play the Bach, though, so my teacher said we’d do it. On the way home I second-guessed myself and was sure I’d made the wrong decision, and I’m still fairly certain I’ll blow it badly. But then, I’d feel the same way about the Lully, so I can’t win either way. In the lesson we worked on the upper body being free to move from side to side with the elbow-led bow stroke, which felt very awkward and wrong, but it did create some very nice sound. I think I’m too locked up when I play, so my teacher’s trying to get me to loosen up while still being aware enough of my body to control the sound.

Things to remember: Keep fingers aimed more toward the bridge instead of parallel to it, remember to use the back of the thumb instead of only the side in thumb position, don’t shortchange the last note before a new bow or phrase, stop leading RH movement with the wrist (my teacher was also initially trained to do this and her teacher still calls her on it, so I don’t feel as hopeless about this as I could, although I still feel pretty hopeless indeed), and the speed of the shift needs to match the speed of the song.

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

In Which She Takes The Boy To A Concert

2010-04-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

On Sunday afternoon the boy and I packed up and headed out for the West Island Youth Symphony Orchestra's free concert called "1910 - A Celebration in Music," programmed to celebrate the city of Beaconsfield's centenary. The last time I heard the WIYSO was, erm, sixteen years ago, when I was looking for a cello teacher. Not only was this a chance for me to actually attend a concert (imagine! live orchestral music that I wasn't playing!), it was an opportunity to share a concert-going experience with my son. And finally, I'd also have the chance to see my new conductor in action with a different group. I explained to the boy that this orchestra was made up of kids, and he immediately asked if he could join. I told him that these were older kids, but in ~~four~~ three years (holy cats) he would be eligible to join the junior orchestra, if he liked.

I let him choose where we sat in the auditorium (on the cello side, halfway between the wall and the aisle; we had the whole row to ourselves), and he explored the fold-down seats and asked all sorts of questions about the theatre (he thought we were going to a movie theatre, for some reason). When the lights went down for the orchestra to tune, he caught sight of the conductor just offstage, and he turned to me. "It's Stewart!" he said with great excitement, and I had to laugh; he made it sound like he and the conductor were old buddies.

Overall, he was very good. They played the music "all in a row," as he told HRH back home; in other words, there was no intermission, and the concert lasted just over an hour. He was a bit squirmy, climbing from his seat to my seat to the seat on my other side, or lying down across my lap with his sweater over him as a blanket, but he wasn't disruptive or distracting, and we never needed to resort to pulling out his books or colouring books. His first favourite bit was the Maple Leaf Rag (who can resist ragtime?), and he pretended to play a trombone through it, humming into his straw bottle of apple juice and moving his free hand forward and back in front of him. The guy sitting behind us thought it was hilarious. The Joplin was blown out of the water by Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, however. It may have been partially due to the fact that in the music he could hear the story that Stewart had briefly outlined for the audience before the piece began. "Mama," he whispered during the first movement, "do firebirds have fur?" "No," I said, "they have beautiful, long feathers made of flames." "Not the babies," he said authoritatively. "They have fuzz." "Oh," I said, "so they get their fire-feathers when they grow up?" "Yes," he said, quite firmly.

He crawled onto my lap at one point to snuggle, and had his head on my shoulder when the first crashing chord of the Danse Infernale began. He must have jumped six inches into the air before sitting straight up and staring at the orchestra. I had to try very hard not to giggle, and I could hear the guy behind us muffling a snicker, too. The boy sat up very straight and applauded loudly when it was over, the first piece for which he'd done so with such enthusiasm. He talked about it had been the best part of the concert and about firebirds and baby firebirds all the way out and through the parking lot, to the amusement of other patrons. It seems that my son is a budding Stravinsky fan.

He'd been so good that we picked up a doughnut on the way home.

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

A Vague Cello Update

2010-04-24T16:35:00.000-07:00

I missed a week of orchestra and a cello lesson while I was away, and my lesson this weekend has also been cancelled because my teacher is out of town for her birthday. I have no problem with that; I will just work on my Bach gavotte on my own. I will turn it into a celloy operatic aria, and surprise my teacher when we finally do get together again at the beginning of May. (May! Good grief.)

We had a group lesson on Sunday, where only half the older students could make it (the younger ones have their own group lesson just before we do). It was pretty focused, though, and things are starting to come together. My teacher ended up deciding to transpose the accompaniment for one of the quartet pieces, so I'm transposing it on my own, something I do because I think it will be good for me, but I'm always worried I will make tonnes of mistakes.

This past rehearsal at orchestra we went in early. There is a Beaver colony that meets in the church basement right before we use it, and they arranged for us to do a presentation for them. It was a lot of fun. They had a basic intro before we got there, and a chance to explore the timpani, then they coloured some handouts while we all set up. Our conductor introduced the instruments one by one, having the principal of each section play the first phrase of "Twinkle" so the boys could hear how they sounded different. Then we played the first half of the first movement of the Haydn Symphony 83 that we'd done for the last concert so they could listen for the chicken theme, and after that we played one of our new pieces, Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance march no. 4. It was very enjoyable; they were bright and responsive. When things were breaking up at the end their leader told us that they were the biggest group in the West Island; other colonies had between five and ten kids, but they had thirty! "I like to think it's our great programming," he said.

Then we spent the entire night on the first movement of the Mendelssohn, with a play-through of the second movement at the end. Lots of really hard work. Our conductor assures us that the first movement is the hardest thing in the concert. If pressed to name a favourite symphony of all time, I would have to say it is this one, Mendelssohn's Reformation symphony, so I am loving every single moment of this. Playing a piece of music in orchestra means I get to break music down and visit it from the inside out, something that adds infinite richness to my enjoyment of the music both on the stand and via a CD player, and I'm so incredibly thrilled to have the opportunity to do that with this piece.

My back was murderously painful, though. Stacking wooden chairs that slant backwards are not optimal for a cello payer to begin with, but my lower back was moderately screwed up thanks to two train rides and a week of sleeping in a bed not my own. I stretched it out as best I could at the break, and ended up on the floor to try to give it some relief. It had gotten steadily worse after I got home; I finally asked HRH to massage it and get rid of the walnut-sized knot on the left side, and that plus some tiger balm seems to have helped a lot. I really, really need to get one of those firm orthopaedic wedge cushions that a couple of the other cellists in the section use.

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

In Which She Admits To Being A Bad Blogger

2010-03-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Eek; I haven't imported the cello-themed posts form my main journal in five months. Some of that has to do with the fact that often I just mention cello in passing, but it also has to do with not having a lot of energy to write about it in detail in the first place, or do the physical cut and paste. I'm going to catch up and try to get back on the regular updating here as well as on my much more regular main journal. I apologise in advance for a slew of backdated posts that may show up in your RSS feeds, although if your feed is smart it shouldn't pick up anything dated older than two weeks or so. If it does, then hey, you get a huge dose of AutumnCello. I suspect I'll do monthly summaries and paste several smaller or brief cello mentions into one post per month. That should keep the roar on your RSS feeds to a minimum.

March 2010 Summary (to date)

2010-03-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

1 March 2010:

Saturday morning I had my cello lesson, which was notable for happening half an hour after I woke up. I’d been sleeping badly and HRH decided to let me sleep in, which was lovely, but then he realised at 8:26 that I had a cello lesson at 9:00, and woke me up when I’m usually stepping out the door. I got dressed in record time, he made me tea in my travel mug, and I flew out to the West Island. The lesson was pretty good. It’s nice to be asked, “How long have we been working on this étude?” and to answer, “Well, actually, you assigned it last week and this is the first time I’ve played it for you,” and then hear the teacher say, “Well, you’ve done what you needed to do with that, let’s look at the next one.”

I asked to work on ‘The Entertainer’, which we’re playing in a quartet arrangement for the June recital, and gah. I’m playing Cello 2, and there were some rhythmic things that I just wasn’t getting. My teacher tried all sorts of rearrangements and subdivisions to help me get it, and they just succeeded in confusing me more. I’m a very basic kind of ‘just play the correct rhythm for me and I’ll internalize it’ kind of girl; rhythm tricks just worsen my muddle. I got it in the end, mainly because a few bars later the same rhythm showed up with different notes, only preceded by two eighth notes instead of a quarter note and that seemed to make all the difference. Then we moved to the Boccherini minuet.

Oh, Boccherini. Really.

I have a hate/love relationship with pops and chestnuts. They’re overplayed and so I grit my teeth at them, turn them off when I can, and resist them. If I have to play them, I discover all sorts of lovely things about their internal workings, admit there’s a reason for their popularity, find something to like about them when I hear them, but I still don’t enjoy them. Boccherini’s Minuet is a classic example of an overplayed pop that I hate. And I hate it all the more now that I have to play it, because those opening sixteenth notes are a huge obstacle for me. I can play them in the repeats, but starting from a static bow? Gah. No.

It’s one of those pieces that is all about bow speed and weight and control and I’m sure it’s very character-building, but I’m hating myself because I can’t flipping get that mini-run of sixteenth notes. My teacher pointed out that I can play the piece with my left hand, and that I regularly play much harder pieces in orchestra. (In fact, she expanded that to cover all the Suzuki material I’ve done and will do, which was very gratifying to hear, since sometimes I beat myself up about being on book three after playing for sixteen years.) The point of this is to work the right hand, and my problem does in fact lie entirely with the bow. From a dead stop, I can’t micro-manage the speed to get that lovely sort of swoop and jump for precise phrasing on those two first bars. (There’s an argument in the music world about the validity of the Suzuki method for adults, and what people tend to forget is that review is a huge part of the method. Yes, after sixteen years, you can go back to the earlier books and work on the pieces with all your knowledge and still find technique to polish. The method is a philosophy, not just a set of books.)

We spent the last ten minutes focusing on phrasing those two bars and trying to play them over and over, and I finally said I had to stop because it was getting worse and I was tensing up and losing control of bow and phrasing entirely, and it was doing more harm than good. That’s the kind of thing that stays with me, and despite the lesson overall being great, I had to keep telling myself not to brood about it on the way home.

8 March 2010:

I took the cello downstairs to practice in the basement because I had a lesson scheduled for that night and I wouldn’t be able to play in my office like I usually do since everyone was home. I regret not practising downstairs before, because the sound is phenomenal down there. And the phenomenal sound went with me to the lesson, which was great. We are moving on from Boccherini and working on Webster’s Scherzo now, which is nice for the change, but is also all about the incredibly controlled bow movement.

9 March 2010:

It’s that time of year again! The Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra proudly announces their spring 2010 concert.

Date: Saturday the 27 of March
Time: 19h30
Location: Beaurepaire United Church, 25 Fieldfare Ave, Beaconsfield
Admission: $10, free for children under 18

Programme:
The Wasps Overture - Vaughn Williams
Symphony no. 83 (’The Hen’) - Haydn
Méditation from Thaïs - Massenet
The Banks of Green Willow - Butterworth
Petit Suite - Debussy

This is a gorgeous programme. The concerts usually last approximately two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website, linked above. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all.

Mark your calendars now! And feel free to share the information with anyone you like; it’s a public concert. See you there!

11 March 2010:

I am giddy to announce the release of A Modern Cellist’s Manual by Emily Wright. I had the very enjoyable task of editing this book.

A very different sort of cello method, A Modern Cellist’s Manual combines technical information and plenty of photographs with advice on approach. Topics addressed range from the basics of a painless bow grip to injury avoidance, working with a metronome, and tenor clef. Emily’s tone and sense of humor lighten the mood of any practice session. A Modern Cellist’s Manual is suitable for those taking private lessons as well as returning cellists looking to bolster rusty technique.

A Modern Cellist’s Manual can be purchased via Lulu.com for now, and should be listed at major online retailers eventually.

Congratulations, Emily. You’ve worked hard for this. And for those who read it and want more… I have it on good authority that she’s working on it.

15 March 2010:

Saturday was a great lesson with some excellent breakthroughs (such as one doesn’t move one’s left elbow forward while crossing strings, one moves one’s forearm, so as to avoiding “breaking” the wrist; I love making discoveries like that), but it was an intense lesson and very draining.

Sunday we had our monthly group cello lesson, where I played my lines rather better than I’d anticipated. It’s so much easier when you hear the other lines and figure out where your line fits in (Yes, I realise this contradicts my complaint of last month, where I said that I couldn’t play my line because I didn’t know how it fit in. Yesterday was magically different. Or I practised the new material. One of the two.) We also sight-read two pieces, a cello quartet arrangement of the theme from Haydn’s quartet op 76 no 3 (we sight-read this one last time, too, but we all had different parts this time; last time I think I had the viola part, and this time I had the first violin) and a piece by Rameau.

22 March 2010:

On Friday night I had my cello lesson where some things fell apart, and others worked. I guess overall it was good, but there were parts that left me really down. This is the part of the-tearing-apart-current-technique process I hate. I know to expect sounding awful while my brain and muscles struggle to implement new info, but it doesn’t do much for feeling good about yourself or your work. A new étude that my teacher assigned had me trying to figure out what it sounded like, and I finally made the connection: it was in the same key and rhythmic pattern as the piece my teacher had suggested doing for the spring recital back in January, the Bach Gavotte from the third Suzuki book, a piece I love. I shared this insight with her and she was slightly taken aback, because we haven’t started it yet and usually she prefers students to present a polished piece they’ve worked on for a good long time. So there was miscommunication: I expected her to assign it when she thought it was time, and she perhaps forgot or had just been thinking aloud. She suggested doing the Lully Gavotte instead, but told me to work on both as the Lully has lots of stuff we can apply to the Bach, and if the Bach is good enough we can do that. We have three months; we’ll see what happens.

February 2010 Summary

2010-02-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

17 February 2010:

After a severe setback yesterday wherein I lost most of the day to researching ways to embed fonts on a Mac, and then finding that using Open Office to make a PDF had resulted in borking my document (it was supposed to make things easier!), I finally finished the cello manual layout and proofing today.

It’s been a really fun six weeks, taking a text document and doing a basic layout, then a copyedit, then the endless tweaking that happens when two people trade a document back and forth once a week for a while. Some of that tweaking was to condense the layout; some fixed things that became problematic; some involved adding material; some fixed errors that popped up thanks to the document format. Still, six weeks from plain text to a finished PDF ready for printing is a really good timeline for two busy people. (I come from a publishing world where three to six months for all this is the norm!) I’m crossing my fingers that there aren’t any problems with the printing process. (That’s what all the PDF and font-embedding strife was about. It was a whole thing.)

And today, apart from finishing the book PDF, I managed to wipe myself out having a shower, scrubbing the bathroom, and doing yoga. The fibro is really in my bad books these days. It would help if it gave me some sort of warning sign instead of just handing me a tonne of fatigue and pain all at once when everything seems to be going well.

I have a freelance project due on Friday that I really wanted done earlier this week, but PDFs and fibro are messing that up. I have orchestra tonight, and I fully expect to perform horribly despite practising this week. It occurred to me that I might discuss dropping orchestra with my teacher. Or taking a break. It’s been a really tough winter for me in a lot of ways, and orchestra’s getting trounced in my priority list. I love this new conductor, and I love the music, but I just can’t handle it capably. I know the rest of the section feels the same way, though, so I suspect I’m overreacting in a maudlin self-defeatist fashion borne of fatigue. Still; I really don’t want to drop it, but I feel so stressed about it that I don’t know if the tradeoff is worth it.

Time for winter to be over, I think. The cold and damp is really bothering the fibro.

18 February 2010:

The thing is, if you stick with something long enough, the bad parts usually get better.

Yes, orchestra rocked. Why would I drop something that challenges and rewards me? When it’s going badly it’s bad, but when it works, when everything comes together, it’s glorious. And I wouldn’t give that up.

Besides, Butterworth’s “The Banks of Green Willow” alone makes up for any frustration. (Including the frustrating passage of stormy strings a third of the way through where everything sounds like it’s falling apart, but is actually building before the absolutely gorgeous climax.) I’ve played some very pretty things, but I find this piece absolutely spectacular and it gets me every time. The transition in the middle is throat-clenchingly exquisite, and then the arrangement of the folk song at the end (the same one that Vaughn Williams used as the second movement of his Folk Song Suite, “The Bonny Boy”; Butterworth and Vaughn Williams were both interested in English folk songs, and Butterworth worked with Cecil Sharp to collect them) is gentle and ethereally beautiful in its simplicity.

I loved this piece even before I found out that Butterworth was killed in the First World War, after destroying the music he though unworthy of survival should he not return. His remaining catalogue is slim, and you can’t help but wonder what he destroyed, and what he might have composed had he lived through the war. Knowing it’s one of the few pieces that survived makes it all the more precious.

23 February 2010:

My monthly group cello lesson later that afternoon was great; we had a new student there, and did some good work on the Corelli. I’m having a stupid time counting, for some reason; I got lost in the middle of everything that I wasn’t playing the first cello line for (I’m fine with first and whatever the bottom line is, but I’m wobbly on the middle voices because I’m not sure how the harmonies are supposed to move or sound like yet). Despite this, our first read-through of Joplin’s “The Entertainer” went pretty well. We sight-read a new piece, “Soldier’s Joy,” that will be paired with “The Ashokan Farewell,” as well as getting the official new music for our quartets and trios. I really enjoy my group lessons, and I wish we could do them more often, although I know they’re a tonne of work for my teacher and the scheduling is enough of a nightmare.

January 2010 Summary

2010-01-31T10:18:00.000-08:00

11 January 2010:

Saturday morning I had my first cello lesson of the year, and it went well. This may have had something to do with the hour and a half of work I did on Friday reacquainting myself with book 3, or the beautiful weather (cold, but sunny and still) but whatever the reason, I was in a terrific mood, and pulled off a decent Gavotte. We then filled my slate with working on the musicality of the Gavotte, the 3rd pos Ruined Castle tonalisation, and the Boccherini minuet. (Good grief, what is the Boccherini doing so early in book 3?) And with the pile of work we have to do for orchestra, that’s going to be plenty. When one’s teacher shakes her head over the orchestra material and says, “This is going to be a challenging programme,” you know you’re in for it. I’ve been very afraid to look at the orchestra material. As much as I love it all, it’s hard, and I know that means I will love it less very soon, and least of all right before the concert. It will take a couple of months before I enjoy it again.

I also have to keep reminding myself that the work I’m doing in the Suzuki material is supplementing my orchestral development in particular, and my musicality in general. It’s not like I’ve never used third position, or extended shifts, or seen these keys before. I’ve reviewing things I’ve learned elsewhere, and using simpler pieces to work bits of technique and provide a relatively easy environment to play with musical expression. I need to get past the oddness of telling people that I’m on book three, but I’ve been playing for fifteen years. (Whoa; I just checked, and I started in July 1994. That means we’re rapidly coming up on sixteen years.)

18 January 2010:

Going back into last week a bit, the layout of the cello manual is going very well, and it’s looking more and more like a real book. Today I get to finish photo sizing, adjusting placement, and adding captions, and then I have to look at the ordering of sections to maximize the use of the space available so that people don’t have to turn pages in the middle of an exercise or to compare the before/after kinds of photos.

Saturday morning I had my weekly cello lesson, where we worked on musicality, using the Lully Gavotte as the focus. I learned a tonne of stuff about using the weight of my bow arm and staying in the string, which was really nice considering I hadn’t worked on my lesson stuff at all during the week. (There was lots of work, and orchestra, and I looked at the orchestra stuff and not the lesson stuff, okay?) We looked at the Boccherini minuet, which I’m starting next, and talked about my solo for the spring recital; I think I’m going to do the Bach Gavotte in C minor. On Sunday I packed up my cello and music and drove to my monthly group lesson. It was the first one of the new year, and I love getting new music. We’re doing a lovely quartet arrangement of The Entertainer, a trio arrangement of Ashokan Farewell, and a quintet arrangement of a Corelli theme, and the sight-reading went pretty well in general. We finished by sight-reading some quartet and trio arrangements of some of the Suzuki material, trying them out to help our teacher decide what to programme.

21 January 2010:

[Part of the 2009 year-in-review post]

Things I Did In 2009 That I Have Never Done Before:

Bought a brand-new cello.

Sold my primary musical instrument (to someone very deserving!).

Things I Did in 2009 Of Which I Am Proud:

I bought a new cello. If you follow my journal regularly you were privy to the angst I felt about the whole buying a new 7/8 cello when the 4/4 I had was so very excellent an instrument. This was a huge issue for me, because I had to deal with my preconceptions regarding thrift and what I deserve versus going overboard, and what constitutes any of those things. I am very, very happy with my choice to sell my first cello and buy this brand-new 7/8. The sound is evolving nicely and we play well together. We’re a good fit. This was HUGE for me. I am so very proud of myself for taking this enormously weighty step.

I am very proud of not quitting my cello lessons. As of mid-October it was one full year of lessons down, and I can tell that my technique has improved by leaps and bounds. I wasn’t ever really in danger of quitting them entirely, but I came close to asking to move to a biweekly schedule for the sake of finances, a move that would have had negative repercussions on my development.

I am proud of sticking it out in second chair at orchestra and not asking to be moved. I really, really struggled with the music this past fall, and I came very close to asking to be switched. Actually, I did ask, indirectly; I told the section leader that if she wanted to rotate me to the back to give someone else a chance, I’d be fine with that. She immediately vetoed that idea, which felt nice on one hand, but made my heart sink a little on the other. I’m sure this is very character-building for me.

December 2009 Summary

2009-12-31T10:10:00.000-08:00

3 December 2009:

We got new music at orchestra last night, so now I can share the programme for the spring concert (27 March 2010! Don’t say I didn’t give you enough advance warning this time!):

Vaughn Williams: ‘Wasps’ overture

Debussy: ‘Petite Suite’

Butterworth: ‘The Banks of Green Willow’

Haydn: Symphony no. 83 ‘The Hen’

Sight-reading new music is always an… interesting experience. I can give you the correct rhythm, or the correct notes, not both, especially on something I’m not familiar with, like the Debussy. (Or something like Vaughn Williams, whose music I am familiar with and adore, but who is, erm, somewhat eclectic in his use of rhythm and key signatures, I am discovering now that I have the chance to see the scores.) On the other hand, I aced the Haydn. It’s nice that it was the last thing we did before we left.

7 December 2009:
Saturday morning I had my cello lesson, where we worked the pieces for which I was playing new lines. Last group class I volunteered to move from the first line of ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ to the second line in order to keep it on the programme. We’ve been working on this piece for an entire year. It wasn’t ready for last Christmas so it was bumped to the spring, and it wasn’t ready then either so it was rescheduled for this Christmas. And then we lost one of our musicians, which left our youngest cellist on this piece alone on the second line, and he needs someone steady to keep him on beat. I love this piece, especially in this arrangement, and we’ve all worked so hard that I didn’t want to see it cut. I’ve worked hard on the top line, too; it’s the melody, and it’s got some soaring bits and challenging shifts that I’ve really polished. But cutting it would disappoint everyone, so I stepped up and said I’d move to the second line if it meant keeping it. The other song I’ve moved lines on is V’la l’bon vent (do click through to the YouTube video of the McDades singing it, holy wow), a French Canadian winter song that I only heard for the first time this fall when I’d been assigned the piece. Our arrangement was done by my teacher’s father, and it has a lovely little swirling wind theme in the second part. It’s a call and response song that overlaps, so the timing is everything, and after learning the timing of the top line having to recast the timing for the second line, even though the line is simple, is breaking my brain a bit. When I played my part of the duet recital piece M and I are doing I had the very encouraging comment that my teacher really had nothing else to tell me. We could, of course, tweak and finesse till the cows come home, but with a week till recital it’s as solid as it needs to be. I am so happy about this. One more duet rehearsal on Tuesday, then the dress rehearsal on Saturday morning, and the recital is next Sunday.

13 December 2009:

The Christmas recital was fine. I preferred the dress rehearsal version, but the different venue may have influenced that. I had a weird disconnect happen about fifteen bars into the duet where my left hand went to the completely wrong place on the fingerboard (wrong position, wrong notes, wrong everything) in a place where I have never had a problem ever, but overall it was all right. The unison bits were lovely, and I stuck the landing. Our last piece was pretty good, too, so hopefully we left them all with a good impression.

When we got there I went right into the seniors’ residence where we do our concerts, and the boys went around back to the snowy yard, because we’d promised the boy he could play in the snow until it was time for the concert. Apparently they found rabbit tracks, which kept the boy busy for quite some time. While they were out there it started to snow again, too, which wasn’t a surprise; light flurries had been predicted (although what we got was pretty much a heavy snowstorm). In fact, they had so much fun they actually missed the beginning of the concert, but they got in and settled down to enjoy most of it.

As I mentioned earlier, I preferred the dress rehearsal version, but the different venue may have influenced that. I had a weird disconnect happen about fifteen bars into the duet where my left hand went to the completely wrong place on the fingerboard (wrong position, wrong notes, wrong everything) in a place where I have never had a problem ever, but overall it was all right. The unison bits were lovely, and I stuck the landing. I felt off in every group piece except the opening one, though (and in the Ave Verum Corpus, in which I was playing a line I’d been switched to a week ago and played it very well, but the piece didn’t feel tight overall). Our last piece was pretty good, too, and it was a challenging all-cello version of the William Tell theme, complete with a guest flute playing the opening theme. Hopefully we left them all with a good impression. I was so proud of the littlest girls; they’ve improved audibly and visibly in the year since I’ve met them. And it’s so interesting to hear other students play pieces I’ve played before; everyone does them differently.

17 December 2009:

Work news: Now that we’ve confirmed it, I am all backflippy to announce that I am doing the book design for Emily Wright’s upcoming A Cellist’s Manual. I am thrilled to be working with Emily on this project, and to be working on a book about one of my main interests and areas of… er… I can’t call it expertise, but fifteen-years-of-familiarity doesn’t roll off the tongue too smoothly. Anywhats, yay for Emily, and yay for book design, and yay for working on a super awesome cool project!

22 December 2009:

A lovely, lovely carol singalong tonight with the Preston-LeBlancs, marred only by the boy’s meltdown when it got to be an hour past his bed time (first because he wanted to go home, then because he wanted to stay). We did get there later than I wanted to, because the boys got home later than I expected, but we had a wonderful time when we settled down at last. We had a lovely buffet of hot hors d’oeuvres and cheese and nummy little things, and drinks, and opened presents before turning to the music. Both sets of children were enchanted with their respective gifts, and other than the same CD we exchange every year (no, it’s not like regifting fruitcake; every year we buy one another a specific CD so we both have a copy), they gave me a print of one of my favourite Waterhouse paintings, St. Cecelia, which positively glowed in its heavy gilt frame when we saw it in person last month at the MMFA exhibition. The reproduction is surprisingly good, much better than most of those done of Waterhouse’s other works.

We were a guitar, a recorder, and a cello, each sightreading; always interesting! The adults gamely improvised Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman for the kids, and we had lovely versions of Away in a Manger and Silent Night, and courageous attempts at other carols. The boy squeezed in between my oldest goddaughter and myself and we sang Silent Night together (this version was all open strings on the cello, so I didn’t need to actually read the music), the boy looking up at me with a smile and copying the shapes of my mouth to sing the sounds. With his quickness at absorbing music and words, it ought to be easy to familiarise him with the traditional carols like the Gloucestershire Carol, Coventry Carol, and the Holly and the Ivy. I foresee a proper Solstice mix CD next winter.

