Second-Guessing The Gavotte

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

March 2010 Summary (to date)

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.

January 2010 Summary

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

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’ (originally written for the piano, four hands, in 1889, and arranged for orchestra by Henri Bussex in 1909)
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

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:

Mozart: Ouverture Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), K. 486
Schubert: Rosamunde - incidental & ballet music
Weber: Concerto pour clarinette no. 2 op. 7 - Allegro (soloist: Eric Braley)
Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) K. 620- In diesen heil’gen Hallen (soloist: John Manning)
Beethoven: Symphony no. 8 op. 23

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

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

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.

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In Which She Muses About The End of The Cello Year

Friday night I had my second to last cello lesson of the year. (Not the calendar year, the school year. Yes? Yes.) On the way there I was thinking that it would be nice to just play music. The last few lessons have been really focused on the polishing of technique and they were great, but I wasn't certain I was in the mood for it this time.

(My brain also absented itself as I drove there and took me the way to orchestra instead. I found myself on Donegani wondering what I was doing. Was ten minutes late as a result.)

Anyhow, got there, set up, my teacher asked me what we were doing and I said we'd been putting the final touches on Grenadiers and we'd started prepping Gavotte. She said we'd warm up with the Gavotte prep exercises, so we worked on them, focusing on the minute readjustment of the left elbow necessary to stay in tune, and the release of the first finger guiding the bow to wrap around the string in order to avoid audible string crossings. Then we started playing the C section of Gavotte, then moved to play the whole piece. (Although I played through the A and B sections for fun I hadn't worked them, and evidently I have been playing it much too quickly.) And then we were turning the page and looking at Bourrée, which I hadn't played in, well, a decade, and we worked on similar issues with the addition of one of my banes, maintaining constant bow weight and not doing tiny accents on every new note when I change bow direction. She played with me during both pieces, either doubling my line or playing the cello accompaniment, and we played the whole piece I hadn't prepped, which explained the lack of solid shifting halfway through. I really enjoyed it.

She said I'd handled the things we were addressing well, and I said I was glad, seeing as how I hadn't prepped the Bourrée. She may have forgotten, or mixed me up with another student. Or maybe she was just determined to get me to the end of book 2 before we took our summer break. Whatever the reason, I said that I was glad we'd done what we did; I'd been hoping we wouldn't drill the final phrasing bits of Grenadiers, and was thinking how nice it would be to just play music. She told me to just ask whenever I felt like that; she knows how things get, and she cheerfully accommodates students when they need that kind of lesson. I got it without asking, sort of, and still got to work on technique stuff. The last couple of lessons have been very technical and stop-and-start affairs focusing on single phrases, and sometimes I really get into those. This past lesson wasn't one of those nights, though, so everything worked out just fine.

And so here we are, working on the end of the Suzuki book 2 review. I have my schedule of what pieces to review on what day of the week over the break, and my photocopy of handwritten prep exercises for book 3, and instruction to start messing about with it this summer. It feels like it has arrived somewhat suddenly, although we've been working on it since Thanksgiving interspersed