I love this tradition our godfamilies share. Most of us could have kept on playing for a good long time, but small persons have their limits. Next year, we’ll definitely do this on a weekend afternoon in order to have more time to actually play and sing, although there’s something special about doing it at night, with the midwinter darkness outside the snow-framed windows that reflect the twinkling lights on the tree.

November 2009 Summary

2009-11-30T10:01:00.000-08:00

2 November 2009:

Cello lessons are getting better, although I’m still having moments where I freeze up or can’t work through a small problem. My teacher had to remind me about things we’d worked on months ago — caterpillars, the little bounce in the shift that provides shock absorption so the shift doesn’t sound harsh — but for once my right hand was behaving. So now my focus is on smooth shifts, elegant ones, done at the same speed my bow hand is moving at instead of rushing the shift.

9 November 2009:

And I had my cello lesson last night, where we worked on the group pieces for the recital. The great Focus on Shifting continued, with the key thing I brought away from this particular lesson being the concept of shifting over the wall instead of through it, using the slight elastic bounce off the fingerboard to travel on the string to the target position and then rejoining the fingerboard with another elastic motion. I worked on this about a year ago, using the mental image of a jellyfish or a squid swimming for an analogy to the motion required (whatever works, okay?) and it’s so rewarding to see that absolutely none of it stuck with me once we stopped talking about it. I also had a note on my Brahms waltz/lullaby piece that said WRONG FINGERINGS, noted as such after the last group class when I got tangled up and saw everyone else was shifting differently, and hoo boy, were they ever wrong. We went forty-five minutes over time as a result of trying to get them corrected. My teacher is an absolute saint. I also learned that my proper 7/8 soft case arrived at the luthier! This is going to be a straight trade for the 4/4 case that my 7/8 cello came with. I originally told the luthier I’d stop by next Saturday but that doesn’t make sense time- or gas-wise; I’ll send the 4/4 case over with HRH on Friday, and he’ll make the ten-minute trip to the luthier’s shop after work on Friday on his way to collect the boy.

13 November 2009:

Concert announcement: Wien und München! Yes, gentle readers, the time has come again to make plans to attend the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra fall concert! Every fall we present an introspective and soul-uplifting concert to celebrate the season, and for your entertainment we have prepared a challenging programme that our new conductor and musical director, Stewart Grant, has titled Wien un München (Vienna and Munich).

Circle Saturday the ~~28th~~ 21st of November on your calendars. At 19h30 in the Valois United Church in Pointe-Claire (70 Belmont Ave., between King and Queen), the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will present the following works:

Der Schauspieldirektor

Rosamunde

The Magic Flute

In diesen heil’gen Hallen

Admission is $10 per person; admission is free for those under 18 years of age. The concerts usually last approximately two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website, linked above. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all.

This is the first concert with our official new conductor Stewart Grant. We’re really enjoying the work he’s doing with us, and judging from the reception of the Canada Day concert, audiences are enjoying it, too. Come experience our first proud formal performance with this talented and experienced conductor!

19 November 2009:

I have some cello to work on. Last night’s rehearsal was amazing but incredibly draining; with the fibro being the worst it’s been in two years, I’m moderately concerned about keeling over halfway through the second part of the concert on Saturday night, and no, I am not kidding. I think what will save me is that fact that the Beethoven is at the end on the actual concert night.

23 November 2009:

We had an early dinner, and then it was time to dress up for our first official concert under the direction of our new conductor. The boy chose a very nice red cabled sweater to wear. The concert was lovely. Pressing past the usual enthusiastic support I had feedback that the sound was more focused and rich, so evidently we’re doing something right. I was very happy with my performance in the first half, but intermission apparently broke me because I lost focus in the Beethoven. Still, it was very enjoyable. Our clarinet soloist was a knock-down success; I really enjoy doing the second Weber clarinet concerto. We had a fabulous audience of about one hundred people, among whom were Jeff and Devon, Lu, Ceri and Scott, and HRH and the boy, who stood on his father’s lap to applaud and cheer loudly at the end of the Beethoven. Thanks, everyone! And our spring concert has already been announced: Saturday 27 March 2010 (2010, yikes) at Beaurepaire United Church (25 Fieldfare, Beaconsfield, QC) we will be playing Vaughan Williams’ ‘Wasps’ overture, a Haydn symphony (I forget which one, sorry), a Debussy suite (possibly ‘Images’? I don’t think it’s ‘Bergamesque’ because I would certainly remember that, but I didn’t get the title noted down in time and now I’ve forgotten, woe!) and something by Butterworth. Mark the date down now (or whenever you get your 2010 calendar).

October 2009 summary

2009-10-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

13 October 2009:

Friday night I had a good cello lesson. We cleared up some fingerings in the Beethoven symphony, then I said I wanted to work on recital stuff instead of my lesson stuff. I’d been playing on Thursday night with the practice mute (a good hour and a quarter of practice, hurrah, although it meant I didn’t sleep well) and was struggling with making an Air by Bach sound properly smooth, and I’d worked on the Mozart duet and Ashokan Farewell too. I also finally said I needed to walk away from the Berceuse, because I was fighting it so much that it was causing more problems that it was solving. My teacher said that leaving it wasn’t a problem; we’d revisit it later. Although, she added, I’d been making progress on it, even though I couldn’t tell. The Mozart duet had good parts in it, and I have notes to help me focus on string crossings and smoother shifts. We worked out better fingerings for the Bach that made it so much easier, so I’m feeling better about that too. I don’t feel as overwhelmed by it all any more.

15 October 2009:

Orchestra was good last night. At least, it sucked less that it had for the past three weeks, so things must be better. I still need to work on some of the Beethoven trouble spots. Some I have down, others I don’t (which is an incredibly helpful statement, I know). We got to play the Schubert, which was nice because I could play it with no trouble even without practice, and we sight-read the first movement of the second Weber clarinet concerto (well, it shouldn’t have been sight-reading, because I’ve had it for two weeks) and that wasn’t as much of a disaster as it could have been once I remembered that we were in E flat major. It always sounds so wrong until you hear everyone else playing.

19 October 2009:

Saturday AM: Awful cello lesson. It’s been a while since I almost broke into tears. I’m at the I-can’t-do-anything-and-I-don’t-understand-why point.

26 October 2009:

An excellent cello lesson always begins the weekend nicely. Things have improved over the past couple of weeks, which is great, but I’m still a month behind where I ought to be. The six-week breakdown of technique while my subconscious implemented the new lesson stuff really crippled my progress in orchestra.

30 October 2009:

On Wednesday M. came over for our first rehearsal together of the Mozart duet we’re playing for the recital in December. Nothing like a practice session with your duet partner to emphasize that you’re really not as bad as you think you are. I sounded much better and steadier than I thought I did, with pretty good string crossings. This piece is all about waves and flow and steadiness, so I’m further along than I thought. There are still places that go ‘crunch’ so there is lots of room for improvement, but I felt a lot better about it than I did going in to the rehearsal. Orchestra that night wasn’t a compete disaster either: I got some of the harder bits but flaked out on the easier patches at the end of the Beethoven. I hate doing that. Just under one month till the fall concert, too.

Dull

2009-10-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

I seem to be at a pretty bad fibro low. The cold/flu thing that tag-teamed me through September really kicked me hard, and getting back on my feet is a very long drawn-out process that's not much fun at all. It's also that time of year where I'm restless, but don't want to leave my office. I want to be out being distracted by things, but I don't have the energy to either do it physically or mentally, since dealing with People At Large requires a heck of a lot of energy. And as I no longer have the car, going out via public requires more time and physical energy as well.

So I'm spending a lot of time flipping dully through stuff on the internet hoping for inspiration, researching spinning and testing stuff out because it relaxes me and doesn't draw a whole bunch of energy from me, and getting frustrated because I can't work. Work is... draining. It's at the point where I'm not being fulfilled by it, and it's just a paycheque. Which is not a bad thing, because I never set out on this particular freelance gig seeking fulfillment; it was always intended to be just a paycheque, because money is good. It's just really hard to open these documents and run a review on them, because most of the time they're poorly written and poorly laid out, and that's really depressing. I have to muster up a huge amount of energy to deal with them, and that's draining on a whole other level. What would probably fulfill me more is actually writing, except that whole finite amount of energy and currently low levels means I need to direct the energy towards paying/deadlined work first. I feel exhausted just thinking about writing my own stuff, and not terribly inspired. What I need to do is rethink how I handle these assignments. Maybe read through them entirely before starting to pull out the broken elements for the report, then handle the report at the end rather than starting with it at the beginning of the read-through, because it slows things down.

Cello is feeling kind of sloggy at the moment too, because I'm trying to internalize a whole lot of stuff that's coming up in lessons, mostly about technique, and as a result a bunch of other stuff is breaking down. This is not unusual; very often we have to unlearn things, or take things apart in order to reassemble them properly. I know this intellectually, but my emotional awareness just sees things I was playing decently now being played horribly and piles on the self-confidence crisis. Orchestra is a slog too, because I've been dealing with the take-apartness issues (I've played everything on this program before, so why can't I do it now?), the past month I've been ill and unable to focus properly, and I'm experiencing issues with bringing things up to tempo. I can play them sub-tempo at home, and I'm not up to speed yet at rehearsal, which, let me tell you, is frustrating and embarrassing when you sit second chair right in front of the conductor. (I am very specifically not looking at the Beethoven, here. I know, I asked for a Beethoven symphony; I've changed my mind. How about some Haydn? Or some Boyce?) So rather than being excited about cello the way I was in the spring and early summer I'm dragging my feet.

* The complete original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

Orchestra Again

2009-09-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Nothing like being the de facto principal cellist in the absence of the first chair on the first day of orchestra… and not embarrassing myself. Go me!

Yes, it was the first orchestra rehearsal of the season last night, and our principal cellist couldn’t make it. It’s entirely possible that the late notice caught her with a double-booking. Anyway, our new conductor graciously asked if I wanted to move into the first chair and I said, “Oh, no; I’m good right here, thanks.” So everyone else shuffled so as to be closer and the third chair moved up to sit first. And I discovered something: Even though we were sight reading, in general my rhythm and timing is more accurate. We all ran into problems with a badly printed copy of the music and nasty accidental-sown runs (oh, Beethoven, I love you but you’re a bastard, with your notation tricks of slurs across beats and those damn modulations within scale-like passages), but I was pretty reliable in entrances and so forth. I did lose my place more than I’d liked in the runs because everything was squished together, and I have trouble ignoring people who are playing the wrong thing at the wrong time to focus on my own technically correct stuff. Still, it was a good time, and bodes very, very well for the season. Also, yay for my intonation. Lessons and a new cello are working well.

And in related news, I can’t listen to the Schubert ‘Rosamunde’ theme without singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ in my head. (Now you can’t either. Ha.)

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

Canada Day Concert Redux

2009-07-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

It is my very great pleasure to share with you the video taken of the entire Canada Day concert.

Bless Martine and Daniel for shooting the HD footage, for editing it and posting it to YouTube; and even more so for burning all those concert DVDs for the orchestra members! It was a real treat to sit back and enjoy the concert the way the audience did, and as the Blu-Ray player and TV are hooked up to the surround stereo and subwoofer, I got to hear the orchestra in all its glory. (Okay, the church is very echoey, and at times our articulation isn't as clear as it could have been and those two issues = occasional muddy sound, but hey! There's sound to be heard!) And I appreciate it all the more because my audio recording was such a miserable mess.

Calixa Lavallée's O Canada

1. Adagio maestoso - Allegro con brio

2. Allegretto

3. Menuetto - Trio

4. Presto vivace

1. March - Seventeen Come Sunday

2. Intermezzo - My Bonny Boy

3. March - Folk Songs from Somerset

Fauré's Pavane

1. Allegro Marcato

2. Allegretto tranquillo e grazioso

3. Allegro moderator alla Marcia

4. Allegro molto

1. Vaughn Williams suite excerpt

2. sing along O Canada

Overall, I am very pleased with my performance in this video. Two things leap out at me. One, I tend to make small faces while I play, mostly tightening of the mouth during different phrases. It's not in reaction to mistakes, it's more like... expression. It probably can't be seen from the audience, but seeing it on screen when the camera was on the celli was very odd. This summer I'm going to work on relaxing the muscles around my mouth when I play. And two, I've been working on lowering my right elbow, and damn it, every once in a while it pops up like a chicken wing. Down, elbow! Down! Something else to work on this summer.

There were a couple of places in the video when I waved my hands at the screen and said, "The celli! The CELLI! They have the theme, the violins are just playing a repeated note -- pan RIGHT!" And there was the odd place where the camera would pan to the brass... just in time for them to lower their instruments. But those are understandable in a live recording, and really, I'm just thrilled to have the record of the event. Especially on DVD! Merci encore, Martine et Daniel, vos efforts et votre générosité sont vraiment appréciés!

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Weekend Roundup

2009-07-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've been low on fibro spoons the past few days. Here's a brief recap of the weekend.

Friday: I moved my office around. HRH stopped by on his way to get more paint, and helped. The window is now at my back. I like the new layout; curiously, there is more room in the office now. We'll see if the fresh perspective helps the writing process. At least now people can't come in the door and watch what I'm doing over my shoulder. I managed to get twenty pages of Orchestrated edited, a minor miracle considering I spent three hours on the first page. I could see that it wasn't right, but I couldn't fix it properly, either. Cello lesson Friday night, the last before fall. The Suzuki book 2 review is officially over (yaaaaay!) although my teacher wants me to further polish the last two pieces on our time off. My summer homework: working through Position Pieces vol 1, working the page of exercises she wrote out, reviewing book 1 in thumb position, and looking at the first piece in book 3. Cool links of the day: Ottawa's NAC Orchestra puts music archive online; and I discovered Kevin Fox, whom I can only describe as a cellist with the voice of Elvis Costello.

Saturday: HRH headed out to do a half-day of painting to finish up Mousme's kitchen, so the boy and I made cookies, painted with watercolours, and watched video of Neil Peart. Friday afternoon I had timed a Craiglist query perfectly and snagged a used Rock Band set for the Wii, and Saturday after the boy's nap we collected it and set it up. The included USB hub, which is supposed to pull power from the Wii when plugged in, doesn't, so we can only use two peripherals at once till we find a powered hub. As no one is particularly moved to do vocals, this is fine for now.

We need another guitar peripheral so I can play bass while the boy rocks out on guitar (perhaps we won't plug his in). I'm not enamoured of the fret keys on the guitar; the red one seems to be stubborn on the lower frets, while the green is stubborn on the higher ones. I suppose I'll get used to it. (I am amused that I refer to them as 'lower' and 'higher' when they have nothing to do with the frequency of sound produced. Well, they'd be lower or higher if it was a real guitar.)

Saturday night HRH and I were supposed to break the Rock Band set in properly, but I was too tired and he couldn't really drum while the boy was asleep because the kit sounds exactly like my cousin Iain's practise pads used to sound when he practised for pipe and drum band (in other words, loud and sharp).

Sunday: We ran errands. Looked for a powered USB hub but couldn't find one for less than $50 so left it for now; picked up the silencer pads for the drum kit; bought Tal and Kristie's housewarming present (breadmaker!); bought an ice cream maker for us (something I've been on the fence about for two years). Picked up a couple of 4 litre jugs of water because despite promising there would be news on Friday, LaSalle still has us all under a boil-water advisory. Early lunch and nap, then off to beautiful, bucolic Hudson for a Very Important Orchestra Meeting, at which we did a recap of the year and the conductors we've evaluated. We chose our new conductor (thereby also approving the substantial fee increase) by unanimous vote. We'd intended the vote to be by secret ballot, but people were just so enthusiastic that it wasn't necessary. While the orchestra met, the boy ran around and around the gorgeous property, played with the dog and counted frogs in the waterfall/pond. Back home, made dinner, put boy to bed, set Blade up as the Responsible Adult On Site (Now With Rock Band) and headed out to an RPG, which hadn't met to play in, um, very long. Hurrah for fully-assembled parties, and action finally beginning. Feels like things are underway at last.

I'm so very excited about this new conductor. I think he can do a lot for us, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we can be better integrated into the local music scene.

The only bad thing about the weekend (other than being short on spoons) was buying rechargeable batteries that would only work in a proprietary charger not once, but twice. Two different brands; two different sets of tiny tiny fine print. Not amused.

Right; on to editing.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Canada Day Concert Review

2009-07-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

Every year around this time I say something along the lines of "best concert ever." I feel rather like the boy who cried wolf, because I've said it so many times now that you're not going to believe me when I say that no, this was the best Canada Day concert I've ever had the joy and honour of playing in. No, really. No hyperbole here. I can produce witnesses. A couple of hundred of them, even.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out, including (but not limited to!) HRH and the boy, my in-laws, Marc, MLG, Daphne, Lu, Tamu and Patrick, Jeff and Paze and Devon, and I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. A couple of fellow cello students were in attendance, too, and it was fun to see them. Thanks must also go out to Ceri and Scott, who hosted a pre-concert barbeque with the intention of leaving with everyone else, but who were detained by a sulky house with plumbing issues. (Scott, you grilled our steak to perfection; thank you.)

I've been talking about recording a concert for aeons, and I finally brought the MiniDisc to this one. I'm heartbroken to hear that the levels were too high, and because an awful lot of last night was Loud with a capital L, there's static and popping and muffling throughout it all. Still, I can hear how good it was under the poor sound quality. I wish I'd thought to check levels during warmup, but I completely forgot I had the thing in my bag. This is better than nothing for me, though, because it showcases the precision and interpretation. The recording is also somewhat weighted toward the celli, bass, and tympani, because, well, that's the side I sit on (although the mic was just a foot left of centre) and all those instruments have deadly low frequency levels that together can really distort a recording. I can't do much about it with Audacity; I'm hoping that I can transfer the files to a Mac-friendly format and work on them in GarageBand once the Mac Mini has been acquired at the end of the month.

(I'm transferring the recording to the computer now, and hello, I nailed the exposed cello solo line in the Pavane, which was the one I was worried about. Ha! A wee bit off on the first cello-led phrase in the Grieg dances, but I'm attributing that to the somewhat, er, accelerated speed at which we played them. Also? Best rendition of the Pavane out of the three times we've played it since I joined. I think the proper speed is key; go too slowly and it dies a dead death. It's solemn, not funereal.)

We got to use risers for the first time, bringing us all onto the same level and lifting us above the audience. I think it made a lot of difference sound-wise. This conductor set his music stand between the second chairs of the violins and the celli; he likes being right in the middle of things. I kind of like it too; I don't have to crane my neck so much.

This conductor is dynamic, focused, has wonderful musical expression, has already dragged us beyond the level at which we were functioning, and comes with a host of fringe benefits like established connections within the musical and cultural communities. I think the vote on Sunday is a no-brainer, but I am only one of forty people, and there's a money issue which I think is an obstacle of principal for some. I want to keep working with him, actively want to, as opposed to being happy with my performance under one of the previous guest conductors. Even with the poor recording quality, I can compare them to the performance caught on video in the fall, and I think there's no comparison. This performance was much more crisp and vibrant.

It was really good to feel capable during this entire concert. And I don't think I'd have felt this comfortable if we hadn't struggled with the Bizet and Mendelssohn for the last concert. I've made tremendous strides forward this past season, what with the new cello, a new teacher, and this varied selection of music chosen by three very different conductors. Just working with a teacher has made a world of difference, enabling me to shift and nuance what I'm doing in a way I couldn't do before. I am extremely pleased with my performance last night.

Afterward, while we were waiting for the fireworks to begin, Patrick asked me what a conductor actually does other than stand up there and wave his arms at a performance, and I realised that if you're not a musician familiar with the rehearsal process you probably have no idea that the conductor is literally the director of the whole show from beginning to end. He chooses the music, guides the interpretation, asks for more or less from various performers, tweaks phrasing and delivery, and is basically responsible for what makes it different from other versions one hears. He's the observing ear who reflects what you've just played back to you and tells you how to make it better, something that's hard to do when you're sitting in the middle of it.

And my new 7/8 baby performed very well. I played it in the spring concert, but it's really opening up and sounded even better this concert. After my week away I picked it up and it sounded very rich, heavy on the ringing tones and with remarkably full resonance. Impressive. I am very happy with it. It was a good lateral move, indeed. I even like the fibreglass bow that came with it. It's wouldn't be my choice of bow, but it's got good balance and resistance. My favourite bow is warping, and that cracked frog has to give out sometime. This fall I'll start the bow search.

We were even fortunate weather-wise. The day was mostly bright, although a glorious thunderstorm boomed and cracked during our hour-long warmup. There was a particularly amusing moment where we were counted in and the thunder rolled on the beat we were to start on; apparently the storm wanted to play too. The rain ended forty-five minutes before we began, though, so everything was fresh and clean and cool for the concert itself. And the fireworks were spectacular; there were some I'd never seen before. It was the boy's first firework experience, and he loved them. "They're loud!" he exclaimed from his father's lap, where he was sitting all wrapped up in a blanket provided by his godparents. "And they're all my favourite colours!" At various points during the day yesterday he randomly yelled out, "Happy birthday Canada!" and waved the tiny flag someone handed him early in the day while we were out. We almost got caught by the parade downtown; if we'd known about it we might have planned to attend. Next year, I think.

One more lesson, and then I'm off till mid-August. Marc's piano has been tuned, so I think we'll mess about together in the interim. I transposed "Itsudo Nando Demo" the other day using Forte, and it was very worth the time. I can read treble and transpose down as I play for a couple of measures at a time, but not three pages' worth.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

C Minus Six Hours

2009-07-01T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've packed my concert blacks (long skirt this year, TYVM, since last year's pictures showed that my mid-calf length dress was still too short), various toiletries and hair clips, and weeded non-essentials out of my music bag. I've got the MiniDisc ready to go (because yes, I'm going to try to record this one, the Vaughn Williams is that good). There's a steak thawing on the counter to take to Ceri and Scott's, where we're heading for an hour once the boy is up from his nap. There will be beer. I need to pack the boy's backpack still, but other than that, I suspect I'm basically done.

Looks like the weather will be kinder than expected; the POP is now only at 40%, and there's a nice wind. The high tonight is supposed to be 17 degrees. I think I'll risk wearing my new black leather mules, and bring an emergency pair of shoes to wear in case it rains.

Music stand. Must pack the big music stand.

Happy Canada Day, everyone. HRH has already cracked open my Canada Day gift to him, a special edition Innis & Gunn. Enjoy your day. See you on the other side.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Concert Reminder!

2009-06-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Canada Day. And you know what that means: Excellent music!

Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra presents their annual Canada Day Concert
Wednesday July 1, 20h00
St-Joachim church, 2 Ste-Anne St, Pointe-Claire Village
Guest conductor: Stewart Grant
Programme:

Symphony no. 3

Pavane

Norwegian Dances

English Folk Song Suite

The 211 bus from Lionel-Groulx metro stops at the corner of Sainte-Anne and Lakeshore, a block or two north of the church. Here’s a map to give you a general idea. Be aware that if you’re driving, parking will be at a premium because of the whole Canada Day festivities thing going on. Give yourself extra time to find a parking place and walk to the church, which will be packed with people.

Free classical music! Soul-enriching culture! And as an enticing bonus, the fireworks are scheduled for ten PM, right after we finish, and the church steps are a glorious spot from which to watch them.

Free admission, and open to the general public. The more the merrier!

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

General Yayness

2009-06-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Today the latest paycheque for recent freelance services arrived, on top of the provincial tax refund and the usual child assistance cheque earlier this week. I have a very nice deposit to make at the bank after my cello lesson this afternoon. Of course, municipal taxes and the car insurance and registration are also due. It never gets any easier. I handed in my latest assignment yesterday and am taking a month of leave from the freelance gig, because there's two weeks of family vacation wherein I will accomplish nothing even when we are home, and I need to get some work for myself done. Orchestrated is just sitting there and I want it done and gone to make its rounds.

I came home from orchestra last night wired and very awake. Things went really, really well. The rest of the brass section joined us, and as they sit behind us I didn't know they were there till they tuned with the rest of the horns we usually have. I jumped; some of the violins laughed at me. I love having a brass section at Canada Day; it adds such a nice rich texture to the lower tones. Anyway, I was very awake, and didn't get to sleep till after one o'clock. I had a whole blog post written up in my mind but have essentially forgotten it.

I'm really enjoying working with this guest conductor, and I made a point of telling him so last night. Each guest we've had lead us has gotten better and better. I prefer this one the most. I hope the majority of the orchestra votes to accept a fee increase so that we can keep him. I think he's worth it, and our yearly dues are ridiculously low to begin with.

And in other orchestra news, practising problem parts really does make them better. Who'd've known? The only problem is that due to time constraints and prioritization, I don't practise the easier bits, so sometimes we get to places which ought to be easy and I stumble.

Took the boy to the doctor this morning; he's about 38 lbs and 40 inches, two more and an inch more than six months ago, respectively.

Tomorrow night: I buy the 7/8 and it is mine, mine, mine!

Right. Now, lunch.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Mailbox Glee

2009-06-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

HELLO PROVINCIAL TAX REFUND!

(I'm sorry, was I a little loud, there? I'm a bit giddy. Nothing like getting a bit more back from the government than you expected.)

This, plus receiving 4/5ths of the payment for the full-size cello last night, means... buying the 7/8 cello is happening this Friday FOR REALS because I'm no longer missing a couple of hundred dollars. I'll also be plunking a chunk down on the Visa, and then the rest is to be squirrelled away in savings against the rainy famine-not-feast days.

Thank you, world!

Now, if I could just concentrate on getting this assignment finished...

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

In Which She Muses About The End of The Cello Year

2009-06-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

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.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Dear 4/4 Cello:

2009-05-27T06:05:00.000-07:00

Fifteen years ago I bought you almost new from another student cellist, your only identifying label a small one that says "Made in Hungary." We've seen a lot together, from Twinkle to Scheherazade. I was stunned when luthier after luthier examined you and told me that you were about my age and a high-end intermediate model, not the shlunky new student model I'd been told you were by the previous owner. Over the past fifteen years your sound has developed beautifully, and you're powerful and strong. Your action is easy. Your only prima donna trait is your tendency to demand a new bridge every eighteen months, and really, when you think of what can otherwise go wrong, that's pretty reasonable.

I never knew how huge you were until I handed you to the principal cellist of my chamber orchestra for a moment, and she exclaimed about your width and depth. You were just my cello; that's the way you were. So when I spoke to my new luthier and he measured you, I was surprised to find out that you are in fact an oversized 4/4. I am petite. I always thought people's remarks about how amusing it was to see a tiny person playing a large instrument were generic sorts of comments. Now I wondered if there was something else to it.

After much discussion with my new teacher a year ago, we decided to start trying 7/8s; she said that the smaller size and proportion would positively impact my technique. I felt horrible, like I was cheating on you. I felt even worse when I discovered that it actually was physically easier to play a 7/8; I didn't have a huge chunk of wood in my way when it came to putting my left hand in higher positions and moving my bow arm to play the C string. Even as I searched for a 7/8 whose tone I liked and whose action felt good, I thought I'd never sell you: I would be loyal to the end, whether I bought a second cello or not.

I rented the latest 7/8 for four months to play it exclusively in order to test the playing-better theory. And then last week I brought you upstairs from your lovely exile to play you, to see if there really was a difference. You were almost perfectly in tune, as if you'd been waiting for me.

And you were... harsh. Oh, your action was as easy as I remembered it being -- easier than the 7/8, truth be told -- but your sound was so bright and cutting that I found myself wincing. I remembered how I searched endlessly for the perfect combination of strings to tone down your brightness, to give you the more mellow sound that I craved. The sound that, I must admit, this 7/8 has in creamy, caramel-y spades. I had no physical problem playing you, but I did notice how large you were and how I had to lift my arms more to get around you, which limits the power I can devote to refining the sound I draw from you. You boomed, you were operatic, and... I cringed a bit. Were I a true soloist, your sound would be perfect for me. But I'm not. I'm a small-ensemble, orchestral-section girl. You're... big, in every sense of the word. And I'm small.

I know now that keeping you would be sentimentality, pure and simple. While I can physically handle you, it's just easier with a 7/8. And your sound isn't what I'm looking for. Now that I know I have other options, I'm a bit sad. It was easier when I didn't know any better.

You held my hand through pizzicato, my first shaky bow strokes, in-class group recitals, public recitals, joining my first orchestra, and playing bass in an eclectic cover band. We've experimented with a wide variety of strings and bows. I've given you four new cases over the years. Remember the time I shipped you to Toronto in the baggage car of the train, and the base of the hard case got somehow punched in? I panicked and opened you up right there in the middle of Union Station. And you were fine, laughing at me as if it would take more than whatever happened to hurt you. You have nicks and scratches all over you from minor mishaps over your forty years, and you don't care. You haven't a single wolf, and your balance across your strings and throughout your octaves is beautiful. I've never found your limits.

Come August, I'll list you in local classified ads and hope you find someone who will love you as much as I have, someone who needs your size and your beautifully developed, unique sound. I love you. And I release you.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

The Recital Report

2009-05-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

A triumph! No screw-ups, secure shifts, solid intonation, some pretty damn fine subtle shaping, and oh look, stable bow weight resulting in nice smooth crescendos! Huzzah! The ensemble pieces were good too. In fact, everyone did very well. And I am very proud of the boy who behaved extremely well, but who, alas, fell asleep right before the Star Wars theme that was the thirteen-year-old's choice of solo (just past the halfway mark of the recital). He quite enjoyed what he did hear, however. I am told he played air cello and clapped like a mad thing after the duet.

Summer is going to be very long. I will miss cello. I have another month of lessons to go and almost six weeks of orchestra, but year-end performances are always tinged with melancholy.

And now, I am going to reward myself with a glass of red wine that I saved from the bottle MLG brought to accompany dinner last night.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Uneven Dress Rehearsal...

2009-05-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

... hopefully even recital, right?

This morning we had our dress rehearsal for tomorrow's recital. The ensemble stuff sounded great, except for one piece, which admittedly did sound better once we'd had a break and retuned. Our duet sounded mostly all right (I know hearing notes slightly out of tune is normal for performance, because one's hearing goes hyper-critical) except for the bit where I relaxed in the repeat of the A section. I glanced away from my music, and when I looked back I had no idea where we were. I quickly ran out of what I remembered of the two bars following and had to stop playing until I figured out where my partner was. Very embarrassing; thank goodness it happened at the dress, so it won't happen at the recital itself. We ended up cutting the repeat (which makes sense apart from my gaffe, as the A section is forty bars and quite long enough on its own), which reduces my chances of over-relaxing and losing my place. The other solos sounded terrific. It's going to be a good recital.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Cello Musings

2009-05-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

(Oh look, I found a journal entry I'd been working on in fits and starts over the week. Evidently the headaches and work have given me the attention span of a gnat.)

I have the money to buy my current 7/8. Which, of course, now makes me all wibbly again. I'm just going to need to upgrade in a few years anyhow, now that I'm taking lessons again and advancing properly.

But why do you wibble? I hear my Gentle Readers say. We thought you were decided.

Well, insofar as I like the cello and it's good to play, yes. When it comes to handing over just under $2K? Not so much.

I just dragged the 4/4 up from downstairs, though. And yes, wow, it's great: it's balanced, and projects really well. But it's huge. And... I've come to prefer the tone of the 7/8. It's more... caramel-y. My 4/4 is kind of like espresso: delicious, but with a bite. The 4/4 is easier to play action-wise; string crossings were effortless and the sound match between first and fourth position is smoother. But the 7/8 has that lovely mellow, nutty sound to it that's always been my preference in cello tonal colour. And it's improved since I got it; it likes being played and the sound has certainly developed. It will only get better.

I know I want to sell my 4/4. That much is decided. Love the sound, but I'm never going to be the kind of cellist that needs it, as in a soloist who needs to be heard through the orchestra. I'm small-ensemble and chamber material. So there's hopefully around $1000 to be recouped from that. Whether or not it will sell is a different story; I've seen cellos posted repeatedly on Craigslist and Kijiji, with prices revised downward. I know this one is a gem; it's a question of getting people to understand that.

Apart from the looming purchase of the 7/8, I also have hard case woes. The one I bought secondhand last year just isn't going to work for a 7/8. The suspension is all wrong, the curved parts that are supposed to fit into the cello's waist don't fit into where the 7/8's waist actually is, and there's two inches of gap at the bottom. Even when I pad the bottom, the weight of the cello pulls it down so that the lower pegs hit the bottom of the scroll box, which means the cello's weight is suspended from the lower pegs. (Bad? Yes. Very.)

Having bought both new-to-me hard and soft case last year, I'm loathe to buy a new one again. The soft case I bought is roomy on my oversized 4/4; the 7/8 swims in it.Yes, I could sell them along with my oversized 4/4 when I sell it, but adding another $300 on to the price of the 4/4 isn't going to help sell it. But if I buy the 7/8, I want a good case to protect it. The one the luthier included with the rental 7/8 is a super-padded soft case which would be another $140 extra. If I want a new low-end hard case it will be about $5 and I'll have the problem of finding a small 4/4 one in which the 7/8 won't swim, or a large 3/4. There's a local place that will let me send them my measurements and they'll tell me if the 7/8 will fit one of their 3/4 cases, but they'd have to order a 3/4 in and it's non-refundable if the measurements don't match up after all. A hard case designed specifically for a 7/8 will be over $500.

The main problem with the 4/4 I've got is that the curved areas for the waist actually interfere with the bouts when the 7/8 is placed high enough to try to avoid the pegs mashing into the bottom of the scroll portion of the case. Putting foam padding in the bottom to support the base of the cello only helps to a point, because the tips of the bouts bonk into the semi-circular bits, and they stop the padding from lifting the cello enough to avoid the pegs problem. I've talked to HRH and checked the material of the case, and it's made of that high-density stuff cycling helmets are made from. So we're going to remove the padding, he's going to trim off the semi-circular sections that are designed to fit the waist of the cello, we'll insert a crescent-shaped piece in the base to make the body area smaller and snugger, and replace the cotton velvet covering. It's not like removing the curved sections is heretical; most of the cases I see don't have them at all. Then I won't need to worry so much, and the 7/8 won't bang around.

So the first thing we'll try is modifying the hard case I've got. (I hear certain Gentle Readers hooting about the fact that I'm modding a case.) If that doesn't work, well... we'll make it work.

In the end, I know what I need to do; I just have to steel myself to hand over the money, and trusting that I'll recoup part of it eventually. It's just that the money is so reassuring in my bank account. Taking it out leaves me with not very much at all, even if I knew that it was earmarked for the 7/8 to begin with.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

All Cello, All The Time

2009-05-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was all cello, all the time. Well, not precisely; I did three hours of errands and grocery shopping and such in the morning. But I had an excellent two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, then had half an hour to tidy up, and headed then off to my cello lesson. It was great to hear my teacher say that it was really coming together, and there were just twiddly things to do to the duet. When I was packing up she said that in general I was sounding good: my bow was more confident, and my intonation was really improving. It put me in a great mood as I left, and it stayed with me for the rest of the day, even through the traffic from hell on the highway that nearly made me late to collect the boy from the caregiver. (Hello, construction season. I have not missed you.)

The night before had been orchestra, so in effect I had five hours of cello in the space of eighteen waking hours. *flexes her callouses* I have to find a way to keep my left hand relaxed through the Vaughn Williams; I'm using way too much pressure. It's not like I have to press any harder with my left fingers if I'm playing louder, after all. It's all about bow speed.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

I Suspect That We're... Different

2009-05-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

What does it say about my family when my son digs through the CDs and chooses Brahms' Fourth Symphony to listen to while he plays with his trains?

Also, I figured out a way around his stubborn insistence that I not practise when he's at home: I played "Old Macdonald" and "Frère Jacques", two of the exciting selections from our upcoming recital in which we accompany the two littlest girls. (After playing Jeff's tab of Tom Waits' "Ol' 55", that is. Which is what he claimed woke him up, despite me using a practise mute and playing pizzicato.)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Photos!

2009-05-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

Photos have been posted of the spring LCO spring concert, featuring a remarkable number that include the second cellist.

That's really a pretty cello. I like it up close, but it's nice to see that it carries itself off quite respectably from a distance, too.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

A Happy Friday

2009-05-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I've done as much as I can on the ms.; I'm waiting for answers and edits back from two of the four people I queried, due back next Monday, and then it's back to the publisher. In celebration, I poured myself one of the new Alexander Keith Premium Whites that Ceri and Scott sent home with HRH after he helped set up their new dining table and chairs, and sat down to play half an hour of Metallica. Let me tell you, the #cello 4 line of the Apocalyptica arrangement of "Nothing Else Matters" is what it's all about. Seriously. Celebrate those ringing tones! Sure, it's shades of "this is all I do" and the stereotypical arpeggios played by basslines... but in 3/4 time, when you know it's what drives the song that you're hearing in your head at the same time, and those ringing tones echoing and lingering even when you're playing two notes later? Beautiful.

Hmm. This beer is much... milder than I expected. Very light. Possibly too light for my mood. Oh well.

The cello lesson yesterday was all right. I suspect that I jinxed things by pointing out to the online cello community that I'd had a streak of really terrific lessons and theorizing that I'd passed the plateau I'd been struggling to move beyond. My bow hand is creeping back into bad habits and my bow arm is creeping back into wrist-led territory. Well, ten years of bad habits aren't going to vanish overnight. I think I really prefer Saturday morning lessons; I'm much more relaxed, I'm not rushed because I have to go somewhere else next, and I'm not tired from working. I take what I can get, though. Anyway, by the time I picked the boy up and got home, I had a really bad stomachache for some reason and ended up not eating dinner, which was annoying because I'd been craving spaghetti for two weeks and had finally picked up the ingredients that morning.

I remedied the no-food thing by making a poached then shredded lemon-herb chicken breast with baby lettuces and freshly-grated Parmesan in a wrap for brunch today. Dear gods, so good.

And now, I am decamping to the living room to read, and taking the vase of tulips I cut from the side garden with me. I hope everyone's having a wonderful Beltane.

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

Sharing

2009-04-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

One thing I love about the Internet (hello, Internet!) is that it's good for sharing stuff with millions of people you've never met.

Allow me to share some music with you.

I discovered Philip Sheppard almost exactly two years ago. He's a cellist and a very talented composer. I used to have his MySpace page open while I worked on other things so I could listen to his posted tracks on an endless loop. I got other people hooked, too, muah-hah-hah.

Now he's posting more and more tracks, some free to download as mp3s, others embedded within his web site. As a start, visit this page to listen to a selection of his haunting piano pieces. A handful of free mp3s for download can be found here. There are other embedded pieces of various styles scattered throughout the site's pages, too, as well as a free download of sheet music for his lovely Crystallized Beauty theme, arranged for two pianos.

Enjoy!

@PhilipSheppard
Radiomovies (Philip Sheppard's official blog and web site)
Philip Sheppard's MySpace page

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

Ongoing

2009-04-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

I read pretty much the entirety of Perri Knize's Grand Obsession in one day. It was fabulous. I was worried at one or two points that it was going to veer a bit too far into the mystical (and coming from me that's saying something) but it righted itself in time. After all, how do you define how music affects us? It's a twofold story about a woman deciding to study piano in middle age and buying one, then trying to understand what the personal connection to a specific instrument is (not violin or cello or piano, but one specific example of the chosen instrument), and an exploration of how pianos are built and maintained. Really engaging and quite enjoyable.

We had our second rehearsal with our third guest conductor, and I enjoyed it even more than the first. He's good. There is a problem with his voice carrying to the back, but he's terrific in his bilingualism, and his musicality and his interaction are fabulous. He knows exactly what to work to smooth out problems, and how to phrase what he's looking for. We've added Grieg's Norwegian Dances to the programme, and (hurrah!) Vaughn Williams' English Folk Song suite. Of course, the Vaughn Williams starts in A-flat major (F minor? no, pretty sure it's Ab) which is four flats, augh! I have enough trouble remembering to flatten my As, and he wants me to flatten my Ds as well? But it is Vaughn Williams and I am over the moon.

Also in cello news, while I was working on some ensemble stuff earlier this week and trying to isolate why my intonation was unstable, my left elbow kind of said, "Oh, I've got it," and moved a millimetre or two forward on the horizontal axis, all on its own. And it solved the problem. I was amazed and very grateful to it. Perhaps the next time I have a problem of some kind I shall consult it.

I've had a series of excellent cello lessons with small but significant breakthroughs like that over the past couple of weeks. Of course, there was also that monthly group cello lesson where we worked on ensemble pieces for the upcoming recital. For some reason I couldn't get comfortable with the length of my endpin or the angle of my cello. I blew stupidly easy shifts while playing solo (naturally). Moral of the story: Revisit your ensemble pieces regularly, even if the last time you played them they were easy and note-perfect. I am appropriately humbled.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

First Rehearsal With The New Guest Conductor!

2009-04-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

First rehearsal with the new test conductor last night, and what fun. He had us playing the Schubert passably in pretty much no time at all. He's younger than I thought (by quite a bit) and an oboist. We were missing an oboe so he pulled his out and wandered around playing the oboe theme while conducting. It was mildly alarming to have an oboist wander at you at various points, but it certainly encouraged each section to play out when they were supposed to. He greeted us in French and talked to us equally in both languages, which impressed us. I already like his musicality and his personality. There were grumpy people making their grumpiness known, but that's not unusual, alas.

Best news of the night: One of the pieces he's considering programming is Ralph Vaughn Williams' English Folk Song suite! I bounced in my chair with excitement. (Otherwise I sat there in mild pain, because the particular chair I was in slanted nastily toward the back. Ugh. Time to look into one of those firm wedge cushions.)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

In Which She Chatters About Cello Stuff

2009-04-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

It's confirmed: we're trying out a third conductor tonight! And I am very happy because there was a bit of kerfuffle about memberships dues not covering what this conductor requested as his fee, but the majority of members were okay with paying a supplement to obtain his services for this concert. If we decide he's the one for us then membership fees will go up, and I'm perfectly fine with that; we pay a ridiculously low fee as it is, and more than doubling it only brings us to ten dollars per month the orchestra plays each year. If he's as good as his reputation suggests he is, we'd be getting a real deal. Also, audiences would increase because of his affiliation with other musical events and organisations, and our recruiting of new members would also increase. There's a lot of potential here.

Apparently we are playing Schubert's third symphony as the main course for the July concert. So naturally, while looking for audio reference, I discovered that I own only the first, second, and fourth symphonies. I went away and thought about it for a while, then remembered that I'd bought a full six-symphony set the last time we did a Schubert symphony (the fifth?), because the set was less expensive than a single CD with the fifth on it. I had to hunt it out, though. It wasn't with my other Schubert CDs. I blame the boy, who used to pull CDs out and then reshelve them in interesting new places. I checked my records and apparently I've played Schubert's third before. I have no memory of it, but then, it was in 2003, which was six years ago. However I played it then, chances are rather good that I'll play it much better now.

I am so very excited to be working with this conductor.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Good Celloing

2009-04-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

I just had an hour-long rehearsal with my duet partner that went quite encouragingly well. I recorded the session with the MiniDisc, and have now spent an hour struggling with the transfer. The first time I had the levels set too high so the bass warped everything. The second one I did was too low and had odd clicking/crackly sounds throughout it. Third time's the charm, yes?

Beyond the somewhat argh-ness of the transfer, the entire experience was great. We bumped up the speed each time we played it through, which I was very thankful to do; I like playing it faster than I do in lessons. When we get it going at 104mm, it's great. We both seem to have the same instinct of when to bring the pace down a notch and when to reassert the original tempo, too, which is a good thing. Apart from the usual missed notes and wrong fingers, I'm very impressed with the recording. We're doing a great job. Considering the fact that this is the first time we've played it together, I'm all the more encouraged. Listening to the recording is interesting; I can't tell who is who a lot of the time. I mean, I know what bits I play, but if I'm not concentrating I can't tell which cello is producing the theme or the accompaniment at any given point. Which means the balance is good. And we had fewer problems than I expected; we listened to one another quite well.

Just before she arrived the postperson dropped off the box of cello goodies I won from Emily and Benning Violins! I had to leave it sitting there on the table while we played. I opened it while I was transferring the recording, and here is a photographic record, as promised to various cello players in the blogosphere!

The very cute little box! Emily drew little cellos and notes and bass clefs on the other side.

The contents!

The contents, unpacked! There's peg lubricant, polish, a microfibre cleaning cloth, the Larsen A, and a brand-new cake of Gustave Bernardel rosin. It is perhaps somewhat sad that I am very excited about the microfibre cleaning cloth. I needed a new one. I'm very excited about the rosin too, of course (the idea of spending fifteen dollars to try a new cake of rosin is alien to me), and hey, a Larsen A! But evidently all it takes is a nice blue cloth to make my day. I'm a simple creature. Thank you, Emily! I will think of you every time I swipe my bow with the rosin or clean off the cello.

Aha; on the fourth transfer I have established proper levels and volume, and there are no pops or clicks. A little voice has piped up inside my head and says, You know, the Mac Mini will come with Garage Band! This will be very exciting! I wonder if I can link my microphone directly into the extended-loan iBook to record my part for my partner to practise against, even though it doesn't have GarageBand on it. Hmm. Worth messing about with next week. If not, the MiniDisc-to-computer it is.

And to top it all off, I have a lesson tonight. I'm looking forward to it, especially now that I've listened to the recording (multiple times) and know what bits really need work, and what places my partner and I will have to listen to one another extra-hard.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

And In Unrelated News...

2009-04-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

This morning, while I was composing the very-difficult-to-write post about my newfound chocolate sensitivity, I received word that I won a year's subscription to Strings magazine plus a $100 gift basket from an LA luthier for a 250-word contest entry I wrote on Emily Wright's online teaching technique via her cello blog.

Whee!

This was especially nice, because I didn't do it for the prize; I did it because Emily was looking for an idea of how readers interpret her lessons and approach. Of course, the prize is really quite nice too, because who wouldn't want a goodie bag of cello-related stuff? (Er. Anyone who is a cellist, that is. I have no idea what most of you would do with such a thing. No, wait, yes I do: You'd give it to me!) The subscription is timely because I was going to have to let my subscription to Strings lapse this fall; it's too expensive for me right now.

So. Yes. What a lovely surprise.

I really need to get back to working on the taxes.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Spring Concert Review

2009-03-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

Fabulous weekend!

I freely and cheerfully admit that I was completely and utterly wrong about the quality of performance at this concert. It was a most excellent evening -- it blew us all away, musicians and audience alike. This conductor really knew her stuff; she trusted us more than we trusted ourselves. And what astounds me is that she didn't know us, beyond observing a rehearsal or two previous to her turn at bat. We pulled it off, thanks to her, to her faith and her leadership and her solid preparation. In the end, this was not in fact the concert to miss if you had to miss one, as most of my regular concertgoers ended up having to do thanks to other responsibilities.

There were over a hundred people in the audience, which was wonderful too. I'm glad so many people got to experience it. My deepest thanks go out to MLG, HRH, and the boy, who were my own personal cheering section in the back corner. I saw the boy standing on his seat to applaud wildly after the first half of the programme, which made me grin so hard I thought I'd strain a muscle. And on the way home he was singing to himself in the back seat. We asked him what he was singing and he said, "I don't know." We listened closely and realised that he was singing the bell theme from the Carillon at the end of the L'Arlesienne suite. My heart just about burst. I was extremely proud of him and of how he behaved.

The only mishap on the part of the celli (and the biggest musical mishap concert-wide, I think) was that we completely and utterly missed our cue for the celli treble clef solo in the middle part of the Carillon. We were counting, and then we heard the oboe playing, and I thought, Hmm, I don't remember the oboe playing here. And then the principal and I suddenly looked at one another out of the corner of our eyes, because we realised that we'd missed our entrance. It would have sounded awful if we'd jumped in, so we all let the oboe have a lovely solo. Who knew they played the same line we did? The conductor laughed about it once we were done, as did all of the celli. No harm done, but terribly amusing after weeks and weeks of work on that line and hitting the entrance every time. I think this version was nicer anyway; much gentler and more nostalgic. (Ha!)

I will be very interested in hearing any recordings made of this concert.

I had a group cello lesson Sunday afternoon, at which some of us incredulously dissected the previous night's successful concert before settling into the group pieces. It's nice to have all the heavy orchestral stuff behind me so that I can focus on lesson and recital work now. We got the final lineup for the recital and the official assignment of who's playing what part in the trios and quartets, and my duo partner and I are making plans to meet to rehearse our piece. I love our group lessons, although I suspect we tax our teacher's patience when we all get together and there's variously missing music and giggling and rhythm issues.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

On The Other Hand...

2009-03-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

The Beethoven symphony, the Vivaldi, and Scheherazade are going to sound great. The concertmaster's rendition of the Scheherazade/storyteller theme is magical.

And the conductor has said that she will make a final decision on concert tempo for the Hebrides next week. So there is hope!

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

In Which She Grumbles About Cello

2009-03-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

Here's the thing.

I have lost pretty much any joy in playing and practising, because it's all about L'Arlesienne and the Hebrides, and I hate them. I am better than I was when we started working on these, yes. But no matter how much I drill them, I'm getting them wrong, and there is no sense of satisfaction or progress. In fact, all there is is frustration. If I can play them at ridiculously slow speeds, that doesn't help me in top-speed concert situations.

We had a strings-only rehearsal on Saturday, and the Vivaldi was great. The four young soloists are terrific. But then we finished by playing the Hebrides at concert speed, and it's a train wreck. I suspect that this guest conductor has set us more than we can carry off, which she couldn't really know when she decided on the programme. And I hate saying that because I don't like to suggest that a concert is going to be less than good. But when the entire section of celli shakes its head at a piece, and there's someone saying she's not going to play in the concert because she doesn't like how the music is sounding, it's not an ideal situation. There's doing my best and being proud of it, and then there's the sense of hopelessness and resentment. (Mendelssohn, I hope you're happy, you section-wrecker, you.) And it's not just our section with the Mendelssohn problem, either.

So every time I sit down to play I want to play anything except Mendelssohn and Bizet, and I know that I need to practise them more than anything else. And I get cranky. I know that I am light-years beyond where I was seven years ago when I played L'Arlesienne the first time. It doesn't make a difference. What does make a difference is that fact that I've improved in general, so now the bits I get wrong sound really awful instead of blending into the general not-very-goodness of my playing.

This 7/8 sounds slightly choked in fourth position and above. I suspect it has something to do with me getting used to the touch up there and figuring out the proper angle of string-stopping. Still, I find myself thinking of how clearly my 4/4 sang in fourth and up. I plan to take the 4/4 out of its case next week and try to play all this stuff I've been working on on it, just to see if the 7/8 is making a difference. My first two months of rental are up at the beginning of April. I do like the sound of the 7/8, and it handles nicely in respect to size and proportion. I just have no clue if it's made a positive difference or not.

So yeah. I'm kind of looking forward to the post-concert break, and to different music.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Music At Home

2009-03-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon was my monthly group cello lesson, which was so much fun. I love the group lessons as a rule, but this one was particularly enjoyable. Only four out of seven students were there, and we played some really fun stuff which I essentially sight-read because I hadn't had time to play it through after my teacher gave it to me last Tuesday (last week = work + workshop insanity + brain burnout). I and my stand partner spent a lot of time laughing, which felt moderately wicked. I pulled some very nice stuff off when the less-confident people dropped out along the way, and tripped myself in a couple of particular places every single time because I hadn't prepared the shifts.

Last night after the boy got ready for bed I set up my cello and told him a little story about a moonlit barnyard at midnight, when the barn door creaks open and two eyes peek out, and then a little chicken steps into the barnyard to move one foot, then another, and then... dances! At this point I played the Chicken Reel for him, and he kept telling the story on his own. It was fun. When he was in bed I kept working on some of those nasty shifts and working out fingerings for various other group pieces, and he sang along in the dark. This morning he woke up singing again, and when I went in to cuddle him he threw his arms around me and asked if I'd had fun at my cello practise. I told him I had, and asked if he liked hearing it while he was in bed. He said he did quite enthusiastically and asked what songs they had been (which resulted in a discussion about Dona Nobis Pacem and Ave Verum Corpus at much-too-early-o'clock), so maybe I'll do it more often. Being comfortable enough to play with everyone at home here and upstairs was a definite indicator of how good a mood I was in. I actually liked the sound I was producing, too. Wonders will never cease.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Lesson Highs and Lows

2009-02-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning I had my cello lesson, and it began beautifully. I did a smooth, beautiful tonalization sequence of arpeggios, and it was really even and balanced and in tune and soft and there are lots of other pretty words I could use to describe it because it was almost perfect. My teacher asked me how I felt about it and I kind of shrugged and said, "It was nice. I liked it." (Which was an understatement, because I had been amazed at how smooth and effortless it had been, but it was a warm-up and I hadn't been paying very close attention when I did it.) She said, "Well, I have goosebumps! That was beautiful!" And she was partly kidding, and partly not. But then everything started to go downhill, until it hit the usual point about two-thirds of the way through the lesson where it can't get any worse and I start to freeze up because nothing I do works and I waver between abject misery and anger. I know what happens: my teacher starts pointing out things we need to fix and I try to keep it all in my mind, and the more I try to think about everything (bring the left elbow forward a degree more when shifting up and crossing a string, wrap the bow around the string by moving the right elbow forward or back, pronate hands, caterpillars, tunnels) the worse I play. Adding more things to the list of things I need to constantly check clogs up my brain and I start dropping basic things I've already internalized. It's part of the learning process, but not a part I especially enjoy.

My teacher has an analogy for this: It's like the drive shaft on a set of train wheels. At first it feels like you're moving forward, but then the drive shaft starts going through the second half of the cycle and the illusion of going backward is created, even though the overall unit is still moving forward. And if I think about it I'm doing things now that I couldn't do two months ago. But that doesn't particularly comfort me at the two-thirds point of the lesson. My teacher told me as I was packing up to remember the tonalization, though, and to remind myself frequently that I have the wherewithal to make that beautiful sound.

It's also rather frustrating because I've been spending so much practise time on the orchestra music and not paying attention to my lesson stuff, and as a result when I played the Lee that I'd played well a month ago it was awful and we had to spend time addressing the problems there. The plan for two spring/early summer concerts has been dropped (not directly related to how poorly I'm doing, but rather to people not all being available) and so I don't need to worry about having it ready until a month after the original deadline, which after this past lesson is a good thing.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Not Dead

2009-02-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

Bizet, why do you hate me so?

Actually, that exposed bit in the Overture? I sound surprisingly good. I suspect I am playing D sharps where I ought not to play D sharps, however, and am about to check with the CD. I am dragging my feet and muttering "don't wanna" about practising that tenor/treble passage in the Carillon, though. Because Bizet and I, we don't get along when we hit that particular point. I'm going to listen to the recording of that section till my ears bleed to internalize the theme, because I suspect that I am one tone off at that point.

I'm really enjoying this new guest conductor. You can tell she's a cellist, because she's chosen pieces with really juicy cello bits for us. Problem is, they're exposed juicy cello bits, and I don't particularly deserve to sit second chair, and these are only highlighting that fact. Also, she pays attention to us, for which I am grateful. Most of the time.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Post-Fundraiser Thoughts

2009-02-16T08:40:00.000-08:00

I played in the local Suzuki fundraiser concert/play-in yesterday. I'd originally wibbled about this because ideally Suzuki pieces are learned by heart, and other than 'Twinkle' and 'French Folk Song' on a good day I retain absolutely none of my early Suzuki pieces. Then again, I didn't originally go though the Suzuki method and therefore did not memorise them; my first teacher only used Books One and Two because they were well-done. Now, however, I am officially working in the Suzuki method, which is lovely and gentle and focuses on 'See what you did well there?' and 'That was good, now how can we make it better?' In other words, the approach I need so that I don't throw my hands up in the air and burst into tears because I'll never get it, never, never, AUGH, why am I even trying? But I still don't have to memorise them, for which I am deeply, deeply grateful.

So I expected to demonstrate Epic Suzuki Fail because I needed sheet music. But it turns out that half of the back row of adults did and some of the third row of teenagers did too, so I was somewhat relieved.

I was also wibbly because eep, people! But it turns out that one is very happily anonymous in a crowd of forty-odd cellists on stage, especially when one is in the back row. Go group Suzuki concerts!

To my astonishment the cellist leading our portion of the concert (which was first, yay for having big instruments that require chairs and setup) announced the hardest piece first, when I'd expected the performance to begin with the easiest pieces and progress to the more advanced music. The most advanced piece was the Breval sonata in C, which I'd played at my one and only recital ever about ten years ago. I knew this was to be on the playlist (it's in Book Four, I discovered) and I'd borrowed the Suzuki arrangement to look at it, but my teacher suggested that I might have enough on my plate what with orchestra and lesson work and prep for all the other Suzuki pieces to be performed. I agreed and didn't look at it again, but I put a copy in my music folder just in case. And as I'd warmed up by messing with it, I decided to play along, just for fun. And I messed up in the middle runs of triplets and one or two of the shifts, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I'd forgotten that Suzuki performances require the musicians to stand and bow smartly after every piece they've played. Heh.

And then things just got easier, and every piece there were more cellists who lifted their bows and played and took bows afterwards, right up to the last two songs which are the first two in Book One, where all the tiny cellists in the very front row were playing along. They were adorable and so well-behaved, waiting there on their little stools while everyone behind them played the more advanced pieces. It was like a musical game of Sardines.

Alas, there was a certain little boy in the audience who was not particularly well-behaved or patient. In fact, he had to be taken out of the theatre as soon as the solo cellist (who was a teenager who'd been sitting in front of me on stage, and her solo piece was was simply brilliant) had finished her performance and the flutes had gone up to play, because he'd been so disruptive. After thinking about it we suspect it was the lights going down that did it: he couldn't see to colour or look at his books or play with his cars, so he was restless and squirmy and kept talking. At my orchestral concerts the lights don't dim, so this was unexpected. He knew we were upset at having to leave a third of the way through the concert, too, and he knew it was his fault. We talked about it on the way home and he now understands that he is expected to behave himself the way the little cellists on stage did, as the youngest of them was only a year older than he is. It's a respect thing, for the musicians as well as the audience around you. We will practise this. It was done and over with and there was no point in dwelling on it, but it still took both HRH and I a good couple of hours to shake our residual vibrating-with-anger-and-mortification. I did get a nice apology from the boy while I was changing out of my concert clothes, saying he was sorry he had been bad and we had had to leave, and promising that next time he would be very quiet at my concert. I have four (!) coming up between the end of March and the beginning of July, so he'll have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate his dedication.

He has decided he wants a flute now, too. I'm thinking it's a good thing we left before he saw the violins.

This year's fundraiser was for Sun Youth, and judging from the number of people there (mostly families, of course, but even so) there was a decent amount raised.

Now I can go back to focusing on orchestral work, with a side order of lesson work.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Hello, Thumb Position

2009-02-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

Last night my hour-long lesson, which usually goes a bit overtime, clocked in at a solid hour and a half. Why? Because we worked on the orchestra music instead of my lesson stuff, which I think is sensible because my lesson stuff can wait while the orchestra stuff grows ever more crucial. Rimsky-Korsakov gave the celli some lovely lines in the third movement of Scheherazade, and wrote them in treble clef. Which means they are Very High. And that means thumb position.

Which I have never used before.

So I was initiated by necessity into the Mysteries of Thumb Position, and ow. But other than the ow, it made a lot of sense. I came home with instructions to play Mary Had A Little Lamb and Ah, Vous Dirais-Je Maman and any other nursery rhymes I could think of in thumb position, as well as the Bizet and Mendelssohn and Rimsky-Korsakov that require it.

I think my lesson would have gone quicker if I hadn't had to stare at the treble clef and count up from the bottom all the time to figure out what note what indicated. Because good grief, I'm only barely fluent in tenor clef, and now treble? I had to write it all out and post it in front of my music stand at home for quick reference.

And in 7/8 news, it's very very easy to play all the way up there in thumb position. Sixth and seventh positions in general have been easier to play than on the 4/4, so unless I'm making it up (which is entirely possible) we have a thumbs up (no pun intended) for ease of (and possibly easier) playability in upper positions. I'm finding the full tone reaches between fingers 1, 2, and 3 up very challenging up there, so I can only imagine how much harder it would be with an extra millimetre or two on the oversized 4/4. The distance between notes is supposed to be smaller up there! Why do the distances between full tones seem so big in thumb position?

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Astonishing

2009-02-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

So I took the 7/8 in to the luthier last night (and was twenty minutes late, thank you every single red light on de la Verendrye) and talked about the kind of sound I was looking for. I played it for him and he agreed that the C string was a little mou (which would translate to 'soft' or 'mooshy' [not 'mushy,' totally different!] or some such thing, but in English those infer touch rather than quality of sound). He put the cello across his lap and WHACKED THE BRIDGE a few times.

Yeah. But he's a professional, so he can get away with it. Also, he was probably using some Jedi Luthier Techniques or something, which means there was More Going On than just whacking it.

And he gave it back to me, and my gods, it was like a different cello.

Then he said, "Hmm, the A is a little timide." And he asked what that would be in English and I said the direct translation was 'timid,' but again, it didn't convey the quality he was looking for. I would have said 'reserved.' So he put the cello across his lap again and inserted the fancy swirly crowbar that is the soundpost-adjuster, adjusted the soundpost, and gave it back to me to play. And my gods, it was yet again a different cello. The lower strings are more focused, everything is more balanced, and yes, the projection has improved overall as well. (Not a lot of the latter, but hey, it's a student cello.)

I am very pleased.

I signed a two-month contract for rental, paid the fees, and walked out with it. Now it becomes my primary cello so as to really work it and see if the size difference actually does make a positive impact on my technique.

I realised this morning that I haven't even looked at my lesson material over the past insane work-week, which is moderately problematic because (a) I have cello lesson in an hour, and (b) there was an entirely new piece that I haven't even played through yet, but I suspect my teacher will be understanding because I worked my orchestra stuff instead. (Good grief -- the Hebrides overture, the Arlesienne treble clef celli solo in the 'Carillon,' and the Risky-Korsakov; they will kill me.)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

In Which She Apologises

2009-01-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

Dear new guest conductor,

I’m really, really sorry for panicking about the second bassoon part you asked me to play for the L’Arlesienne suite two nights ago at rehearsal. I agree that it was really needed so we could fill in the missing bits, and I was willing to give it a shot on the cello until you handed me the music. I was having a really bad day, and all I saw was multiple flats and tenor clef, and I knew I couldn’t sight-read it. Thank gods for M, who was willing to give it a shot (and pulled it off creditably, too). I’m pretty ashamed of myself, especially because it turned out that I could have done it as the crucial bit she ended up playing in that exposed part was in fact in bass clef and nice relaxed eighth notes. But her intonation while sight-reading is probably more reliable than mine anyway.

Just wanted to say I was sorry. And I should apologize to M again too, who was almost as flustered as I was about the music, even though I probably already apologized to her too many times during and after the rehearsal. I feel awful about it.

But hey, how about that sight-reading of the third movement of Scheherazade? Pretty good, hunh?

Sincerely,
the cellist in the second chair

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

More Musings on 7/8 Cello No. 7

2009-01-19T19:54:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know, I tend to go on about this. It's a big thing in my life, and this journal is mainly for my records, after all.

I mentioned the slice in the table to my teacher at the ensemble lesson on Sunday and her eyes got very big. She looked at it and said, "Do you have a digital camera? Take a picture and send it to them, and ask them what they're prepared to do about it, and if they'll guarantee the work. This kind of thing can really affect resale value." I wonder if they might end up dropping the price a bit because of it. Because damn it, I like the sound of this one. I've already seen that four different examples of this model sound completely different; it's not like they can just order another one in for me.

Also, the more I think about this, the less willing I am to make an absolute decision one way or another in this brief space of time. Renting had occurred to me months ago when I was trying the Jay Haides in Toronto, but my mother reminded me of it yesterday. I know my local luthier rents student kits; there's probably no reason why they wouldn't rent this student cello to me for a few months, in order for me to get a better sense of how the size is going to affect my playing. Not all my rental fee will go toward the purchase, of course, but most of it will, and if I don't buy this one then I have a credit for whatever I do end up buying, be it cello or bow.

We got new music in the ensemble class yesterday: The Beatles' 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' arranged for trio (so much fun for the middle voice because there's that rhythm but you're not playing the melody you expect), 'Dona Nobis Pacem' as a canon, 'Ave Verum Corpus' (which I could not get in tune; the 7/8 felt like it was sitting funny, as if I was torqued, but no matter how I adjusted I couldn't shake it, and of course I was playing the top voice which goes stratospheric), a really fun blend of two popular tunes done tango-style, and a kids' song (we get to accompany the littles, and it's going to be hilarious). There will be more, no doubt. And I learned that my friend from orchestra, who also began studying with our principal cellist about a month before I did (and who also plays a 7/8), is playing the other part of the Lee duet with me, which is going to be lovely.

Back to work.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

In Which She Works Through Some Issues

2009-01-17T13:04:00.000-08:00

This morning we had an awesome, awesome brunch chez Adam and Karine. The term 'groaning table' was invented solely for this morning's repast. We got there, the boys all ran upstairs and played on their own, we were given excellent coffee and had the blissful experience of having adult conversation while the three boys played elsewhere. Absolutely lovely. I love that the boy is at an age where he can be trusted to play elsewhere with others and not require constant checking-in. We knew things had gone well when the boy broke down when it was time to go, and said at random tearful intervals all the way home, "I want to go back to Samuel and Matthieu's house now."

But this post is mostly about last night's cello lesson.

Holy cello lesson of technical adjustments, Batman! "It may not feel like you're making progress," my teacher said reassuringly, "but when all this stuff is done you'll just fly." And I know I am making progress, because as I clean up one thing another becomes apparent (either caused by the adjustment or revealed hiding behind it) that needs to be addressed. It's like following a trail of Smarties to a really big prize of some kind.

Speaking of really big prizes: This 7/8 looks like it very well could be The One. It's the best one I've tried out of all seven so far. It's a bit richer and more intimate than the one I've got. Mine is clearer and has better projection (how could it not, it's freaking humongous, of course the bigger soundbox projects more!), which, if I was playing solo in halls, would be better. But realistically I'm not going to be doing that, am I. The more velvety 7/8 is fine for chamber and orchestral section music. And overall, if it's in this good a shape now, after a year or so of playing it will have opened up even more. The only problems my teacher confirmed were that (a) the C sting lacks a proper balance with the rest of the strings, (b) the C string lacks quick response, and (c) if the projection could be improved just a wee bit that would be nice, too. (So nice to have my initial assessment of the instrument supported. Go me!) A bit of adjustment plus a different C string would probably do it; she sent me home with a couple of different strings from her hoard to try. She's going to talk to the luthier about it this week when she goes in to pick up her bow that's been repaired. The only problem I've found otherwise (and just now, yikes) is a too-far-down cut made in the table where the neck is set in; I'm worried it might carry on down the front as a crack. We'll see what they say.

I played it for my entire lesson. Never even touched my own. This has happened all week in practise, too.

I also had something confirmed for me. My teacher was playing a passage on first the 7/8 then on my 4/4, and I liked both the sounds but in a different way. And she said, "Honestly? You'd have to spend a lot of money to find a 7/8 equivalent in sound production to your cello." Now, this is something I've suspected more and more through this process. My cello is a surprisingly good cello. People with more experience than I do tell me it has excellent tone and projection and balance and is very easy to play. Plus it has had forty years to mellow and develop. It's just a tad too big for me. And now that the possibility of buying a new 7/8 is becoming more and more real, I'm clinging irrationally to it. Is buying a new 7/8 a bad step? No, not at all; I'm just worried it's an unnecessary one. Yes, it's a better quality cello taken in the grand scheme of things, but do my current needs, or those of the near future, require the higher quality cello? Honestly, probably not. Will the 7/8 be better for me technically than the oversize 4/4? Maybe. Might my fibro require a smaller cello in the future? Possibly. Is the oversize 4/4 holding me back? I won't know until I start playing something else, will I.

Yes, I'm wibbling. Badly. All the shopping and research was fun, but the big step of buying it is so fraught with responsibility. It won't be a bad investment. It's just a lot of money for a maybe. (On the other hand, I've just remembered that this is temporary anyway; the real upgrade in quality will come with the repair of the Mystery Cello some years down the line when my cousin and I have the money. So there, wibbling. This isn't the end of the line; this is a step in the correct size direction. Stop second-guessing yourself about this nebulous thing called 'quality.' Do you like the sound? Yes. Is it better or worse than the one you've got? Neither, really; it's different. Is it a complete loss of money? No, because resale value will be high, and you'll probably succeed in selling your current 4/4 anyway at some point. So.)

On top of all that, I feel like I'm cheating on my 4/4. I feel like I'm being disloyal to fifteen very, very good years.

Argh!

As an aside: My teacher pulled out the bow that came with the 7/8 kit and said, "Aren't you going to play with this?" "No," I said, "it's dull and stiff." "That's odd," she said, "they're usually a bit springier than wooden bows." "Oh, no, this isn't carbon fibre," I said, "it's fibreglass." "Fibreglass? Why didn't you ask for something good? When you take things home on trial you can be like a kid in a candy store: 'I'll take one of those, and one of those, and maybe some of this...". Duly noted. Because eventually, I'm going to need to replace this cracked bow, too....

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

First Review of Cello 7

2009-01-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

I played the 7/8 yesterday for my entire practise time. It was that good. Usually I get frustrated with the lack of response I expect to get and switch back to my own instrument.

It's... resonant. A bit less clear on the C string, but that can be adjusted. It has really nice tone colour. There's a good balance across the four strings, nice response, and did I mention it's resonant? Holy cow. There were times when it sounded uncannily like my cello. In general it sounded much, much more developed than the last one. At least, it sounded that way from behind the instrument. We'll see what happens when I cart it to my lesson Friday night.

I kept hitting adjacent strings because the bridge/fingerboard combo is less curved than mine. I initially thought I'd want that increased but then realised that most cellists probably wish it was the other way around in order to use the minimum amount of effort/energy possible in switching strings. It's even easier to play than the last one in a physical way, too; the action is even sweeter. (The action was pretty much the only thing I liked about the last one.) What I find interesting is that they're both 2007 instruments, so they're roughly eighteen months old, and yet this one sounds so much more played-in. Just goes to show how wide a variety you can find within the same model and production year.

I'm looking forward to hearing it played by my teacher. You hear completely different things when you're sitting in front of the instrument being played than what you hear from behind it.

And now that I'm potentially close to finding The One True 7/8, I'm panicky. I don't really need to change instruments. I love how my instrument sounds, and I like how it handles. (I may just be used to it; a 7/8 might handle even better once I adjust to it.) What if I switch and it's a bad decision? (I sell the 7/8 privately and don't take much of a loss on it because 7/8s are hard to find, or even sell it back to the luthier for not much of a loss.)

I took pictures last night because she's really, really pretty. I spent more time that I ought to have because I couldn't really capture the colour correctly. But here's an idea of what she looks like. The first picture is the standard comparison shot of my 4/4 and the trial 7/8 (standard, ha; I haven't done this since I brought the first one home last July, but it shows you the colour difference and reminds you of the proportion differences as well). The second is a full shot of how she looks, and the third is a close-up of her 'dimples.' I've touched up the last one colour-wise to give you a better idea of her true colour:

I've just realised something: I've started calling the cello 'her' instead of 'it.' That's the first time this has happened. Hmm. This could be dangerous. (Or appropriate. Who knows?)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

For My Own Entertainment Records: The Series Of 7/8s

2009-01-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Cello 1: Eastman VC-100 (May 2008, La maison du violon Longueuil) [balanced tone? brown-amber varnish, in-shop trial only]
Cello 2: Scarlatti (May 2008, Wilder & Davis) [in-shop trial only; oil varnish with pronounced grain]
Cello 3: Eastman VC-100 (July 2008, La maison du violon Longueuil) [just didn't grab me, orange-red varnish]
Cellos 4 and 5: Jay Haide (July 2008, The Soundpost) [in-shop trial only]
Cello 6: Eastman VC-100 EA-78-954 (December 2008, La maison du violon Longueuil) [unfocused, bleh tone, stuffy, dull]
Cello 7: Eastman VC-100 EA-78-1460 (January 2009, La maison du violon Longueuil)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Trading Trial 7/8s

2009-01-12T09:28:00.000-08:00

I stopped by my luthier this weekend to drop off the last trial 7/8 (you know, the one I got in early December that was due back the 26th, but they were closed for two weeks? Yeah, that one.) and it turned out that they had a new 7/8 that had arrived, so we just switched the cellos in the case, scratched out the old serial number and entered the new one on the trial contract, and I went back home with another cello. (I'd kind of been looking forward to having only one instrument case in my office, but hey, I take the 7/8s when I can get them because they're hard to find.) I took it out as soon as we got home and it's just lovely: a deep chestnutty-red colour (none of the orange stuff I dislike!) with two little knots on the front that look like dimples. It's certainly my second favourite-looking instrument so far in this epic search, the first being the chocolate-amber one that was bought out from under me back in May. I played the first section of the Lee sonata, and from what I can hear from behind it the sound is nice, too -- much more focused than the last 7/8, and certainly well-balanced across all four strings. We'll see what happens when I bring it to my next lesson and my teacher plays it for me so I can hear what it sounds like from in front of the instrument instead of behind it.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

A State Of The Me Update

2009-01-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

Hello, world. I'm not dead, just really, really exhausted. See, having fibro = feeling like you have the flu all the time. So when I have the flu? Extra-bad, and extra-long to recover, and I never really feel like I fully get there.

And now the boy is sick, and HRH is iffy, no one is sleeping properly, and can we just fast-forward to where we're well again, please? The boy had to cancel out on a much-anticipated birthday party this morning, and HRH and I have had to cancel on a different long-awaited multiple-person birthday extravaganza tonight. We are none of us amused.

I did manage to drag myself out for a rescheduled cello lesson this morning, because I was going stir crazy at home and I needed the discipline. We decided to play the Lee duet sonata for the concert in April, about which I am very very pleased. It feels good to reply with an immediate and enthusiastic "Yes!" when one's teacher asks if you'd be interested in playing the piece you just started working on for a recital.

So yes, going wiped out my day's spoons (what there were to begin with) but it was worth it. I played both my own cello and the 7/8 on trial yesterday for a total of about two hours, and it is increasingly obvious that simply finding a 7/8 that sounds equivalent to my cello is going to be a huge obstacle. When I switch between them I can very certainly feel the difference in body size, but I can also feel the klutzyness of the 7/8s sound- and response-wise. It is repeatedly being demonstrated to me that my cello is indeed a very excellent cello.

Something I've really noticed in this revisiting-old-stuff-I-worked-on-twelve-years-ago is that these easy pieces really point out where my technique has eroded away. On top of that I'm trying to unlearn certain techniques that were taught to me (lead the bow hand with the wrist, the bye-bye movement to switch between adjacent strings during a quick passage) for more ergonomic and efficient applications. It means a good portion of my lessons are taken up by working on minute things, like today where we spent a good ten minutes on the tiny motion of the right elbow backwards to roll between the A and D strings. After fifteen years of doing that motion with a flick of my right hand and nothing else, it's hard to shed the habit and focus on doing the new movement instead. And at one point I was trying to incorporate three things we'd worked on in the lesson (a different way of approaching a half-shift to extended second position with the left hand, placing the fourth finger on the G two notes before it had to be there, and the right elbow-only backwards movement for the string crossing, all in a passage of four sixteenth notes) and my brain just about exploded. Learning it new would have been enough of a challenge. Trying to ignore the ingrained habits of a decade and a half while applying the new technique and trying to sound good at the same time? All three things on top of one another? While I'm still not operating at 100%? Let's just say it didn't work so well. The good thing is my teacher knows exactly how hard it is to rewire these sorts of things because she did it herself (her original training and my first teacher's technique seem very similar), and understands that planting the seed during the lesson is only the beginning, while setting exercises to work on the new technique during home practise are what develop it. And it's not like we hit all three things at once; we did them separately and they all showed up in that single four-note passage. She also understands that I need a balance of description and actual physical this-is-what-it-feels-like, so she often has me relax and moves my bow arm in the motion it needs to take. I close my eyes a lot during lessons to feel what the movement or sounds is supposed to be like.

I've rambled enough. I'm having trouble breathing, so I think it's time for some hot tea with lemon and honey.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Survived!

2008-12-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

Made it through my second recital ever. Go me!

Didn't screw up my shifts. Didn't let the bow skip. Didn't let the rhythm go ragged. Held a half note a wee bit too long but adjusted. The second repetition was better. I don't think I really lifted the bow as had been my bad habit before lessons either, although it wasn't as 'in the string' as I would have liked. All the trio and ensemble stuff was great, too. I wasn't a mess leading up to it, but the nerves did kick in after we'd set up and I encountered the 'will it never be day?!' mood that develops when you're ready and it's not time to start yet. Apparently we have another recital in June, and I'm actually looking forward to that.

Liam fell asleep ten minutes into the programme. He got to hear the littlest girls do their pieces, but fell asleep either during mine or directly afterwards. He was very impressed with the butterfly someone had painted on the youngest girl's face in full colour, complete with sparkly highlights.

Now it's on to making shepherd's pie (well, more correctly, cottage pie) for supper, and casting on HRH's scarf, as we nipped out to Ariadne Knits before lunch to pick up the yarn. Liam was very impressed with the yarn store, although was firmly convinced that there ought to have been a cat.

Recital Countdown

2008-12-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

In the space of thirteen hours I have had two cello lessons, one private on Friday night and one group dress rehearsal this morning at nine. The world is very clear, bright, and cold today, but there's not much wind and so it's lovely. The snow removal crews came along and took away the piles of snow in the street, and driving was actually a pleasure this morning as compared to the hell it has been for the past two days. (Way, way too much time spent in cars in traffic Thursday and Friday. Noting makes me crazier than leaving twice the amount of time it usually takes to get somewhere to account for weather and traffic, and still arriving late.)

Anywhat. Happy thoughts. Cello!

I lugged the 7/8 to my lesson last night along with my own cello, and my teacher played them for me so I could hear them. There's no contest, no comparison. My full size sounds so much better: It's clearer, it rings, there's precision and just plain beautiful sound. The 7/8 was stuffy and dull. This just isn't the one. I was somewhat worried about this. It's going to take a lot to find a 7/8 that has the kind of sound my current instrument does. Anyway, it's not pressing; it can go back to the luthier and I can forget about it until they get another one.

(Also noted when my teacher switched between the 7/8 and my current cello: My cello is HUGE! Yes, yes, I knew this, but I'm usually sitting behind it and I'm used to it. Seeing it in someone' else's hands was an eye-opener.)

So yes, last night's lesson was great. I'm really happy with how my sound is developing after only two months of lessons. I can hear my intonation has improved, and the improvement in sound production that comes from better bow handling and control, too. There's a lot of confidence being developed as well, which doesn't hurt. I came home feeling terrific, which was very welcome after the day I'd had. (An hour on a bus to cover what usually takes fifteen minutes. Yeah. And then late to pick up the boy, late to make dinner, late out the door to the lesson thanks to the original lateitude plus traffic. It was very, very bad. Especially after the previous day's trip to the doctor for the boy's checkup, which took three times as long as it should have to get there and even longer to get home again.)

This morning the light was incredible, what with the sky being clear and so much snow off which for the sun to reflect. And although I didn't sleep very deeply or steadily I woke up in a good mood thanks to the lesson, and looking forward to the morning group lesson. I love the group lessons to begin with, but I'm really enjoying the program we're doing for tomorrow's concert. It's fun to play with the others, and they're a terrific set of people. Some are older than I am, some are around my age, and others are in their teens. We have the two darling little girls, too, who are so serious when they play; they concentrate so hard and yet they stay relaxed. I adore watching them. My teacher played her piece at our insistence, too (if we had to play our solos and duets, then she had to as well!) and we loved it. It's Fauré's "Elegie", and believe it or not I've never been in the room when an accomplished cellist has played something passionate like that. It was incredibly moving.

Afterwards we had our coffee and nibbly things and the kids played Christmas carols on the piano for fun, and it was just so lovely. Having a small group with a defined coach is so much easier than a small group trying to self-direct. And we all support one another and know exactly what everyone's going through or trying to work past.

Something I really want to work on in the new year is advancing my musical interpretation and expression. It feels odd to have been playing the cello for fifteen years, yet be so behind on, well, sounding good (in a different way from being technically correct). Even when I tell myself that I haven't had a lesson in ten years, my brain seems to think that because I've been playing in the meantime I should sound a heck of a lot better than I do. Today the tiniest girl, who is sitting in front of me for the concert, kept turning her head and watching me with wide eyes when I played the "Adeste Fideles" trio, which was nice. Being looked up to soothes both the logical and illogical parts of my brain.

I am looking forward to the recital. I'm still marvelling at the fact. I'm slightly concerned about the boy, who has been off the past couple of days and who will be attending the concert instead of napping, but que sera sera. And it will all be over too quickly.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

A Day Of Squee

2008-12-12T14:36:00.000-08:00

My Ravelry invitation just arrived! Only four days after they said it would!

This, of course, is excellent news, but also poorly timed, because I have work to do. I wanted to get it done today, too. Oh well, it's due next Wednesday; if I don't finish it today I can at least get the rough draft done and do the polish on Monday, and still get it in ahead of deadline. Muah-hah.

This is also the day when I get to go take a look at the new 7/8 cello that's arrived chez my luthier. And I get a bonus extra hour of work before I do, because HRH wants me to meet him at his office after work in order for him to drive me over there instead of me doing the public transit thing to his parking lot and absconding with the car to get there myself. Apparently even more people have forgotten how to drive because oh noes, more snow has felled!!1! So I cheerfully accept both the extra hour of work and the chauffeur.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Cello Squee!

2008-12-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

Guess where I'm going next Friday afternoon? Yes indeed, to the luthier in order to try out a new 7/8 cello!

It's nice to be excited about new celloness again instead of mopey about how the whole Mystery Cello thing turned out. But that's still not off the list entirely, it's just delayed for a few years. (A few meaning something like a decade or so. Maybe I'll look forward to it as a fiftieth birthday present to myself.)

My cello fund has been nibbled at by bill- and gas- and grocery-mice, but I can put a down payment of three-quarters on this cello if it's the right one (and if they let me instead of buying it outright), and chances are very likely that by the end of the year I'll have the remaining money necessary to pay it off in entirety. If not by then, certainly by the end of January. Then I can turn to selling my current cello and recoup hopefully at least half of the cost of the new one, if not more.

I'm not looking at buying a cello for the sake of buying a cello. I'm waiting for the right one. I've turned down two, after all (and had one bought out from under me, but let's not go there). It just feels good to be doing something about it again.

And maybe this time I'll remember to buy rosin while I'm there, damn it.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Orchestra Video

2008-12-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

I debated about posting this, but why not.

Someone made a video recording of about half of the recent LCO fall concert. It's broken into approximately eight-minute long sections, so you can see the first and second part of the three-movement Mozart Divertimento (the second part covers the second and third movements), the lovely Adagio for Clarinet and Strings (the so-called "Wagner adagio", which has some nice close-ups of Martine's hands for you clarinet players out there), and the Haydn Symphony 104 in D major (first part, second part, third part, and fourth part). I wish I could say each part actually corresponds to a movement, but they don't. The first part is most of the first movement, the second part is the end of the first and most of the second, the third is the rest of the second and the full minuet/trio, and the fourth is the fourth movement in its entirety.

Why did I consider not posting this? Well, mainly due to the fact that the sound is awful. It's very flat and quite distorted. (Although I recognise that not all the distortion is due to the recording. Ahem.) The balance is completely off, and things are very muddy. Hand-held video cameras just aren't designed to record such a wide range of sound level, especially from that distance in a very echoey venue. And as such, it isn't particularly complimentary. But it's an idea of what went on. Also, it's fun to see what the audience members are doing while we play. (I was amused by the people nodding and tapping their programmes during the minuet, and by the kids.)

And yes, I am cleverly hidden by my teacher's scroll most of the time through the Mozart and the Adagio! Although the videographer seems to have moved forward for the first two-thirds of the symphony and therefore there is a better view of me from a three-quarter back angle in those recordings. (And thus my pathological avoidance of vibrato has been preserved for prosperity. I'm working on that now in my lessons.) Also, good gods, does my left hand always look that spidery?

This is the first half of the programme. I wonder if the videographer recorded the last half, and if it will be posted.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Resigned

2008-11-21T08:14:00.000-08:00

I've just written, translated, and sent off the regretful decline of the reconstruction quote for the Mystery Cello. I've been putting it off because I haven't wanted to formally call an end (albeit temporary) to the dream. But it's been a month (not that I intended to let it languish that long in my inbox, dear god, where did November go? scratch that, where did 2008 go?) and it's irresponsible to let the affair drag on any longer.

So I wrote a thank you and and an explanation of why we had to wait, and reinitialized my search for a 7/8. I should put my 4/4 up for sale as well to free up more money, but I'm enjoying the sound it makes in my lessons and I'm clingy when it comes to things like big resonant instruments that have been my companion for fifteen years. My teacher has assured me that if it sells before I've found a new one I can use the cello she still has from before she bought the beautiful one she uses now, which is lovely and mind-boggling but somehow I doubt I'll be caught without one. I see the same celli up for sale online all the time. I also have no idea what to ask price-wise for the one I've got. I'll talk to the luthier when I'm next in. I just wish I didn't feel like I'd killed something heartlessly.

Anyway, I am consoling myself with, and actually beginning to revive my interest in, trying 7/8s again. In the meantime my teacher has somehow suckered me into playing a solo at the Christmas recital in three weeks. I suspect I agreed because she proposed it so nicely (in the "possessing, marked by, or demanding great or excessive precision and delicacy" definition) and didn't make me feel like I was being railroaded into it. What I wanted to ask, but didn't because I am shy and despite the fact I've played with her for seven years I've only been her student for a month, was who else was soloing and what were they playing. Because I'm doing a Bach minuet, and part of me is relieved because I played these things thirteen years ago, and another part is mildly squirmy because they're in the Suzuki level 2 book, for heaven's sake. I was playing sonatas before I stopped lessons before. Mind you I've lost a hell of a lot of decent sound production and technique since then, so these are reacquainting me with the basics, but still. Not that the people in the senior's residence will care. They will be too busy being charmed by the six year old playing Suzuki book 1 pieces on her tiny cello .

Speaking of the six year old, my teacher told me yesterday that her next-door neighbour has a four year old who is obsessed with music and wants lessons. Generally the idea about children and lessons is not to bother until they can read (something about their ability to organize the info they take in, and I suspect so as not to utterly crush the joy they have in spontaneous music) but she knows that Sparky is also excited about the idea of music lessons, so he can play the cello like Mama does. So she has proposed that the two boys come to the group lesson on Sunday to see what it's like. Our group lesson is divided into two halves, the younger students for the first hour, then a short social thing, and then the adults have an hour of group lesson. The boys would observe the younger group lesson, and if they are still as excited about things she'd think about maybe having a special series for them to learn about rhythm and other pre-formal lesson skills. She mentioned that the McGill Conservatory has a Very Little Musicians program that might do as well.

I told Liam about this Very Special Invitation last night and he was very excited. His first question was, of course, "What's the little boy's name?" "I didn't ask," I said. "I forgot that it would be important to you. I'll ask when I see my teacher tomorrow at dress rehearsal." So he went around for the rest of the evening telling his father and the cats that he and 'the little boy' would be watching a cello lesson. We'll have to talk about proper etiquette and such tomorrow, both for the concert and the lesson the next day. The tentative plan for Sunday is to explain why he needs a slightly early nap and for HRH and I to bring him to the young group lesson, after which the boys can take off to the ~~Thomas layout~~ bookstore while I have my adult group lesson. If he's unbearable after having attended the concert Saturday night we can call it off, and there's always the option of HRH whisking him away from the lesson if he can't sit quietly.

I looked at the calendar yesterday and realised that there was a Wednesday rehearsal, my lesson on Thursday, a dress rehearsal tonight, the concert on Saturday, and the group lesson on Sunday. Good grief. I'm also mildly freaked out about the amount of work that has to happen between now and Wednesday, because I'm teaching a real-live university class on Monday morning (subject: Neo-paganism, and I have an eight-page lecture outline and the dreadful feeling that I'm going to demonstrate an Epic Fail by somehow being unprepared... I always feel like there's no good way to make the info flow logically) and have a coffee/lunch date on Tuesday and an assignment due for the evaluations Wednesday which is only about 30K words but revolves around examples drawn from Biblical stories and quotations so I'm going to be flipping through a Bible as I do it, which will slow things down.

Back to the cello stuff. I'm liking the sound that I'm (sometimes) producing in my lessons. It's a bit of a juggling act because I have to remember things about my bow hand, my right elbow, my shoulders, the left wrist and elbow that we've been working on, and then all the usual technical music stuff too. But there was a point in yesterday's lesson where I sounded good, and where I could hear and feel the vibration of the bow across the string in all the right ways. It feels sometimes like I'm not grasping very basic things, but things are improving in general at orchestra thanks to the new awareness I have of my body and how it moves, so there's hope.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Friday!

2008-11-07T08:20:00.000-08:00

Not that my weeks are such that Fridays are any better or worse than the other days, but old habits die hard.

Cello lesson went well. I'm definitely getting a handle on the bow hold, and on how the weight of the bow arm evolves as the bow is drawn across the string in order to maintain an even sound with the same power at the tip as at the frog. Now we're finessing the elbow leading thing, and left-hand finger movement within the same position as well as properly shifting from first (and second and third and fourth) to fifth. (Because of the body of the cello being in the way, you see. Here is a classic example of How Things Will Be Easier With A 7/8.) And either my teacher is being extremely enthusiastic in order to be encouraging and supportive, or I'm genuinely making progress. I'll assume the latter and be happy, as there have only been three lessons so far.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Ups and Downs

2008-10-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

I've dropped the boy off, gone to the bank (as usual, misjudging the amount I needed to withdraw so I have to go back again), done groceries, picked up ribbon, picked up dark transfer paper for HRH's t-shirt, had brunch, and have just returned from a drive to Ahuntsic. That was certainly an adventure. Why GoogleMaps didn't just tell me to go up the 15 to Henri-Bourassa, the street I needed to be on, I don ot know. Instead I went all over the place in crazy circles and turns to get to L'Acadie. (Turns out there's an exit for L'Acadie on the 15 too. Good grief.) Also, the Met is one of my least favourite highways to travel.

Anyway, in Ahuntsic I viewed and purchased a lovely light hard cello case. It is brown! With a grey interior! And it has backpack straps and good handles and a huge pocket for sheet music! I'm thrilled. It's only about eight pounds, and since other hard cases boast about being light at 12 or 13 lbs, I'm feeling pretty smug. Don't know the maker; there's no identifying tag. The one drawback is that it doesn't fit in the trunk. But it does fit across the back seat if I raise the armrests on the boy's booster seat, so huzzah!

Yes, I'm pretty set case-wise forever now. Unless something happens to this hard case like happened to my first one, namely something punching a hole in the bottom while it was being shipped by train to Toronto.

So. On top of all the racing around and emotional stuff going on today, I'm having what I used to call a flopsy day, which I now understand is a bad fibro day: muscles lacking strength to handle fine motor stuff and even some of the mid-range motor stuff. I can't speak French to save my life today; my tongue and my lips won't form the proper shapes required. I can't hold a pencil or write properly, either. I'm mildly concerned about my lesson, but I'll let my teacher know the situation. Looking back I see that this began yesterday, which partially explains the awful, awful showing I made of a stupidly easy passage in a Brahms Hungarian dance last night (when, naturally, the celli were playing alone to work the passage). On the plus side, my bow hold was more like the new one and less like the old one, and evidently I was bowing in some sort of proper form because the large muscles on the right side of my back were sore when I got home (the soreness was not the good part, the good part was that to get them sore I had been using them, which I was supposed to be doing).

Food now, then packing for the lesson, then resting a bit, then to the lesson I go. I'm worried about getting from the lesson, which ends at five in Pointe-Claire, to the caregiver's, which is in Montreal West. Traffic is going to be awful. If this doesn't work I'll need to find another time slot, and finding this one was hard enough what with having the car and no small person to care for only once a week.

Right. Let's get on that, then.

Seeking Silver Linings

2008-10-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

Okay. Have somewhat recovered from the Great Cello Disappointment of '08, and am ready to move on.

It was the size of the number that was throwing me. Divided by two it was easier to wrap my mind around, but still beyond what we'd originally thought and definitely beyond my budget. And I can't ask my cousin to pay that much either; he's got a spouse and a child just a few months younger than Liam, plus a mortgage.

So I think we'll just put it back in a closet until such time as we can afford it. It was in a closet for three years; another few won't make a difference. When I am Wealthy from Selling Many Books and Reaping Wild Royalties I'll think about it again. Or if we win the lottery. They're equally possible at this point.

In the meantime there are other things to save up for, like a down payment for a house. And again, it's not like I have no instrument at all; I'm not in a situation where I absolutely have to find one as soon as possible. And if size becomes an increasingly sensitive issue for my technique, the Eastman 7/8 is muchly affordable. I suspect my luthier will keep ordering them in until I find one that I am quite comfortable with, and we can then finesse it until it's perfect. My teacher has already recommended that I use a smaller instrument for improved handling and intonation -- before she was my teacher, of course, but last lesson she did say that my regular hand position was necessarily exaggerated because the cello was so large and was probably one of the reasons my intonation is wibbly. This means I get to go back to idly trying 7/8s while I sock money away. Not a bad deal at all. (One thing this experience has given me is a better perspective on the idea of buying something equivalent in quality to what I have. A lateral move that helps improve my handling of the instrument is fine, especially if it saves money like buying the Eastman would. One of the things that I was stumbling over with the Eastman celli was their affordablility; I had a bigger budget, and it's not like I had to spend the extra money, but if it was there maybe I could have found something better. Now that we're looking at saving money, things are different. Funny how a single experience can change your point of view just by giving it context.)

In other cello-related news, last night I did indeed buy that soft case I found listed on Kijiji. It was a case of (no pun intended) buying this one for $45, or taking my current case into a tailor shop to have them set a protective flap of something soft to lie under the zipper to protect what's beneath it (there's an actual term for that but I can't remember it), in this instance the cello (because remember, zipper scratching cello = bad, bad, bad) which would probably cost around forty dollars anyhow. It isn't exactly the model I used this summer with the trial 7/8 it's the next model down: more basic, less luxurious. This soft case still has three times the padding of my original gig bag and has a carrying handle parallel to the length of the case so I can carry it beside me, as opposed to the perpendicular handles the had me carrying the original gig bag upright with the neck of the cello leaning against my shoulder instead. It has backpack straps too, although I think I'll put my original straps on the new case because they're wider and have the rubber grip pads on them so they won't slip. I'm very happy with it. My cello fits very snugly in it, so the case doesn't slide around it like the original gig bag does, which means I have better control over the cello as I carry it. The one drawback I've found is that the pocket for sheet music is sized for 8 x 10 inch folders, whereas my music folder is 11 x 14. It also lacks a second small pocket on the back of the neck which is where I put my leather endpin strap in my original case, which isn't a huge deal. It's a fully acceptable sacrifice for the padding and protection! It keeps its shape when it's empty. That's how much padding it has.

I am also trying to coordinate with the seller of the hard case to take a look at it. It's the same hard case our substitute principal at the Canada Day concert had, one that I don't see listed for sale often. The hard case was going to be a necessity for the Mystery Cello, but it's obviously not as crucial any more. Still, it's a steal of a deal, and worth checking out, as I'll need a new hard case at some point. Fortunately she's open to the idea of meeting me on her lunch hour on Thursday; I'll be needing the car as she's off in Ahuntsic. I have to bring my cello, you see, to make sure it fits, and the idea of going home via public transport with two cases is frightful. Also, it would take most of my day and I have work to do.

Speaking of work, off I go to download another manuscript evaluation. And in other news, tonight is our first parent-teacher interview with the boy's educators. I'm going to forget that if I don't set an alarm to tell me when to stop working and leave in time to meet HRH at work via public transport.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Numb

2008-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful all-day spiritual retreat. Great rituals, excellent workshops and discussions, awesome food, terrific company!

Then I came home and checked my e-mail -- not only am I negotiating to buy someone's semi-soft case but I also have a lead on a hard case! -- and discovered that the luthier had finally e-mailed me a quote for the repair of the mystery cello.

It will cost far beyond what I was originally quoted. Even half of it is far more than I can afford, more than I have put aside. Even if I could somehow magically conjure a high-paying job for the next month or so, I couldn't make up the missing amount.

It looks like this isn't going to happen after all.

I'm numb.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Life Is Good

2008-10-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today is a beautiful, sunny, crisp fall day, and I had my first private cello lesson in ten years.

We addressed lots of things, which didn't feel overwhelming at the time but as I'm processing it I'm thinking that wow, yes, it was a lot. Ringing tones, intonation and tonalization, bow grip, leading with the elbow (which is completely at odds with how I was originally taught, which was to lead from the wrist, but I can see how leading with the elbow opens the body up and can produce a more beautiful and precise sound, and she says she was first taught the wrist way as well so at least I'm in good company), exercises for the bow grip and how it's supposed to pivot around the thumb as the bow moves from frog to tip and back, shifting exercises from first to second position... yes, it's a lot. But these things all came up as we worked through a Schumann chorale piece, playing slow, long notes to really hear what was happening. I spent a lot of the lesson with my eyes closed or staring off at nothing while I tried to listen to the sound I was making and feel the way my hands and arms had begin repositioned so that I could do it again on my own. I felt muscles in my right arm that I didn't know were used while bowing. I just hope I can remember how it feels.

She asked about what books and exercises I had, what I'd played before, and what I was interested in playing. I didn't think at first to list the things I wanted to work on, but I didn't need to because most of them came up in the course of the lesson! Ultimately what I'm looking for is how to better create a beautiful sound, something large and rich and, well, beautiful. So we're going to go back to some of my first pieces and work on those, focusing on intonation and lovely sound, and start looking at the Rick Mooney books I bought this summer to help shifting and position work.

I am so happy to be doing something about this. And it's affordable, and enjoyable, and good for me.

I realized at the end of the lesson that I'd spent an awful lot of the last fourteen years trying not to make a big sound, thanks to the scarring experience of having seniors banging on my floors and ceilings when I tried to practise at the very beginning. The Resident Fan Club will be happy to know that from now on I am not allowed to use a practise mute, nor pull the power I'm trying to channel through the bow. My teacher's main room is tiled with lovely earth-toned ceramic tile and has a grand piano in it, so the sound echoes beautifully and it's really easy to hear sympathetic strings vibrating when you play a ringing tone.

In other cello-related news, I have a lead on a semi-soft cello case that is exactly the one I loved so much that came with the Eastman 7/8 I tried this summer! The person selling it on Kijiji is being slow about returning my e-mails though, and I don't want to lose this the way I've lost the last six tries to buy a secondhand iBook. I'm now waiting to hear when she can meet me so I can see/buy it. And last night's orchestra rehearsal was very good too; we're sounding a lot more precise and there are actual dynamics happening. We spend the first ten minutes doing exercises with a scale related to a piece we're working on, using different bow techniques and strokes and so forth. The guest conductor is tailoring these exercises to something we'll encounter in the music we're working on that night. Very clever; keeps it all fresh in the mind. And as for the music, the Wagner's off the programme and a Vivaldi concerto grosso is on.

Of course the postperson came while I was gone, so I missed a package. But there were cheques for work done waiting for me when I got home! I also did some banking, stopped by the library to pick up a reserve and found two other new acquisitions that I wanted to read as well, I put gas in the car, and did a small grocery pickup. My cello lessons are right by Fairview, and as I pulled away from my teacher's house I thought, Is there anything I need at Fairview? Nah, and kept going... only to realize on the highway halfway home that yes, I had indeed needed to pick up something very specific at Fairview, and that I was an idiot because I even had it written on a list of things to do... that was safely inside my pocket where I couldn't see it. Argh. Looks like I'm going to need an agenda again, something more portable than my lovely but big Daytimer binder I used to use when I was working outside the home. Maybe I'll treat myself to a trip to the office supply shop on the way to collect the boy, to see what they have.

In the meantime, I am brining chicken. I am tempted to get some Brie and mushrooms so I can make those delicious chicken pastry things again, but HRH is leaving early tonight so I don't think we'll have time for that. The chicken will be just as lovely on its own.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

First Lesson In Ten Years

2008-10-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

On Sunday after lunch I headed out for a baby shower forty-five minutes away, which was lovely, but which I had to leave early because I had my first cello lesson with my new teacher to attend. I wore my funky red shoes for confidence at the lesson, and a pair of new pants I'd just hemmed. I mistimed the travel (stupid bridge work one way but not the other) and halfway there I realized that I'd be half an hour early if I went straight to the lesson, so I stopped at the needlework shop to buy the needles I needed for my next knitting project. (Note: 'Next' implies I've ever finished one. I have failed miserably at every knitting project I've ever tried. But I have begun a new one [armwarmers for me] and have decided to heroically attempt a hat for the newly hairless Mousme.) I went from the needlework shop to my lesson and was ten minutes early anyway. Sigh. I made a critical decision and unpicked the new hems on my pants with my Swiss army knife. When someone else showed up for the group lesson I unloaded the cello and walked into my teacher's house behind her.

It was odd: I was both nervous and not about this lesson. My first lesson with the new teacher was supposed to be a private one last Thursday, but last week was a disaster of sick people and forcing four days of work into the only two I ended up having free to work, so it didn't happen. Instead, the once-a-month group lesson ended up being my first. I am, as I repeatedly point out yet people seem to disbelieve because I do an impressive job pretending otherwise, extremely shy, so walking into an established social group of ten people was daunting. What's the etiquette? Where do I put my stuff? Did I take someone's parking spot? Am I sitting in someone's customary seat? At the same time, I knew my teacher and one other student, having played with them in the orchestra for seven and three years respectively, so I had something of a lifeline. (The other student and fellow orchestra member was pretty new as well, as her other teacher had only recently stopped teaching; I don't know if she'd done a group lesson yet or not. I believe she had, but it might have been only one.) The little coffee break between the youngest cellists' lesson and the group lesson was the most awkward, so awkward for me that I took a cup of coffee to have something to do with my hands. (I am not a coffee drinker; it usually doesn't agree with me. However, it was really, really good coffee, which was nice.) Eventually we settled and our teacher put us in various places around the room, we tuned, and started playing.

This is the point where I actually relaxed. I know, I know; normally I'd be tense about playing in a small group with people I don't know. But somewhere a couple of minutes in, I realised that I didn't suck. I am used to expecting to be/actually being of a lower technical proficiency than others. Here I was at par with, or even more confident than, others in the group. The beginning was rocky because I was having trouble hearing my intonation, but then something clicked and then it was all okay. There was the disaster of misplacing my hand badly when I had to go really high up while sight-reading an arrangement of Satie's 'Gymnopedie', but hey, sight-reading for fun; no harm, no foul. (Lovely, lovely pieces in that Cellobrations collection for cello quartet, I hope we play lots of them in the future.) I enjoyed it all so much that I played one of the new pieces I was given at the lesson when I got home while the boy was in the bath ( "Is Mama playing her cello for me? While I'm in the bath?" followed by appreciative applause when I'd done), and after I'd put him to bed I sat down for another hour and really worked on bowings and phrasing for 'Itsumo Nando Demo,' the song Sandman7 and I are working on. It took me the whole hour to play bits with different bowings, make a decision one way or the other, and put slurs and bowings in for the entire piece to get it to where I was happy with the phrasing. Next comes recording it while I play it in this version and listening to it to see if it actually works from an audience POV.

Also, my teacher showed us the most adorable Twinkle bow, a fully functional miniature bow used to teach children how to hold it correctly and to use the proper wrist and elbow motions. Because it's so tiny you can't help but hold it properly in order to get the maximum yield from the hair. We squealed when we saw it.

It was a great introduction to the group and to working with the new teacher. I'm looking forward to the next group lesson, which is in a month's time. After that there's a December dress rehearsal and then a performance at a group home.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Headaches

2008-10-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, not long after I wrote my journal entry about practising, my Internet connection went kablooey and I spent the next couple of hours unsuccessfully trying to fix it. I ended up turning the damn thing off and going to work in the living room. It gave me writing time, but I had tons of Internet-associated research to handle and correspondence to catch up on, and it made me very cranky. Also, I lost an expanded ETA form of that last post in which I rhapsodized about a particular shift that I love doing in one of my lesson pieces. And the post didn't actually post thanks to the kablooeyness, I discovered this morning. Gnarr. However, I managed to play cello for a while longer, and get non-Internet dependent work done as well.

Orchestra last night was good. I don't know if someone mentioned something about our situation to the guest conductor but he's really focusing on interpretation and phrasing. Quite nice. And the principal showed me a terrific fingering for the opening phrase of the Wagner clarinet piece we're accompanying (five flats! dear gods!).

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Canny

2008-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Yes! The way to successfully avoid work is to practise the cello loudly for an hour!

(I can't feel my left hand from the wrist to the base of the fingers. It's a very odd sensation. Or lack of it, I suppose. All that vibrato, you know.)

I am so incredibly pleased with the sweeter tone the luthier coaxed out of this cello with the new strings and the bridge. I noodled about with 'Itsumo Nando Demo', trying out different slurs and phrasings, then played through some of my lesson stuff again. All in all I've done about an hour. Most excellent.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Melancholy, And The Rosin Story

2008-10-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

I keep tearing up at random things. My throat swells shut and I feel the hot prickle of tears in my eyes at the oddest times. I had to turn a CD off in the car last night, and again this morning. I had to put Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist down when the early morning harmony thing happened. I'm just blue, and I don't know why.

Orchestra was okay. I was so drained, though, that I had trouble summoning up the energy necessary for certain pieces. We sight-read a Hungarian dance and my fingers were like noodles during the pizzicato all over the fingerboard. My section leader, AKA my new teacher, gave me four pieces for the group lesson I'll be attending later this month, and I played through them today, feeling very... I can't put a word to it because it wasn't exciting, really; more like I was quietly pleased that I've finally done something about lessons again. This is the first assigned lesson material I've worked on in ten years.

And it was mostly easy and pretty, three of the four accompaniment to early Suzuki pieces (some of her other students are very new cellists). Except there's a set of double stops in the third part of the cello trio arrangement of a Brahms symphony movement that I can't get to save my life. This is what teachers are for.

Oh, I mentioned the rosin thing yesterday. I should elaborate on that.

When I originally recounted my wonderful story about receiving the Mystery Cello in trust from my cousin, I mentioned that I'd forgotten a suitcase full of his grandmother's music. My mother brought it up with her when she and my aunt (the mother of the cousin in question, actually) stopped by on their way to do the driving tour of the Eastern Townships. Monday night while HRH was putting the boy to bed I poured myself a glass of wine, settled myself on the living room floor, and opened it. It was exciting. Anything could lie inside! What kind of music did she like to play? Were there handwritten fingerings, or notes to herself among the pages of a favourite piece? What would I find?

It smelled of dust and damp, the kind of smell one associates with attics and antique stores. The suitcase itself is covered in textured brown leather, peeling away from the wood thanks to use and age. It closes with two clasps in tarnished brass, and her maiden initials were stamped on it in gold under the handle: R. B. B.. I popped open the clasps and lifted the lid.

The lining is that watered silk-looking fabric, possibly once a lovely rose colour, now faded to a tired shade close to that of an old pink school eraser. Inside was a black soft-side leather briefcase. I slipped my hand into the pocket of the lid first and pulled out some sheets of paper, loose photocopied pages of handwritten music copied from somewhere. Slipping my hand in again I found an unused Thomastik Permament cello A string in perfect condition except for the crumpled paper envelope.

I lifted the briefcase out and set it aside. Under it were dozens of partitions, sheet music for popular songs and dances and arrangements of orchestral pieces now forgotten, all for violin. Parlour music, for home music-making. The average price was fifty cents (sixty cents Canadian!) and the store stamps were of shops in Ottawa as well as Montreal. Pretty much the only things I recognized were the Mendelssohn violin concerto and the Beethoven violin concertos. At the bottom was a blue binder containing both violin and cello parts for quartet pieces, some of which I recognized (wedding marches, waltzes, arrangements of arias), some of which I didn't. The paper was old and crumbling apart, yellowed and stained, and it all smelled like dampness and dust. There were no dates, but I guessed the sheet music dated from around the nineteen thirties, give or take a decade or so.

The briefcase held the cello music. On top was a familiar Suzuki book, the same book and the same edition I'd started with (lots of teachers use the Suzuki books but don't teach the method). This gave me pause. Why on earth would she have had a Suzuki book? I opened it in hopes of seeing a date inside it. After all, I note down the date I purchase books and music inside the cover, and often note down the date I start or finish working on a piece. She didn't (much to my frustration when going through the other stuff), but inside the book were two sheets of looseleaf paper, still white, with notes from her teacher written on them, that outlined how to hold the cello and bow, how to place the fingers, and a couple of things to remember along with some homework. And the second of these was dated Aug 31/95.

Nineteen ninety five? Wait -- what?

Then I realized that I had no recollection of exactly when she had died. It was when my parents were still in Montreal, but I couldn't remember if it had been before or after I'd moved out. Then it occurred to me that the book was likely the property of my cousin, who had taken a couple of lessons after he'd inherited the cello before deciding it wasn't for him.

The rest of the cello music is old and crumbling too, which leads me to believe that her teacher gave it to her along with the cello. There's nothing I can really use because again it's all stuff that was popular at the time it was printed, written by composers I've never heard of. I suppose I could put some of it up on the stand and play through it to hear what it's like, but I have enough work right now, thanks.

I put my hand inside the case and slid it along the seams to be sure I'd gotten everything and my fingers bumped into something. I drew out a blue silk cleaning cloth, a Ziplock bag with two used A and D strings, then a wooden contraption made of two foot-long slim pieces of wood an inch wide and a half-inch deep, joined together at one of the narrow ends by a hinge. On one of the pieces of wood opposite the hinge end was a narrow strip of leather in a loop stapled into the wood. I know what this is! It's a homemade endpin brace! I thought, and opened it up to reveal a line of drilled holes along the unhinged end of the other piece of wood. The leather loop goes around the cellist's chair leg, the unfolded wooden strips are laid on the ground, and the endpin is inserted in one of the holes so that it doesn't slip on stone floors or mark hardwood. I ran my hands along the torn lining of the suitcase as well and found a set of violin pitch pipes and a brand new cake of Hidershine rosin. (Brand new in that it had been used maybe twice, not brand new as in purchased last week. The design on the box was decidedly outdated!) I tried the rosin last night and it's dry, not as sticky as my Hills. My initial impression is that I like it; I'll use it for a while. I thought I preferred a slightly sticky rosin, but maybe not. We'll see.

I replaced everything in the suitcase and closed it up. I'm going to have to move it from my office to downstairs because the dust (and likely mold) in it is triggering my asthma.

It was a fascinating exercise to go through every single sheet of music, turning pages carefully so they didn't crumble, feeling the dampness of the thicker books, breathing in the scent of years of music this woman made. I'm touching history a bit more, learning more about the woman who played the cello before my cousin inherited it, before I was given the wonderful opportunity to play it too.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

I Can Has Cello Lessons!

2008-09-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Starting after Thanksgiving, in fact (which means in three weeks, where did the year go?) and at a surprisingly low fee too. The same hour-long lesson fee I first paid when I started lessons fifteen years ago, actually. That particular lesson fee went up every year until I was paying 30% more in my fourth and final year of lessons. I expected this lesson fee to be somewhat equivalent to the last fee I paid, or to be even higher to reflect the natural economic inflation of ten or so years. I am, of course, very thankful that it's not bank-breaking, but still, I am astonished at how affordable it is.

I have already been informed that we have a Christmas concert in mid-December. And I'm okay with that. (Wow. Thank you, Random Colour.) Plus there will be a group lesson once a month! I think that's really neat.

Now I need to sit down and think about my goals so that I can articulate them to my teacher when the time comes, because I'm certain she will ask. Things like becoming more familiar with the geography of the finger board, a more solid foundation in theory (or any foundation at all... it's embarrassing when a conductor starts using solfege terminology and I, er, can't follow it *cough* *cough*), intonation... I'm sure there will be more that come to mind. (A better bow hold, more efficient left hand movement, oh, the list will go on... and this sounds like a letter to Santa. Dear Santa, please bring me a better understanding of A flat major and D flat major, an accurate thumb position, and a better vibrato with my fourth finger. Love, Autumn.)

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Success!

2008-09-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

I cannot find my CD of William Boyce symphonies anywhere, and it is making me very cranky because that's what I want to listen to this morning, damn it. I have to settle for Percy Grainger piano stuff instead. Which is nice to rediscover and all, but he's not William Boyce.

The weekend ranged from really quite nice to argh and back again. On Saturday morning we found HRH a new fall jacket, I picked up some heel liners for my red shoes, and then we headed out to Longueuil to pick up my cello. And oh joy, it sounds bee-you-ti-full. My cello has always been easy to play (in the getting-sound-out-of-it sense, not the oversized-body-thick-neck-argh sense), but now it's even easier! I always forget how strings deteriorate in sound quality over time, and the awful warp on the bridge certainly wasn't helping. I, like an absent-minded sick person, wore a long straight denim skirt and a black sweater along with my red shoes. Lovely for a sunny day in fall; not so conducive to cello-playing. No matter; I sat with both knees together and to the left, and played the cello side-saddle to hear how it sounded. The ten year old girl there renting her first violin gave me a surprised look. Anyway, lovely, lovely sound: I love the feel and tension of the new strings (Kaplan Solutions A and D, Helicore G and C), the new scoop on the fingerboard makes thumb position easy to play (I never thought I'd say that, ever) and the bridge is just beautiful and looks so much sturdier than my last one from my now-ex-luthier. They reshaped the pegs, too. "Really?" I said. "They were fine -- never stuck, never slipped." "You'd have noticed sooner or later," the assistant luthier said darkly. "They were decidedly... oval." And then he asked shyly about the mystery cello, which is still tucked away along a wall of the workroom, so I obliged him by telling him the Secret Origin story. The luthier flew in from dealing with three people in the other room long enough to make sure I was thrilled with the tune-up and then apologised for not getting to the quote on the mystery cello; he said things were very busy. I assured him that of course it was busy, it was the beginning of the school year as well as the concert season, and not to stress about it. It's going to take a while to restore anyway; a few weeks aren't going to make much difference in the long run. It's also not like the mystery cello is my main instrument, and I've lived fifteenish years of my cello-playing life without it. Of course I'm excited about it, but there's no rush.

I forgot to buy rosin again. Again. I give up.

I didn't bring my bow with me to test the new setup so they lent me one, and it's a good thing I didn't play with it for more then five minutes because I was falling in love with it. Perfect weight, nice balance, good springiness; more responsive than the one I currently use, which has been my favourite up till now. The assistant helpfully looked it up for me: pernambuco of Chinese make, four hundred dollars. If it had been three hundred I'd have bought it on the spot. But still, it's a decent price for a pernambuco bow with those fittings and that kind of response. I keep telling myself there's no point in buying a new bow now if I'm going to be playing a different cello in a few months. But I want it.

I played the cello for a while while the boy napped on Sunday, and it still sounds lovely. It sounded much nicer at the lutherie, of course, because of the surroundings and because I wasn't afraid to actually make noise. Pizzicato sounds terrific; nice sustain. I'm looking forward to playing it at orchestra on Wednesday.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Music Stuff

2008-09-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Yay! Daniel Levitin has a new book out, this one called The World In Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. I loved This Is Your Brain On Music, so I'm going to pick this one up ASAP. Because, you know, I don't have enough books on the To Read pile. (Two-thirds of the way through Anathem, still loving it, regretting that there are only 300 pages left; sigh. Also, I have a review book I'm supposed to read and, well, review, except I am so not in the mood for something set in the Regency period right now.)

Last night's first rehearsal of the season was great. It felt really good to be back playing in concert with everyone. Our first guest conductor is in fact someone who we tested fiveish years ago when our original conductor passed away. I didn't remember his name or his technique at all until about halfway through this rehearsal. He worked on having us express the music cleanly and with emotion, already set bowings for us prior to the rehearsal, and used examples and terminology to shape our interpretation. One night isn't enough to fully evaluate someone's technique, of course; we'll be working with him properly for a couple of months to see how we suit. My borrowed cello was solid and serviceable but I'm glad I don't play it on a regular basis. It was somewhat stiff, and the action was very high; thumb position would have killed me. I can see why C. upgraded to her current instrument, and again I'm reminded of how easy my cello is to play (oversize notwithstanding).

When I left for rehearsal I thought, Hmm, what do I need to bring? Oh, I should take my bow. A bow is a very personal thing, you see. So I grabbed that and off I went... leaving behind my (empty) music folder, my tuner, my pencils, my cleaning cloth, and my rosin. All these things are usually in my cello case, which is currently at the luthier with my cello, and since I don't carry them separately it didn't occur to me that I might need to collect them as well. At least I brought a bag with me so I could carry the music home, there was a pencil in my purse, and our section leader lent me her rosin (Liebenzeller Gold, wow; wish I'd had my own cello so I could have evaluated it better) and tuner.

Of course, although she'd heard about the new mystery cello and asked after it (hurrah for the tiny musical community who shares links to exciting blog posts about a fellow musician's good fortune!) I forgot to ask her about lessons. Argh. I will write myself a note and stick it on the front of my music folder for next week.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

The Evolution of the 7/8 Adventure

2008-09-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so, yes. Where were we in our 7/8 adventure? Right; decapitated mystery cello.

The stars aligned and my luthier and I were finally in town at the same time, so I brought my cello (whose name is Adele, actually, but if I suddenly start referring to an Adele without explaining it I'm fairly certain most readers will wonder who I'm talking about) in for a tune-up, and the mystery cello in for an evaluation of necessary work.

I can't tell you how excited Olivier was when I slid the body out of the case. (Heh -- how's that for the first line in a short story? Must file that away somewhere.) He turned the cello over and over to look at it, measuring here and there and saying, "German, this is beautiful, when it's restored it will sound lovely!" It's officially a 4/4, but a small 4/4, which was one of the acceptable options back when we began the 7/8 search. He measured the neck and we discovered that it's actually a centimetre too long. That may not sound like much to you, but when the world of lutherie works in millimetres, it's huge. It would mean I'd be playing fourth position way further down that I should be. That's ungood for technique and playability.

So let's see, here's what needs to be done.

- the back needs to be taken off for the work to happen (a separate charge all its own, as it's a huge deal)
- the two cracks on the shoulders need to be patched from the inside
- the hole/dent needs to be patched from the inside
- the button needs to be regrafted
- the two missing chips on either side of the neck block (where the neck is attached to the body) need to be replaced with newly carved bits and grafted on (alas, this was the one thing that will be new on the body itself; he asked hopefully if the bits were somewhere in the case so as to use the original wood, but no luck)
- the cracks in the neck block need to be fixed and a patch put under it all to strengthen it
- the fingerboard needs to be replaced (or reshaped, we're not sure yet)
- the neck needs to be adjusted to make it smaller (he thinks he can shave a bit off the base where it attaches to the body to take off a few millimetres there), and some cracks filled
- the fingerboard needs to be moved down from the nut a bit (here's where we'll make up another few millimetres)
- a new bridge, soundpost, strings, and tailpiece (because the one that came with it is very heavy, which suppresses vibration and closes up the potential sound. I suspect we'll end up with a new endpin too, but that's not essential.)

While this list sounds extensive it's really not. The basic integrity of the cello is sound; it's a miracle that there are no cracks or punctures on the belly or the back as a result of the car crash. Olivier is anticipating a glorious sound from it when it's in playable condition. And while he couldn't give a firm estimate today, he thinks the repairs will cost between two and three thousand dollars. (That's nothing, and pretty much what I expected. And as I'm sharing the cost of repair with my cousin, even if it's on the high end of that spectrum, my share will still be less than what I'd budgeted for a new cello.) And most dizzying of all... once restored, it will be worth between eight and ten thousand.

This alone scares the heck out of me. It's pretty equally matched by how much I'm awed by the opportunity to play it that Fate has granted me, though. Surpassed by it, truth be known. I'll request an official certificate of appraisal once it's all done and use that to insure the hell out of it.

He'll email me this week with a final figure, I'll give the go-ahead (because really, how could I not?) and away we'll go. I have no idea how long it will take; he'll probably give me an estimate on that when he emails me the quote. In the meantime I'll start shopping for lightweight ultra-protective hard cases, because there's no way I'm hauling a nine thousand dollar cello around in a soft gig case. (Also on the shopping list is a soft case that doesn't scratch Adele. Or I may bring the current gig case to a tailor and ask them to sew in a flap of chamois or something of the sort that will lie under the zip.) I'll also start looking at new bows, because I'll need something better to work with than my $130 cracked-frog bow that I love for my current cello but needs replacing anyhow.

I am so very excited about this. Olivier is too, which tells me more about the quality of the instrument than anything else. And if I'm going to be playing a cello of that kind of quality, I am absolutely going to start taking lessons again this fall. Otherwise I'll feel as if I'm wasting its potential. I'll speak with my section leader at our first rehearsal back.

As for Adele, I'm having very basic but necessary work done: new bridge and strings, soundpost adjustment, the fingerboard crack filled and the playing surface planed to obtain the proper scoop and level out the odd bulge it's developed. ("Planing the warp out of it will make it much easier to play," he said, to which I involuntarily responded, "Thank God." The one drawback to testing new cellos is that it's demonstrated how less-easy mine is to play.) As much as I love the Evah Pirazzi strings I don't want to put a $250 set on it if I'm going to play the German cello once it's ready, so we decided on the combo of a Kaplan Solutions A and D with a Helicore G and C. It's actually a combo I'd noted down while researching new strings. She'll will be ready next weekend, although I won't be here to pick her up; I'll have to collect her the following week.

So there you are. What was once a 7/8 quest has evolved into the rescue of an on-the-small-end-of-full-size turn of the century German cello. I'll have to make sure he puts his own label inside once it's reconstructed, the luthier's equivalent of signing your work. It's one of the only ways people can trace the evolution of an instrument. He'll certainly deserve the credit.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

Orchestra Update

2008-09-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

We had a general meeting of the orchestra membership last week, something has hasn't been done in at least eighteen years, possibly the entire life of the group. There have been some changes. They're growing pangs, really, because for three decades our original conductor Andres helmed the group, having founded it and maintained it on his own. When we lost him so suddenly and tragically the group needed to develop some guidelines and new methods out of thin air, and we're still working them out as we encounter obstacles. One of the things we're refining is our method of selecting and reviewing conductors. Our most recent conductor's term has ended, and we're now preparing to audition three new conductors over the upcoming season, one per concert session.

This happened some what precipitously, because we didn't have a clearly defined review system in place. The point is, most of us expected to be somewhat adrift for the first while due to the unexpectedness of the event and the timing, but to my surprise at this general meeting the exec revealed that we not only had a guest conductor in place, but we had a programme and our first concert date scheduled. This is going so well that I can't help but suspect our decisions in the matter have all been the correct ones. Not only do we have our first guest conductor scheduled, but we've had a call from the director of the WIYSO expressing interest in one of the future guest spots, as have a couple of others. There were some suggestions from the membership too, revolving around multiple performances of the same programme in different areas instead of a single concert, raising membership fees to generate more available capital with which to pay conductors (thereby enabling us to attract higher-profile directors), and communication suggestions (especially an interactive website with a members-only section to enable us to share ideas and receive information). The plan is to have a different conductor for each of our three concerts in the upcoming season, to evaluate each, and then vote on one to invite back.

From what I can remember, our first programme will consist of a Mozart divertimento for strings, the Iphigenia in Aulis overture, Haydn's 104th symphony, and a Vivaldi concerto for four violins with continuo (our prize for the winners of the Lakeshore Chamber Music Society's concerto competition). Our first rehearsal is on September 17, and our first concert is on November 22. We'll have to be really focused and on the ball with this new conductor to prepare a concert in that period of time. This will happen naturally of course, as everyone will be hyper-aware and paying very close attention to the new director's technique. New blood to stir us up will be good. I'm looking forward to exploring music with a new director. One of the things I realised through this summer mini-crisis about the orchestra leadership was that I was focusing on my own satisfaction with my technical performance in a concert and extrapolating that to measure the orchestra's overall performance, which was wrong of me. I was also shifting my personal focus to technical improvement because I wasn't getting artistic or interpretive satisfaction from the overall musical experience. The orchestra really needs to grow and develop musically now. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks.

Apart from that, musically I've been kind of on hold. I've been playing songs and such, testing my treble clef reading, but the 7/8 search and the mystery cello repair hasn't moved forward. Why? Because my luthier and I miscommunicated about vacation, and he wasn't gone the first two weeks of August but the last two weeks. Had I known I would have brought him my cello for its tune-up and the mystery cello as soon as I got home from our trip. Ah well, everything ought to be back to usual now that it's September; I'll call him Thursday. With orchestra only beginning two weeks from now, there's time to take my current cello in for adjustments, new bridge, new strings, and a quick repair to the soundboard crack, and get it back in plenty of time. Otherwise, I can always test another cello out and use that!

I find that my initial 'no I should upgrade the quality/level of the cello I'm using' is ebbing to 'something equivalent in a different shape would be just fine'. Which is a good thing, really, because it's assuaging a lot of the 'OMG so expensive where will I find the money now!' jitters I'm having. I'm interested to hear what the luthier will have to say about the mystery cello, too.

~
* The original post at Owls' Court (this is condensed from a longer, more general post)
* Owls' Court: the main journal
~

The 7/8 Cello And Mystery Cello Adventure (With Bonus Vacation Material)

2008-08-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

Apparently I'm not the only one who had an appointment to try out the Jay Haide 7/8 cellos at the Soundpost last Tuesday. This was slightly... I'm not sure what it was. Odd, to say the very least. The Soundpost is a lovely shop, occupying three floors of an old house in downtown Toronto, right next to the Women's College. As there were no practice rooms available (or 7/8s, as someone else was playing them) I went downstairs to dig through the racks and drawers and piles of sheet music. I scored a copy of the Position Pieces for Cello Vol. 2 and a copy of Beethoven's third cello sonata. (Technically I own the sheet music to all six Beethoven sonatas, but they're in a single book which is great for reading along with a CD but lousy for playing, because the music is tiny and two out of three systems are piano, after all.) When I went back upstairs I tested the two 7/8s and as I noted before they were lovely and balanced, smooth, and very easy to play in the higher positions. I would be happy to own either of them. But I didn't fall in love with them enough to rent one.

Part of this has to do with the cello that I'd already met on this trip. And on the practical side of things, I didn't know how I'd fit two cellos in our trunk, despite it being a Trunk of Extended Holding. And the cello I'd already met had a wee bit more priority.

Sunday afternoon we went over to my cousin's house in Dundas. He and his wife and daughter usually come out to my parents' home when we're visiting, but they wanted to do dinner for us this time so over we went. They have a lovely little home dating from the early twentieth century, with striking crown moldings and hardwood floors. Anyway, between dinner and dessert I stepped inside to help get the whipped cream on its way, and mentioned to my cousin that I had an appointment with a luthier in Toronto in two days' time, and if he liked I could bring his grandmother's cello in with me to get a quick estimate on the necessary repair work. He'd inherited this cello from his grandmother (on his father's side, not my grandmother) and had crossed the country with it a few times as he went back and forth between the west and east coasts. On the last trip into Ontario a couple of years ago there had been a car accident and the cello had been damaged. I hadn't asked the extent of the damage; I only knew it needed to be fixed in some way. He agreed that it would be a good idea, all the more so because he really didn't know where to bring it, and brought me upstairs where he took it out of a closet. The soft case was flopped over: the neck had broken off in the accident. I had no idea seeing a cello without its neck -- not even out of the case yet -- could make me feel that sick inside. We put it down on the central landing and eased it out of the case.

Gentle readers, it's beautiful. It's a burnished chestnut brown, with a deep grain; no shiny varnish fills these ridges in. The bridge and tailpiece were off so I picked up the body and angled it, peering inside for a label. The only one in it is a handwritten slip of paper that says Réparé par H. Gagnier, 1915 in slightly blurry ink. My cousin found the neck and brought it out too. The scroll is a beautiful glowing honey colour, and three of the four tuning pegs have tiny mother of pearl circles set in them. Around the pegs are little holes, which puzzled me until HRH pointed out that it must have had decorative plates around them. My cousin says that the cello is supposed to be a turn of the (twentieth, obviously) century German-made instrument. The story goes that his grandmother used to be a violinist, until her arthritis got too bad for her to make the minute movements required for violin playing. She was going to quit entirely but her teacher coaxed her into playing the cello, and sold her a cello she had for five hundred dollars. My cousin received the instrument after her death, and took a couple of lessons, but it didn't go further than that.

I looked closely at the neck, and at the body of the cello, and at its shape. I glanced at HRH, who was watching me oddly (having suspicions of his own), then I asked my cousin for a measuring tape.

"It's a 7/8, isn't it," HRH said as I took measurements.

"Almost. Not exactly," I said. "I think it would be classified as a small 4/4."

And so I explained to my cousin that I'd been looking for a 7/8 cello, and we talked about proportion and such. And then he nearly stopped my heart.

"Well, if you can get it fixed, you can use this one. The idea was that if we had a second child one of them would play the piano and the other the cello. But if we have a second child and they want to play the cello, by the time it's big enough to use a full-sized one we could just recall it from you. Someone might as well be playing it in the meantime."

I felt like I'd moved into some sort of alternate reality. We talked about the repairs. Apart from the neck that's come off the body, there a small dent (almost a hole) in the upper rib, a few inches to the right of where the neck joins, and a few minor surface cracks along both sides of the ribs where they begin to curve down. We agreed that if the repairs could be done and result in a playable instrument, we would split the cost. I decided to bring it back home to my luthier, because I trust him and if this needs to be rebuilt then there's going to be some amount of back and forth, and it would be better to be in the same city for that.

So I have an antique German cello sitting in my office, in two pieces. I measured every inch of it the night we came home and it's proportionally smaller than my current 4/4 (not hard, as it's an oversized cello!). It's especially smaller in the upper half, which is where I need the daintier 7/8 proportions. Comparing the two sets of measurements, it looks like the German cello is a small 4/4 or a large 7/8. To be honest, I think it's what was called a lady's cello back then.

My luthier isn't back in town till mid-August. I'll call and set up an appointment with him to look at it and evaluate the extent of the damage, and give me an estimate. If it's the size I need, and he thinks the sound will be decent once it's patched, then I'm all for using it. My budget for a new 7/8 would more than cover half the repairs, unless they are astronomical. I tried to explain to my cousin how special this was, how I'd rather play something that had been in the family than a newer instrument, but I don't think I was very coherent.

He brought out an old suitcase of his grandmother's music for me to take home too, but I forgot it there when we left. I'll have to e-mail him and tell him to send it back with my parents the next time they go over, and I'll pick it up when I go down for the Hamilton event in September.

Here's what it will look like in one piece. I think it's beautiful. But then, I am biased.

I honestly think these are (relatively!) easy repairs. I've read enough about lutherie to know what's a dangerous crack and what isn't, and some of the techniques involved for fixing cracks and dents. There are no visible cracks to the belly or back of the instrument, which would be much more dangerous and tricky to repair, because they bear a lot of pressure. As drastic as it looks, the neck is the easiest issue to address; it needs to be glued back on, and a bit of cosmetic touch-up done. The angle may need to be adjusted. To fix the dent and the cracks in the upper ribs the top will have to be taken off, and either thin strips of wood or linen soaked in glue applied to the inside to patch and strengthen the existing wood. There may be things I can't see that will need attention as well, of course. Apart from those, the soundpost will have to be reset and possibly replaced, and there will almost certainly be a new bridge, and it needs new strings. It will always be delicate and in need of cosseting; any instrument that has cracked does. If the luthier's estimate is too high, or if the news is bad right off the bat, I'll contact my cousin and we'll decide what to do next. And in the meantime, I have my 4/4 to play, and I'll keep testing 7/8s as they come.

* The original post at Owls' Court
* Owls' Court: the main journal

Quick Post-Trip Update

2008-08-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

Hullo world; we are back safe and sound. I have much cello news to jot down, but it will have to wait until Monday, most likely. Other than that: lovely trip, am proud of the boy in general for behaving very well, loved seeing the parental units. We got a bike trailer. The car trunk has been officially dubbed The Trunk of Extended Holding, because there is no way it could possibly have held all our bags, the bike trailer, a box with a printer inside it, assorted things we bought there (like a bike helmet for the boy and a couple of toys to be put away for Yule), and a cello.

Did I say a cello? I did, didn't I. Oops.

Okay, all you get until I have the proper time to post is this: No, I did not buy one of the two 7/8 Jay Haides I tried out at The Soundpost, although they were lovely and smooth and dreadfully easy to play and had nicely balanced tone throughout the complete range, especially the second one. And the staff were equally wonderful and made me feel very welcome. No, I came home with a turn of the century German-made one instead.

That's all the explanation you get till early next week. Maybe sooner, if I have the time. Muah-hah-hah.

Another 7/8 Chapter Ends

2008-07-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

We returned the 7/8 cello Number 3 to the luthier this past Saturday morning. "And?" he said. "Almost," I said. "Almost, but not quite." I explained that the two-week home trial had confirmed that the 7/8 size is indeed perfect for me, but that this particular instrument just didn't have that certain something that clicked and made it mine. He asked if there was anything particular, in order to avoid it when selecting another for me to test, and I shook my head; there wasn't anything specifically wrong. It just didn't grab me and say, 'You cannot part with me.' I like the tone, the overtones, the balance, the construction, the feel under my fingers, everything; it's just not this one that I need. He has another 7/8 in his Laval workshop and will bring it in for me, but I'm on holiday the last two weeks of July and he's closed the first two weeks of August, so we'll pick up again then. In the meantime there's the two shops in Toronto, and the Scarlatti 7/8 Number 2 to take home for a test, and I'll think about the one in Alaska too.

My office feels much bigger with only one cello in it. I tried playing my 4/4 the other day and, as I was afraid, it feels clunky to me now. I so didn’t want this to happen.

(Condensed and combined from two posts at Owls' Court.)

I'll See Your 'Damn' And Raise You An 'Oh Hell'

2008-07-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

Last night I pulled out the Vivaldi double concerto and looked it over. I was working on it a few months ago, and I thought that I'd try it out on the 7/8.

Today I played the first movement on my cello first. Then I took the 7/8 out (Number 3 for those of you with scorecards) and played it again.

Oh, hell.

See, the size of the 7/8 actually does make a difference. It's finally coalescing. My arms don't have to be out so far in front of me to play; the energy and motion used in bowing is more efficient when I'm using the 7/8. It's all closer to the body and it's easier to use gravity as an aid instead of struggling against it.

Okay, fine. I've proven that to myself. The 7/8 is a better size for me.

The sound was nicer too, but again, that may just be the newer strings.

And finally, I don't feel like the 7/8 is going to twist or angle oddly under my bow. I don't have to brace it as much as when I play the 4/4. It feels sturdier in just about every way.

The finish of Number 3 is even growing on me.

I have done my damnedest not to get attached, and to be as objective as possible. I think I've finally proven to myself that the size is important. I'm still not completely convinced about this 7/8 being The One!!1!, but I am convinced about the size. I'd like to try a couple more. I'll sign the Number Two (AKA the Scarlatti) out from Wilder & Davis in early August. It may be a thousand dollars more, but it's worth a listen at home. There's a 7/8 four grades higher than Numbers 1 and 3 for sale through a private luthier in Alaska too (an AE405, if anyone's dying of curiosity) that come with the hard case I want and a bow three times better than the one that comes with this SE/VC100. It's had finessing work done on it (including a carbon fibre endpin! and a new French style bridge!) and is $1,100 cheaper than the list price (and the basic list price doesn't include the upgraded bow or the bonus hard case, only a mid-range bow and a soft case). Of course I'd have to order it on trial, and I'd have ten days to decide at home if I liked it or not. If I don't, I'd ship it back and absorb the shipping cost ($100 each way, which sounds like a lot but is cheap for this kind fo thing, I assure you, wow!). But here's the kicker: the cost of this several-notches-higher 7/8 with upgraded bow and hard case is only five hundred dollars more than good old Number 3 here, with its soft case and bottom of the line bow. If I added the $500 hard case to the cost of the VC100 here, I'd be looking at $2,000 anyway. Normally I am violently opposed to buying instruments over the internet, but the numbers are very persuasive, the luthier is reputable, many people have dealt with her among the online community and they say nothing but good things. I've chatted with her in forums and on bulletin boards on occasion and she's honest.

It's an option. And I'm serious enough about this that investing $200 in a cello I might not keep is acceptable, because the payoff could be wonderful. And if it ends up being only as good as the VC100, well, I've still snagged myself a deal. I find myself measuring things in freelance work now: a new printer is one evaluation, a new computer will be five, and so forth. So if I tried this and wasn't happy with the cello I'd only have invested two evaluations in it.

Not that this is a done deal; I want to visit The Sound Post while we're in Toronto to play some of their stock, and while we're there I may as well swing past Remenyi as well. I have all summer to do this.

(Originally published at Owls' Court.)

Damn

2008-07-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

So what does one do when one had a headache?

One plays the cello,of course! After all, this 7/8 goes back on Saturday and I'm not going to have much more opportunity to play it. I haven't touched it since the second-to-last rehearsal with orchestra. So I hauled it out to play through some stuff.

Wow, the Breval sonata in C never sounded so good. Seriously.

Also? While playing 'Ana Ng' and 'Experimental Film' I discovered this instrument's overtones. Helloooo, lovely overtones. You make TMBG basslines sound like high art.

Again, I don't know how much of this has to do with the shiny-new! effect, or the newer strings, or what. But it certainly sounded pretty. And I'm starting to feel how much easier it is to play around the slightly smaller body of the 7/8.

It's still going back on Saturday; I can't buy it right now, and I'd still be very on the fence about it if I could. But these are things to make note of.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

The Ongoing 7/8 Report

2008-07-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

For reference purposes I'm labeling this Eastman VC-100 7/8 I'm currently play-testing as Number 3, the Scarlatti 7/8 I tried at Wilder & Davis as Number 2, and the original Eastman VC-100 that was sold Number 1.

I did a bit of recording in my office, and it's not the same as the recording I did at the second luthierie. It's completely the environment; when I recorded the second 7/8 it was in a practice room lined with cellos, and so the sound was super resonant, because all of them were vibrating when I played. I have no way of checking the actual sound unless I sign out the Number 2 on home trial and record it here. Which I may do at some point this summer, I suppose. One must entertain oneself somehow.

This third one just doesn't grab me. I don't feel the same smoothness. The action's pretty high, probably because those extra millimetres of string length have to come from somewhere. It doesn't bother my fingers, though.

I haven't touched the bow. I tried it a bit and it needs a lot more rosin; it skipped around a lot. The balance seems all right, as does the weight. Nothing outstanding.

The finish is a polished satin, but I liked the colour of Number 1 better. I am very, very shallow. But it's part of the aesthetic.

I took it to rehearsal last week, and it performed adequately in the ensemble. The sound was slightly warmer than my 4/4, which tends to a more brittle sound. I don't know how much of this is due to the newer strings. Mine are a year old, after all. I did have to fine-tune frequently throughout rehearsal. (Yikes -- I just double-checked, and mine are not one but two years old. Oy! I remembered getting them just before a spring gig, and evidently it wasn't the Victoria Day 2007 concert but the April 2006 concert just before t! and Jan got married.)

Part of my problem is the cello I buy now won't be the same in a couple of years; they need to be played in before the sound matures. Mine's had forty years of settling in. This one was made last year and would need a lot of work to break it in properly. (Hell, my strings are older than this 7/8.) Of course, this is true of any new cello I buy. Still.

I do adore the case with much adoration, however. Not that this will be a deciding factor. It's good to know if I can't afford a hard case, however, I can buy this kind of soft case for the next cello and it will be better protected than the thinner gig case I use now. (Which is, I have discovered to my absolute horror, scratching the sides of the cello. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad! Did I mention that it's bad? And bad?)

Part of me is still thinking I should look at a step or two higher. Sure, the quality of the VC-100 is equivalent to mine, which is a high-end student model itself, but I really do want to upgrade in quality as well as the size. The size and playability might make a long-term difference, but I can't evaluate that until I've had the damn thing long-term. I want to visit a shop in Toronto when we're up there later this month and see what they have, too. I thought about asking Olivier to order in an other one, but I don't think I will at this point.

I can't see the point in buying something that's equivalent to mine but with a slightly different shape. Number 1 had enough of a difference in sound and feel that I considered buying it. I simply don't like this one enough. I'll play it again early next week, but I'm fairly certain it's going back. (Well, it's going back either way; I don't have the money for it at the moment.) If I loved it I'd have negotiated putting a deposit on it, but I don't, so that's that.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

Canada Day Concert Recap

2008-07-03T12:22:00.001-07:00

Can I get away with saying "Best Canada Day concert ever?"

Not really, I suppose. And it wouldn't do posterity any good, either. The main reason I journal is so that I can go back and refer to it, after all, so a bit more detail is necessary.

First of all, hearty thanks go out to the following in the order I saw them before the concert: my mum and dad, MLG, ADZO, t!, Jan, Lu, Ceri, Scott, Marc, Miseri, Mousme, tcaptain and J. One of the reasons I love this concert is because I see friends I don't see often. Your presence was deeply appreciated, and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves. And thanks go out to everyone who wanted to be there but couldn't as well.

And of course, deepest thanks go to HRH and the boy, for making it an extra-special concert. This was the first concert the boy was old enough to attend properly and be aware of what was going on. He's known for weeks that it was coming up, and as the date approached I reminded him, shared some of the music with him, and looked through his book about instruments to explore the different kinds of things he'd see. He stayed for the warm up and by all reports enjoyed himself thoroughly, sometimes tapping along with the rhythm on the back of the pew in front of him, sometimes conducting like Douglas. After the warm up he pulled me outside to a jungle gym-type thing next to the school across from the church where he proceeded to throw himself up ladders, across hanging bridges, and down slides in all possible ways, encouraging me to do the same. Then MLG and ADZO showed up and he exhorted them to join him in his play too. Then he called some random teenagers over: "Hey, hi! Come play with me! Come slide!" and he did it with such openness and enthusiasm that they did so with decent humour. We met up with a few other people (Lu brought me swag from the BEC! I have an AGaTB lace hairband among ARCs and a book for the boy and other things!) and then I headed back to join the others preparing for play. (The music kind, not the jungle gym kind.)

We were fortunate in the weather. There have been awful, awful days when the night has been dreadfully humid and sticky, and there have been nights where the wind has been so bad we lost music and stands. But this night was just about perfect. It was hot (it's July, after all) but fingers weren't slipping on keys or strings and shirts weren't sopping wet. It was pretty much perfect.

There's something remarkably special about playing the national anthem. First of all, the cello line is so unlike the melody we sing that it's really unique to hear how it all fits together. Second, there's something very powerful about how the drum roll steadies and then initialises the orchestra. Third, it's incredible to sense the audience suddenly recognising what's happening and surging to its feet, joining in with the vocal line around the third note. Finally, it's just so damn cool to play it and to hear a few hundred people singing the anthem to orchestral accompaniment. And there's always an extra bonus when people applaud. Traditionally the anthem isn't applauded, and while I'm sure there's some sort of philosophical reason for it, I can't think of a time when I'm more prompted to applaud than after a stirring rendition of the anthem, partially for the anthem itself and the nation (yay us!) and partly for the performers. Besides, it was Canada Day.

While I never hit the cello zone, I was very comfortable throughout this performance and please with my work. I enjoyed myself a lot, which on its own is huge. I had no major technical issues during the concert. The finger I use for pizzicato froze up during "Younger Than the Springtime" as it always does, but apart from that and some minor intonation issues (I can't hear a thing in that church, it melds all the sound together), and a bit where both the principal and I stopped in frustration because the cellist behind her was playing very loudly and racing ahead in a certain passage in the first piece and we couldn't hear things well enough to keep the proper pace going, it was a very good concert from the performance side of things. It was lovely from the artistic side, too. I like to begin with a piece I find pretty because it gives me confidence for the rest of the night, and the Symphony no. 3 (by not-really-Mozart) has a beautiful and expressive second movement that I love to play. I greatly appreciated not beginning with the Figaro overture, as it has some finicky technical stuff that would have frustrated me had I played it cold. As it was we did a very good job of it, nice and quick. The church may muddle sound but it also makes it sound very large and well-blended, so the overture had a very nice overall presentation that allowed some of the less precise stuff to slip through without calling much attention to itself. The 32nd symphony went well too.

The second half of the concert was the musicals, and we nailed them. We absolutely nailed them. In the past we have done passable renditions of some medleys, but these are decent arrangements and we were really on. It helps to have a good brass section for these things, and ours handled things just fine, thanks. I heard people in the audience singing along at a couple of places, and there were people crying at the end of The Sound of Music medley (of course they were, the 'Climb Every Mountain' arrangement was specifically designed to rip shamelessly at heartstrings). It's always good for the ego to see people surging to their feet almost as soon as the conductor has cut the orchestra off, and to hear the wave of applause crash into us.

Sitting right next to the conductor means I make a lot of eye contact with him throughout the concert, and I get to see his face as soon as we're done each piece. He winks at us with a crooked grin, or beams, or clenches a fist in a "yes!" motion, or nods and places his baton on his stand, or gives us a wordless smile to tell us we aced it before turning around to accept the applause and bow. Seeing his immediate emotional reaction is worth a lot. He's genuinely happy for us, or thrilled at what he pulled out of us; he acknowledges what we've done. I like to smile back at him and nod, to reinforce what he's given us and to thank him wordlessly in return. I often get a chance to thank him in person after the concert as well, and he always seems so hesitant, so unlike the caught-up-in-the-moment triumph in the moments following the final chord. He told us at the dress rehearsal there would be no encore, that he's not "an encore kind of guy". "Leave them wanting more" is more his style, and I can see his point. It's great to leave things on that much of a high, vibrating with that much energy. An encore is satisfying in a very different way. (Besides, where could we go after 'Climb Every Mountain'? Nowhere, that's where.)

My deepest hope for this concert was that the boy would fall asleep or get so cranky that HRH would have to take him away from the concert. He was fine but squirmy, and HRH took him to sit on the steps to listen to the music. And when we began the Sound of Music he looked at HRH and said with excitement, "That's from my movie!" "Do you remember what it was called?" HRH asked. "Sound," the boy said after thinking about it for a moment. "The Sound of Music, that's right," said HRH. Another parent with a girl on the steps looked at him incredulously and said, "He's how old?" "Three," HRH told her, "but his mother is in the orchestra." (We apologise for his precociousness, it's subject-related, we assure you.) HRH brought him back in during the post-concert applause and they both applauded. HRH tells me the boy applauded enthusiastically after each piece during the whole concert, too. I was so pleased that he'd lasted the whole night, and that he'd had the opportunity to listen to the Sound of Music medley. I knew it would be exciting for him to hear us play something he knew.

As we'd expected, the boy was tired enough that we had to head directly home; no fireworks for us this year. He laid his head against the edge of his seat and stared out the window until he pulled his cap down over his face and drowsed. When we got him home at ten o'clock he went right to bed. I snuggled next to him, and he said sleepily, "Oh no, Mama, we forgot your cello at the concert!" I assured him it had been in the back of the car and it was safely home again, and he was asleep in seconds. We heard the faint sounds of fireworks in the neighbouring boroughs as we got ready for bed.

This was one of my favourite Canada Day concerts. It also marks the end of my seventh season with the orchestra. This time of year is always bittersweet for me, because I like to ride the high of a concert and use it to propel me into the next set of music. Without the structure of rehearsals every week I tend to lose momentum and stop playing. I have the ongoing search for the 7/8 to keep me going, but being on hold financially takes a lot of steam out of that project, and without rehearsal to test the various cellos in a group environment I lose out on that aspect of the home trial. (In fact there's a post due on the current 7/8 trial; it will come soonish.) It's hard to walk out of a concert on that kind of high and know you won't see everyone again for two months. We all scatter with instruments and stands and sometimes you can't even find section mates to bid them a good summer. I did get the chance to thank our substitute principal for stepping in to help keep us even and confident for this concert, and thank our conductor for a wonderful concert and an excellent season. The orchestra as a whole thanked our secretary/librarian/general manager with a lovely bouquet of roses; she really has done an incredible amount of work this season.

I've gained a lot of technique this year, and I owe a lot of that to our section leader. I absorb so much by simply sitting next to her. There's also a certain amount of pressure that comes from sitting right in front of the conductor (oh gods, he hears every wrong note I play), and it's done me a lot of good. I think my expression has firmed up a bit too, partly from the kind of music we've been playing, and partly from reading things like The Art of Practicing, Making Music for the Joy of It, and Rosindust, all of which talk about the emotion associated with playing and how to communicate it. It's important to remember that we make music because we love it. I think one of the reasons I prefer to play in ensembles is because I can relax more and merge my sound with someone else's. (I had a partial solo of two notes this concert! Yes! I played them with the principal, sharing the first note and playing a different note afterwards! If you were there you probably didn't notice. That's okay. I know it was marked 'Solo' in the music and that's what counts. And yes, I played it very nicely.)

I should really think seriously about lessons again.

Okay, this is very long, and more than enough. It was good, it was great, I loved it, I'm very pleased with how I played and with the overall evening. The end.

No, wait, one more thing: I hate it when audience members rush the stage to talk to people or to get to the bathroom before anyone else. We have sensitive and freaking expensive instruments here, people, and there's a mess of stands and chairs. The amount of times I had to step in front of people so they wouldn't kick my cello or knock a stand over onto someone or another instrument was unreal. Sheesh. At one concert we made an announcement to the effect of "stay back you thoughtless mob until the musicians have left the stage, thank you"; I think we should do it every concert. Also, people who won't step out of the way when one is attempting to carry an instrument past/around them annoys me greatly as well. I move to the side as much as I can, but they just stand there. I'm not sure what they expect me to do, other than to politely repeat "Excuse me, may I get past?" Gnarr.

All right, now I'm done.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

The State of Autumn

2008-06-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

Pretty wiped, actually. Very languid. Not much energy at all. I think it's partially due to the weather (How much more damp can it get? Can it just rain properly, already? It feels like we're walking through mist all the time, the air is so wet.), partially due to the intense rehearsals and lack of sleep after them (I'm doing the skating through light sleep cycles thing and waking up a lot these days), and partially due to something I haven't quite figured out yet. Plus there's that kid who lives here who gets cranky in high heat or humidity, loses his appetite, and sleeps abysmally. He's been getting up at five-thirty in the morning, and didn't nap at all yesterday.

We went out to the luthier this morning and I picked up the new 7/8 cello he received for a two week home trial. (I have to take it back on my birthday. How depressing is that?) I played it for half an hour straight after the boy went down for his nap, and, well, I don't know. I liked the first one better; I think it sounded a bit more mellow. (Oh, how I wish I'd had the idea of recording them when I tried it back in May!) The colour on this one is more orangey-red, kind of a deeper version of the one I have now. I preferred the brown-amber of the first one. It has nice resonance, and is easy to play, and feels all right under my fingertips. I haven't tried the bow yet; I used my own. I'm just not completely in love with it the way I was with the first one. I am, however, completely in love with the soft case it comes with (three handles, including a double handle on the side to carry it like a suitcase! Lots of pockets! Padded straps! So well padded overall that it almost stands up on its own! Extra padding around the bridge! And I got to see an Eastman hard case, the one with wheels, which was so light I thought I was dreaming. It too had multiple handles. I was having a geeky day, evidently, to be so impressed by multiple handles. I also got to see the finish in person, which was important, because all the photos I've seen of them made me very wary, as the finish is pebbled and looks almost iridescent. This one was blue, and while I'd prefer a deep green (but they don't make a darker one) or an ivory or black, I could live with the blue if I had to. Mind you, if I'm going to drop $500 on a hard case, I'll darn well get them to order the colour I want, thanks. (Oooh! The Z-tek Deluxe model is now available in dark emerald green! Hmm. Duly noted.)

It feels a tiny bit bigger than the last one, too. But then, I didn't switch between the 7/8 and my full-sized cello when I played it, like I did the last time. I checked the windings: it's strung with a Helicore C and G, and Larsen D and A strings. It has a really deeply arched back, too.

The A doesn't blend as well as the last one did. But that's something that can be adjusted by poking the soundpost. It's certainly resonant. I'll post more notes as I play with it over the next couple of weeks.

People requested pictures. Here's a shot of the two cellos side by side, so you can see the difference in size and proportion.

(Slightly condensed from the original post at Owls' Court.)

In Which She Muses Upon The Importance Of Contrasting Musical Approaches

2008-06-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

We had a guest conductor in to handle the first half of Wednesday's rehearsal, as our conductor was off at his own retirement dinner. (Or I may have misunderstood and it was someone else's retirement. Whatever: he was not there, being otherwise engaged in dining to celebrate someone's retirement.) The guest conductor's first name was Peter, although I missed his last name.

He was brilliant.

We worked on the 32nd symphony, and he was fantastic. He had us really work on the musicality of the piece, asking for different sounds, talking about how the parts worked with/against one another, how the dynamics were crucial. He was a violinist, and so now and again he'd grab his violin and demonstrate the sounds or the phrasing he was looking for. He used simile, metaphor, and humour to get us to understand how to produce the sounds he was asking us to do. (He told the celli we sounded like a nail gun at one point, and although we all laughed we knew exactly what he meant, and proceeded to shape the repeated eighth notes in a particular cycle as he requested.) And it worked, it all worked. He had us sounding tight and focused and blended. Ultimately, what he had us work on was the emotion of the piece, something that's hard to focus on by yourself in a large ensemble. The first half of the evening flew by until he suddenly looked at the time and said we had to stop. The orchestra broke into spontaneous applause for him, and the first question asked was, "Where do you conduct?" He admitted that he didn't, but that he did coach.

Now, none of this implies that our regular maestro isn't a good conductor: Douglas has done fabulous things for us in the past five years, introducing new styles of music, broadening our scope, and pulling a new sound out of us. What Wednesday night demonstrated to me was that having a fresh leader and a different spin on the music made us think about how we play it in a different way. It's kind of like how running your writing past a fresh set of eyes helps you understand it differently. I wonder what having a guest conductor in a rehearsal now and again on a regular basis would do for us. By addressing different details, Peter gave us a new understanding of the piece, and I really hope we can carry it over to the other pieces we play. It's not enough to just play what's there; we have to give it personality as well. We've been trying to focus interpretation in our section by emphasizing certain things, making repeated phrases after the second time, leaning on certain beats and so forth, but we can't make it happen everywhere. There was a complaint in our section that our principal was complicating the music and we should just stick to what was written down, but there's so much missing if you just follow the bare notes. Interpretation and style are crucial. I'm glad Peter demonstrated that the entire orchestra could do it, and make the music sound extraordinary.

Our principal had to leave at the break; I won’t see her again until next fall. Simply sitting next to her has helped me so much this past season. It meant that in the second half I sat alone, and I have been very bad and not learned the principal’s solo in the My Fair Lady medley, so when it was suddenly there I stalled. Fortunately the man who sits behind the principal played through it, and I gave him a grateful smile. Everything else I handled pretty well, except the transition into “Edelweiss” in the Sound of Music medley, where the celli have the theme, and all of us stumbled. The transitions are nasty things in medleys; usually the key and the beat both change, and you have to go right into it. And for some reason my fingerings weren’t intuitive for me. I mean, they are intuitive in that if I remember where I have to go they work, but if I blank and just stare at the number (as I did Wednesday night) I’m lost. I’m thankful I’d reviewed all the musicals over the week at home (shock, surprise! I actually had time to practice!), otherwise I’d have really disgraced myself. I managed to be the only cello to carry on in a couple of odd places, too. Go me.

Three more rehearsals — next Wednesday, an extra one next Friday night, the dress the following Monday — and then the concert on the Tuesday. And then no orchestra until September again. This season has flown by. I’ll miss it a lot.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

Ill-Timed

2008-06-18T13:41:00.001-07:00

Having finished my work assignment by noon, then having handled a bunch of lingering accounting stuff, I read a book and then sat down to mess about with the cello.

I have been in the mood to go back and explore a Rudolph Matz suite I bought ages ago called Lights and Shadows. Except I can't find it anywhere. And I realised as I searched for it again today that I hadn't seen it since I packed the last apartment. I have concluded that it seems to have mysteriously vanished between there and here, along with my copy of the sheet music for "May It Be" (which isn't anywhere near as great a loss). I haven't misplaced anything else, only those two pieces.

So since I worked on the musical stuff for the concert last night, today I played some Bach suites instead, then fiddled around with some old band stuff for the heck of it. I came up with a new fingering for the miniature bass-drum duet-solo-thingy in "Till My Head Falls Off" and wondered why I hadn't thought of it before because it was so blindingly obvious. I worked on "J'veux pas viellir" and cursed the freaking solo again. There's an ugly bit that no matter what I do, it doesn't sound good. But apart from that bit I polished the delivery and decided that should I ever play this again in performance, I'm making it completely legato, original be damned. (Heck, I've already messed with it by transposing and rewriting parts of it, why not make the cheerful heresy complete?) I think something a lot more flowing and resonant would sound better than the choppy staccato stuff. Staying close to the original is boring anyway (says the girl who hacked and hacked and hacked at "The Bonny Swans" and eventually settled on something that kind of sort of sounded like something Loreena McKennitt might have done in a studio once, and whose compatriots in musical crime gave songs such as "First We Take Manhattan" and "Insensitive" drastic makeovers).

But through it all, there was a part of my mind today that was saying, "Hey, you know, this instrument has really mellowed over the past couple of years. I really enjoy this sound."

And then I found the hole.

The seam between the back and the rib between the upper and lower bouts on the right side is starting to separate. It's not a real hole yet, but it will be as the gap continues to widen. At the moment there a millimetre of space between the two, held together with bits of varnish.

Wow, is this ever a bad, bad time for this to happen.

Fixing this will cost as much as, or possibly more than, that lateral move to the 7/8. It's the same position our station wagon was in: the repairs it needed would cost more than the value of the vehicle itself. Repairing this cello won't increase its value, so it's like sinking money into a black hole when I could be putting the capital towards the new cello instead. Since I haven't the money now to replace it, nor is the 7/8 I wanted currently available, I just have to be extra super obsessively careful with this one until the concert is over. And pray a lot.

(Originally posted on Owls' Court.)

Canada Day Concert!

2008-06-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

This is your two-week warning, faithful orchestra groupies. July 1 is coming up, which means that the annual Canada Day concert presented by the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra is also nigh!

On Tuesday July 1 the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will be giving a free (yes, free!) concert as part of the overall Canada Day celebrations in conjunction with Pointe-Claire Village. We do this every year, and it’s always terrific fun.

This year’s programme features:

Symphony no. 3 - Mozart
Overture to The Marriage of Figaro - Mozart
Symphony no. 32 - Mozart
Selections from South Pacific - Richard Rodgers
Selections from My Fair Lady - Frederick Loewe
Selections from The Sound of Music - Richard Rodgers

The concert begins at 20h00. As always, it is being presented at St-Joachim church in Pointe-Claire Village, located right on the waterfront at 2 Ste-Anne Street, a block and a half south of Lakeshore Road. The 211 bus from Lionel-Groulx metro drops you right at the corner of Sainte-Anne and Lakeshore. Here’s a map to give you a general idea. I usually encourage those facing public transport to get together and coax a vehicle-enabled friend along by offering to buy them an ice cream or something. It works nicely, and it’s fun to go with a group. And hey, you can’t beat the price. Be aware that if you’re driving, parking will be at a premium because of the whole Canada Day festivities thing going on. Give yourself extra time to find a parking place and walk to the church, which will be packed with people.

Free classical music! Soul-enriching culture! And as an enticing bonus, the fireworks are scheduled for ten PM, right after we finish, and the church steps are a glorious spot from which to watch them.

Write it on your calendar, tell all your friends and family members! The more the merrier!

(Originally posted on Owls' Court.)

A Sudden Abundance Of Live Music, And Thoughts Deriving From It

2008-06-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

I'm tired, but there are things worthy of noting.

Invisible completely and totally rocked the house on Friday night, with a double set and a terrific cohesive sound. Every one of them keeps getting better and better. There was much dancing, and I don't normally dance. There was much singing as well, and I hope I didn't drive Jan too crazy with it. It was terrific to see people I haven't seen in forever, too. Also, I had a very good margarita. "You really seemed to be enjoying yourself," HRH said on the way home. "I think it's important to obviously demonstrate to a performer that you appreciate what they're doing," I said. "There's nothing worse than being on stage and seeing a sea of dead expressions in front of you, applause or not." Sure, I could have sat there unmoving and enjoyed myself just as much, but the music was good and it moved and what the guys were doing on stage for us moved me.

Did I miss being on stage? Yes. But not enough to throw myself back into band. I miss the times when it was going well. Unfortunately, it doesn't go well most of the time. I miss it when we're actually making music, not talking about unrelated things or wasting time. I certainly don't miss the amount of energy that went into it. Or rather, I prefer to have that energy to put into other things, like living my day to day life (thank you so very much, fibromyalgia). I'd like to get back into band someday. Someday is not soon, however. We'll all be different people somewhere down the line and that will make a positive difference as well. I'd like to explore other kinds of music in a small ensemble too, at some point, with different people.

The evening before I enjoyed my friend Marc's vocal recital, presented by all his teacher's students. (Live music two nights in a row! I don't think I'm greedy, just starved for culture.) There were about half a dozen of them and they all sang three songs, ranging from Broadway to pop to chamber songs and opera arias. It was great, and I saw a handful of the people who I would see again the next night, but in an even more relaxed atmosphere. We kibbutzed outside for an hour after the show was over, and that was just as wonderful as the recital itself, in a different way. I took a moment to look around both on Thursday and Friday night, and saw people with whom I'd stayed in touch for fifteen to twenty years as well as those I'd met within the last ten or so. I really miss my friends, and it was felt really, really good to be with them.

There's this quirk that I have: My eyes tear up suddenly when I'm really enjoying something musical. It doesn't mean I'm particularly sad or happy or overcome by what the music is communicating. It actually has more to do with appreciating the fact that the performer is offering something, similar to what I outlined above. Marc was the first one up at the recital, a position that carries a lot of responsibility, and he sang "On the Street Where You Live" from My Fair Lady. About a third of the way through the first verse I had that tearing-up response, and I thought about what was happening. I was experiencing a surge of emotion, not as a response to the music but a response to what Marc was doing: he was reaching out to his listeners and offering them something, and I was moved by it. It seems to be an empathic response. It's not in response to the words, or the music itself. It's in response to the performer. It does have an emotional connection, of course, but it's not primarily an emotional reaction.

This happens when I imagine performing myself. It doesn't happen while I'm actually performing (or it does, but extremely rarely); rather, it happens when I visualise performing certain pieces of music. I have a very strong ability to visualise, and I invest a lot of emotion into it. It's one of the ways I practise when I can't be at my instrument. I'm also very good at imagining several different lines of music simultaneously, including my own line. (I think this is one of the reasons why I love working in an orchestral setting so much, and also one of the reasons why I get frustrated very easily in small ensembles without a coach; it's hard for real performers to live up to what's happening in my head.) In these cases, my response seems to be connected to the visualisation of the joint act of the performers in the ensemble reaching out to the audience. And this too may be one of the reasons I was dissatisfied with band: I very rarely felt that reaching out-ness happening, or a sense of the audience being moved by what we were offering. There was a lot of struggle that never felt like it resolved or settled into an actual delivery of something.

I've thought about this response a lot, and I still can't quite put it into the right words. There's something about the simultaneous identification with the performer as well as being an audience too, but I can't pin it down yet. There's also something about receiving and returning energy, which I know I've talked about before in lectures and discussion and very likely at some point in this journal as well.

I don't have the opportunity to experience live music as an audience member very much, so this past week has been extremely precious to me. I'm very proud of everyone who performed, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I hope they all know that. And I hope that somehow I managed to communicate that I appreciated what they offered.

(Originally posted on my main journal Owls' Court.)

...

2008-05-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

I finally got through to the luthier this morning. The 7/8 I was going to book for a week-long home trial sold last week.

Olivier has promised to order another one in for me to try. He has no idea when he'll have it, though.

I'm either numb or unmoved by it. A bit disappointed, but mainly because I'd made sure my principal was going to be at orchestra this coming week to look at it. Now I won't be able to run it by her until September. But then, I'm not having much of an emotional reaction to anything these days. I'm really run down and I just don't have the energy.

(Originally posted on my main journal Owls' Court.)

One Of Those "Ah!" Moments

2008-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

Something a lot of people don't understand is that singing while playing the cello is hard. People sing while playing guitar all the time; why can't cellists sing too? Despite how easy Jorane makes it look, it's really a challenge and it's something I've never really been able to articulate to other musicians other than to say, "No, it's just hard."

I finally figured out why, thanks to a thread over at NewDirectionsCello.com. Someone asked why it's so hard, and why guitarists can do it with greater ease, and someone hit on the answer. It's because the physicality of playing the cello is more involved and complex than that of playing the guitar. Basically, the movements required and the muscles used include those of the muscles one would use to sing.

To expound: one uses one's ENTIRE body to play the cello, to especially include the diaphragm and body core (EVERY muscle is highly active in cello performance, to include even the legs and feet). Breathing is extremely important with the cello, ergo a conflict may ensue between the cello and voice.

And that's a huge part of it. To begin with, it's hard to sing sitting down, because your torso has less room to expand and there's less support for the column of air. It's difficult to keep the muscles in the centre of the body relaxed enough while playing to use them to sing as well. Sure, you could play standing up (again I point to Jorane as an example), but that requires learning an entire new style of physically playing the instrument. Your angles are different, the weight distribution is different, and so forth. And basically it's hard to use muscles for two different things at once, when each requires so much energy. One might as well ask a saxophonist to tap dance while playing, for example.

Apart from that, other musicians on the thread (who play both instruments) pointed out that the cello seems to take more attention to play. This may be because of all the frequent and freakishly minute muscular changes constantly required to balance movement and direction in both hands and arms, for example. Some say they can sing along only if the cello line is simple enough (and, one imagines, the key). Others have problems with the rhythm of the vocal and the cello lines being different. It's all food for thought, and provided me with an "Aha!" moment. I know how involved my torso muscles are when I play, and I wonder why I never made the connection before.

(Originally posted on my main journal Owls' Court.)

Random Observation

2008-05-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

In the station wagon, I used to have to put my cello's scroll over the corner of the back seat to fit it in the back. In the new sedan, I can lie the thing flat on the floor. On a diagonal, of course. But it fits completely. You would think there'd be more room in a full-size station wagon, but no.

A 7/8 in the gig bag will be able to lie across the trunk from side to side, no angling necessary.

A hard case will have to go in on the diagonal again, but still: The cello fits in the trunk! This was something we were mildly concerned about, what with the diagonal and over-the-top-of-the-back-seat thing in the last car. I laughed a lot on Saturday morning when it slid in without needing half of the back seat flipped down.

So not only it is a smooth ride and awesomely easy to drive, it's cello-friendly. I love this new car.

(Originally posted on my main journal Owls' Court.)

More 7/8 Adventure

2008-05-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

Feel free to skip this; it's another record of my impressions of a different 7/8 cello that I'm writing out for my own reference.

I am so glad I recorded this session; listening to it, I can hear things I didn't hear while I was playing. I can also hear the comments HRH and I made about what was happening, which are also valuable. Also, the recorder captured this exchange:

LIAM: That's Z Y X! Mama is playing Z Y X!

[MAMA plays the song]

LIAM: Mama, you did it!

MAMA: I did it.

LIAM: That's my favourite song, Z Y X!

MAMA: Z Y X is your favourite song?

LIAM: It is! The song! Like in the movie!

MAMA: Do you want me to play it again?

LIAM: No.

Right away I could hear that the sound is fuller and richer than my current cello. However, it has the same hello-I-am-an-open-A-string thing that mine has, whereas the other 7/8 didn't. Like the other one, the bridge is less arched so I was bumping strings, used to needing larger movements to cross between strings. My shifts were mostly a fraction off too, because the 7/8 is shorter. But wow, I can't get over how much lighter a 7/8 is, and how much easier it is to move around. The 7/8 size just fits me so very much better.

This one had a less shiny varnish, and the colour was more of a red-brown. It's a Scarlatti model 301 from the shop of Xuechang Sun in China (Beijing, I believe). The 301 is a co-operative workshop-made cello, not handmade by one person. It's fully carved and has a lighter coat of varnish than I'm used to; it's not as shiny as the other 7/8 or my own cello, and I can actually see the grain of the wood as sort of furrows on the surface instead of having them all filled in. The colour is a red-brown, very much like the colour of this cello.

It's easy to play. Other than adjusting my shifts and spacing I didn't have to fight to get a good sound out of it. The recording demonstrates that the lower strings project and are well-defined, as are the upper strings. The upper strings are crisp, almost too crisp for my taste. I didn't ask what it was strung with, but I suspect Jargars and Larsens, a setup I've always disliked despite its popularity. (A quick check of string winding tables tells me that two were definitely Larsens but I'm mystified as to what the other two were.) I like my strings to be very smoothly balanced, and I'm not someone who pushes to have the sound from the top strings be punchy. I prefer it mellow across the board.

I looked at their hard cases, too. They had the Bobelock Deluxe case with wheels there, priced at $560. The salesgirl thinks the Slimline model without wheels would be about $500. And then, before I could bring it up, right away she said everything would depend on how a case would fit a 7/8 as well: would we be able to insert extra padding, how secure would it be, and so forth. (Bam makes case pads that you can insert in any hard case, but the question is how much padding would I need; for example, the hard case I have now would need way too much padding to be safe.) Wheels are very nice, but they usually add two to three pounds overall. I'd prefer something lighter. Of course, the lightest cases are way out of my price range; there's no point in spending $1,500 on a case if the cello is about the same price. (Hmm, I just found a listing for a Bam light case that's less expensive than even the Bobelock. That's worth looking into.)

Overall, I'd be happy with this cello, but I think I prefer the other 7/8. I'll need to play it again, of course, and it will be good to have a recording of each to hear to help me get a handle on the sound. On a shallow level I prefer the colour of the wood and varnish, but I feel that the sound was more even across all four strings in the first one as well. And the thousand-dollar cheaper price tag doesn't hurt, either.

I'll call the new luthier this week to make a reservation to take the Eastman 7/8 home for a trial the first week of June. My old luthier is just as easy-going about a home trial: sure, you can take it for a week, just leave us your contact info and your driver's licence number. Call us when you have an idea of when you want to reserve it. If I can't decide I might book both for a simultaneous trial, but I suspect that won't be necessary. And if either sells before I can buy it, whichever one I choose, both shops can reorder another one for me. No pressure.

While on our way out, I pointed a 1/4 size cello out to Liam. "For me?" he said hopefully, his face glowing. I can always tell when he is honestly touched or overwhelmed by something because he gets quiet, and he delivered his words in that quiet sort of way. "Not yet," I said. "If next year you still really want to play, then we'll start looking into it."

So there: our second 7/8 adventure. The next step is booking the first one for a week-long home trial.

(Originally published at my main journal Owls' Court.)

It Never Rains...

2008-05-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

My original luthier just e-mailed me to say they have a 7/8 in stock for me to try. I may go in today. This time, I'll bring the MiniDisc to record it. It's a thousand dollars more, which is more in line with what I was expecting to pay and was budgeting for. More expensive doesn't mean better, of course; it's the sound that's important, and I'm very pleased to be able to hear another 7/8 and to have a broader field to choose from.

Updates as events warrant.

If we don't go to try it today, we'll be going to the license bureau to get the plate for the car transferred instead. Equally exciting, really.

(Originally published at my main journal Owls' Court.)

Grr

2008-05-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

I cannot for the life of me settle down to work on something today. Part of my problem is that I'm not immediately in the middle of a project. And since there's nothing I have to work in, I get to choose what I'd like to work on, and despite the list of in-progress-at-various-stages novels/novellas and so forth, none of them are calling me. I also can't pick music to listen to, so I've just set my whole collection of MP3s on shuffle. Except now I'm hearing things I don't recognise and hovering my cursor over the icon of the player to see what it is.

Another more significant part of the problem, I suspect, is that I'm very much in limbo. I'm waiting for word on my pregnancy book that was cancelled. I'm waiting for the editorial letter and first set of edits addressing the hearthcraft book. I'm waiting for the go-ahead from the gaming company to continue developing content. I'm waiting for the publisher for whom I'm doing the freelance manuscript reviews to finish moving and restart operations again.

I wonder if I'm somewhat burnt out. I want to be working on something, I do, because I feel irritated and useless when I'm not. I don't like feeling irritated, because then when the day is over I feel very nasty about myself because I haven't accomplished or advanced anything. It's a stupid, stupid work ethic thing and I can't shake it.

What I want to do is play the 7/8 again. I don't want this instrument to eat my brain when I could be using those grey cells for something else. I spent much too much time searching for new hard cases that would fit a 7/8 on the internet this morning. (My old hard case is cracked and weighs a tonne, and my current large 4/4 doesn't even fill it entirely; a 7/8 would rattle around dangerously in it, beyond what extra padding could do.) I experimented with possible names for it during one of my many wakeful moments last night. Nothing yet. This doesn't indicate anything yet beyond the fact that it didn't steal my soul the moment I played it.

I don't feel like reading, either. Grr, grr, grr.

(Originally published at my main journal Owls' Court.)

A Monday

2008-05-19T11:22:00.000-07:00

I worked all weekend. Saturday morning we went out and about for a bit, but I worked in the afternoon, chasing the end of an idea for the new YA novel and setting things up for the MS review. Yesterday was eight hours of freelance MS review, and I'll be finished it by the end of today. Then I can turn to changing the hearthcraft book as per orders. I won't be paid until the changes they want are made, so there goes my hope of having the money for the 7/8 cello mid-next month.

It's Victoria Day and a holiday here in Canada, so HRH is home. I'm thankful because it gives me a day to work and I don't have to pay a caregiver. The weather is rainy and cold, which is unfortunate. HRH and the boy went off to the EcoMuseum this morning but I've just had a call telling me that it's pouring out there so they're heading to an indoor playground instead. I made pretzels this morning and have already finished my second one. I need to have quick and easy food available to me in the mornings, and the granola bars I make to see me through the week disappear in a day or so, eaten as snacks. There's a new loaf of bread rising too. Over the weekend HRH reset the vegetable bed, tilled our compost into it, and planted peas, corn, carrots, and onions. I forgot about getting seed potatoes, so maybe next year. There's corn and sunflowers strewn along the side of the house too. We'll see what happens. All my herbs are coming back, and we're going to get peppers and lettuce and maybe some cucumbers. We always end up with one or two leftover tomato plants from other people, and I'm the only one who eats them in the house so there's no point in planting our own.

One year ago today was the live dual-band gig. The year off has been good. I do miss playing, but I only miss the parts where it was going well. I don't think anyone misses the time eaten up by rehearsals and travelling to rehearsals and home practice. Even if we'd been in the headspace to keep going, various health issues, work commitments, and plain old timetable incompatibility on everyone's part would have forced us to go on hiatus anyhow. All those things logically preclude a reunion at this time. I am very much looking forward to being at Invisible's upcoming show and not having to worry about conserving my voice or energy for our own performance.

Unless something miraculous happens (like an anonymous money order for fifteen hundred dollars arriving in my mailbox) I'm not going to have the new 7/8 cello in time for the Canada Day concert. I'm disappointed, but I'll live. I suspect it will have been sold by the time I can buy it this summer, so I may not have one at all until this fall. I wonder if a home trial of this one is even worth it. I'm glum about it, because it was pretty much the one thing keeping me upbeat about things this past month.

Right. To work.

(Originally published at my main journal Owls' Court.)

More 7/8 Nattering, With A Side Of Other Stuff

2008-05-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

My principal cellist thinks I should get the 7/8. Of course she's going to listen to critically in a couple of weeks when I take it home on trial, but she strongly endorses the lateral trade notion. She thinks the size and proportion difference will have a positive impact on my playing and comfort.

I am being enabled on all sides. People, you're killing me! I can't afford this for another month, assuming my next paycheque arrives around the eight week post-manuscript-delivery mark (which is not guaranteed). And on top of that I need to do about three hundred dollars' worth of repairs on the cello I've got now. And somewhere along the way we need to do the new computer thing, too, although it's not critical now that I've got the laptop pretty much set up for now. Neither is the cello, of course. I hate being in limbo about so much, work-wise and otherwise.

There is some good news today, however: the publisher with whom I set up the freelance manuscript review gig contacted me this morning and told me they'd pretty much settled after their move and were beginning operations again. So that's less on hold than it was.

The colour of the 7/8 cello I tired is somewhat like the one of this page, only it's shinier with a few more amber-caramel tones to it.

(Originally published at my main journal Owls' Court.)

7/8 Adventure

2008-05-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I went to Longeuil to test the 7/8 cello the new luthier had called about. I want to get all this down while it's still fresh in my mind.

It is indeed an Eastman model 100, which is the higher-quality basic student model Eastman offers. Eastman is Chinese-made and finished/set up by the luthier. The website says "Entirely hand-carved from solid tonewoods; Spruce top and maple back, ribs, and scroll; Ebony pegs and fingerboard; Attractive and durable amber-brown varnish", which pretty much covers it. It has an absolutely lovely warm golden brown varnish with amber highlights, sort of a chocolate caramel glow to it all. It has a silky finish, and a very feminine neck; I don't know how else to describe it. It's daintier than mine. In fact, when we'd installed ourselves in the practice room, I immediately took my cello out to lay it down next to the 7/8 and the difference in size was astonishing. The neck was significantly shorter, there was about an inch and a half of difference in body length, although the width was only a quarter-inch different. Depth-wise, the 7/8 was about a half-inch smaller.

Sound-wise, it's warm and mellow and silky. The G string is a bit buzzy, but that can be adjusted. It's currently strung with Helicores, a brand that most luthiers have tried to sell to me, and now I can see why: they're velvety under the fingers and soft to play on. The tension is lower than my current Evah Pirazzis are. The sound is even and balanced across all four strings, and what I absolutely loved was that I couldn't tell I was playing an open A string. My cello has that nasal open A; this one was just like all the other notes. The dynamics seem to respond well, but this is what I need another cellist to hear it for: there's a world of difference between sitting behind it and hearing it from the front. Same with the projection. HRH said he could hear mine more clearly, but this is where his hearing problem might adversely affect the evaluation: mine has a sharper projection, the 7/8 was warmer and buttery, so he couldn't hear it as well. I preferred the 7/8's sound, but that may be the novelty of it, and I was in an unfamiliar room. It took almost no right arm power at all to draw sound out of it. It felt as if the bow was gliding along the strings instead of dragging them.

Physically, it felt like it fit better in the curve of my body, just as I'd felt when playing M's 7/8 last month. The bridge and fingerboard were less arched than mine, so I kept bumping strings when I tried to cross. I'm used to making larger movements. The scroll sat almost on my shoulder, something else I'd have to get used to. It's so easy to play; I can see how it would be less tiring to play it for long periods of time.

HRH and the boy were with me, and the first thing I played was 'ZYX' from TMBG's Here Come the ABCs album, after which the boy applauded enthusiastically. Of course, he applauded after scales and the E flat major runs from Mozart's third symphony too before he got restless and HRH took him outside to play. Wonderful for the ego. I played through some of the Gounod Symphony no. 1, and never got around to Valse Triste or the arpeggio exercises I'd packed.

It wasn't an immediate "Oh I love it!" sort of thing. I like it, and it's very comfortable to play, but it would be a sort of lateral trade. I was hoping to trade up, but one of the things the luthier told me was that he's looked at other models, and that in his opinion after this kind of quality the next real step up is the Wilhelm Klier 7/8, which runs between $6000 and $7000. He said that if I really wanted him to he would order a 200 or 305 Eastman model, but that the difference in quality was really only going to be negligible and the price higher.

I need to take a moment and say how much the luthier himself impressed me. First of all, he was fluently bilingual, and didn't make me feel as if I was beneath his notice. It was the luthier himself who sat with me and talked to me about the cello, not an assistant or a salesperson. And being much more confident in my people-judging skills now than I was fifteen years ago, I can say with confidence that he is one of the most honest businesspeople I have met. He's one of those rare people who wants the best for a client, not what will turn him the most profit. He listened to me, took my comments seriously, and addressed concerns capably and reassuringly. And in turn I was very honest with him, and told him I was going to take my time, but that he'd already gained me as a client because I would bring my cello to him for its tune-up at the end of the month. (He did a quick exam and agreed that the bridge needed changing, and when I mentioned that it was greedy and needed a new one every two years or so he frowned and peeked inside, took an internal measurement or two, and said to himself "Yes, and that's why" although he didn't elaborate; I got the feeling there's an adjustment out of whack). In the end, he didn't want to sell me something or push me into making a decision I wasn't comfortable with; he wanted to make sure I was going to end up with something that was right for me, whatever and whenever that was going to be.

The tentative plan at the moment is to talk to the principal cellist at orchestra, who originally told me about this luthier, and line up a date when I know she'll be at rehearsal (or perhaps a single lesson date at her house, as she's not playing in the Canada Day concert). Then I'll sign the 7/8 out for a week or two, and let her pick it over and listen to it, and play it for me so I can hear it from the other side, as well as playing it at home myself. The trial period is unreal in its honesty and simplicity: all one does is sign a contract agreeing that the instrument is in my care and is my responsibility while anything happens to when I'm in possession of it. No security deposit; my cello doesn't get left as collateral; nothing. If this 7/8 sells before I can take it home on trial or decide to buy it, he will order another one for me.

Before I could bring it up he also asked if I would be open to looking at smaller 4/4 cellos. I agreed immediately, and he went on to say that when he saw me take mine out he had been astonished, and immediately understood why my principal cellist had remarked on it: it's larger than normal. It's a big, boxy cello, square across the shoulders and wide across the bottom. So not only am I petite, my damn instrument is oversized. (Ah, the sweet taste of irony. Is anyone else rolling their eyes?) He took the full measurements to have them on file and confirmed that it was on the large side. He pointed out the difference in the necks especially. My current one is thick; the 7/8 is much slimmer depth-wise and width-wise, and it's not just because of the proportion. So as he comes across smaller 4/4s he'll call me. He said he'd order in a Wilhelm Klier for me too if I really wanted to try it, no strings attached (no pun intended!), but I passed. There are other places that $7000 needs to go.

What else, what else? We talked about the honeymoon period and both the instrument and musician settling in with one another's quirks. We talked about playing lots of double stops in the sweet spot once it had been found to help vibrate the body and loosen it up to help everything become even mellower. Half a year after a new cello a new bow, probably, because as I know it's useless to buy a new bow if you're about to buy a new instrument. He looked at my current bow and liked the flexibility of the stick, sympathised with the cracked frog, and agreed that replacing the frog wasn't cost-effective. He guarantees all adjustments and repairs (beyond regular-use wear and strings, of course) for a whole year. If the instrument develops dry cracks or separates along a seam, for example, he will repair it or order a replacement if the repairs wouldn't absolutely solve the problem.

He asked what I would do with my current one, and we discussed selling privately versus through consignment at the shop, and even the option of not selling it at all and keeping it as a second or gigging instrument. This one's seen battle, after all, and the trade-in value may not be worth it. I would be extremely hesitant about bringing the delicate 7/8 into a gig situation, and when I explained he said immediately, "I understand." (Nice ringing G and C for the opening of 'Rock'n'Roll Radio', by the way! I forgot to try anything else, but next time I'll run through 'J'veux pas viellier' and 'Wheat Kings', both of which have the tricky C on the G string that my cello swallows up.) He also warned me that I wouldn't recoup much of what I'd paid for it, as instruments of similar quality are going for much less these days. This was what I'd expected.

I forgot to buy rosin, but I will when I take it in in two weeks for the bridge replacement and fingerboard adjustment. I pointed out a scratch on the side of the fingerboard around where the neck joins the body and asked if it was a crack or just a surface scratch; he sanded it lightly and said it was a crack, but he would fill it in when he adjusted the fingerboard.

I have never been treated so personally and directly in a luthier's shop before. I like that he spoke to me very honestly about what had to be done and didn't gloss over anything. He was direct and open, and at no time did I feel pressured or patronised. It may have had something to do with how young he was; I don't know. I feel like we're going into this new cello search together, instead of me trailing behind him as he holds forth on what is good or bad, talks down to me, or makes decisions about what I need without talking to me.

Now what I need to do is make a list of pros and cons about the 7/8 versus my current full-size cello. It would be a lateral trade, but I wonder if it might not net me a more enjoyable playing experience in the long run. I know how mine reacts, and I know that I can play it, but if it comes down to playability, comfort, and evenness of sound I might turn to the 7/8. The fibro's not going to get any better, so smaller movements and less energy required to create sound might be a good thing in that respect too. There's no rush. I can take my time.

Eeeeee!

2008-05-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

The new luthier just called! There's a 7/8 cello that just arrived in the South Shore workshop! The price is hilariously low, which leads me to suspect that it might be very entry-level, which isn't what I want, but I'll check it out anyhow to be sure. I have a tentative appointment to go try it out Saturday morning.

I was looking at mine today thinking that it needed a new bridge and so forth. I'll be taking it with me, of course, so I'll ask what the cost of replacing that might be while I'm there. And I will type out that I need new rosin, so maybe I won't forget to pick that up too.

headdesk

2008-05-08T09:03:00.001-07:00

Two. Two cellists out of six were there last night, and our principal was not one of them. At the end of the evening our conductor came over to us and said, "You did very well. You must be starting to feel like the violists." Which was terribly funny, really, and if I'd been in a clearer headspace I would have laughed instead of tripping over myself to downplay the mess I'd made of My Fair Lady. We'd sight-read the MFL medley and while the first half was fine, at the halfway point we got to an arrangement of 'I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face' that made no sense to me rhythm-wise and I lost the wave I'd been riding and crashed. (It possibly has something to do with the fact that I can't remember how the song goes to save my life.) On the other hand, we'd handled both the symphonies very well, which was quite encouraging.

At least I got the chance to sit as a stand partner with M. for the first time ever, which was a truly delightful experience. She has absolutely lovely tone. And as one of the violists said, when there's only two of you you can suddenly hear what you're playing. And it was nice to discover that I don't suck, but it was also stressful in that all of a sudden I didn't have the principal cellist's wing under which to play. I couldn't fudge the runs like I sometimes allow myself to do in order to be ready for the next bits. Sometimes my fingers surprise me by demonstrating that they actually do know where to go and when.

I would like to work on the quality of sound I'm producing, but all that seems to fly out the window when I'm trying to get my fingers in the right place. I know, I know; practice...

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

Quick Update

2008-05-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

Things have been very frustrating over the past few days. I did have a fabulous rehearsal last Wednesday night though. I tried a new bow hold (thank you Christopher Bunting) and it automatically forced me to hold the right arm in that more balletic curve I'd been trying for to affect how I draw the bow. We got the new music for the My Fair Lady and Sound of Music medleys, and after really working the overture and playing through the delightful (and not really Mozart's) Symphony no. 3, we did most of the SoM and had a blast. I've been reading through Position Pieces for Cello by Rick Mooney as well, and the geography quizzes are brilliant. If your second finger is on D on the A string, what note would your fourth finger play? The first? What would the fourth finger play on the D string if you crossed to it? It may be obvious, but it's just what I need to help positions sink in. I should have bought both volumes.

(Condensed from the longer post at Owls' Court.)

Pop Quiz

2008-04-23T23:45:00.000-07:00

What do these things have in common?

'Marriage of Figaro' overture (what do you mean you want me to play two bars with a single upbow?)
Symphony no. 3, also by Mozart
Symphony no. 32, yet more Mozart

Selections from South Pacific

And to come, I am told, there are still:

Selections from My Fair Lady
Selections from The Sound of Music

If you guessed 'the Canada Day concert programme' you're right.

I am not a huge fan of musical medleys. They tend to not be well-arranged, schmaltzy, and all over the map rhythm- and key signature-wise. Add in the fact that I have actually never seen South Pacific and, well, yeah. (Okay, I know 'Some Enchanted Evening' and 'Bali H'ai', and am I the only person who thinks of Led Zepplin's 'Immigrant Song' when I hear the latter?) But the Canada Day concerts are all about making the masses happy with cheerful and recognisable music, so musical medleys we will play.

Also, our principal cellist had to tell us today that she wouldn't be in town for the concert, making it the first Canada Day concert she'll miss. Thank the gods she's got two potential subs lined up, because none of us could pull it off without someone solid in her chair. I will miss her terribly.

Somewhat related: I sight-read very well at the beginning of the night (and in E flat major!) but those skills degraded over the course of the rehearsal until I was just keeping up in the overture and the South Pacific medley.

I was really, really hoping for some Beethoven.

I need to go to sleep. I am very awake.

(Originally posted at Owls' Court.)

Odd...

2008-04-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to a broadcast of Beethoven's ninth symphony as I work, and although I've played it I don't have much memory of it other than visual and atmospheric impressions. Usually when I've played something I remember the musical line really well. This one, not. How strange.

(Condensed from the original post at Owls' Court.)

Low Morning

2008-04-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a frustrating morning of work, on top of my already low mood.

But this was in the parcel waiting for me at the post office, one of the two I missed on Monday when I was working in the cafe. And I'm kind of glad the upstairs neighbours aren't home because I'm listening to it at a rather loud volume. It's both beautiful and depressing. I can hear every shift Sutter makes and the movements of her bow arm (not because of poor recording or shoddy technique, but because of her phrasing and the stunning acoustics of the church in which it was recorded), and I wish I could play like that.

I'm going to go heat up a piece of last night's lasagna and then come back and slog some more.

(Condensed from the original post at Owls' Court.)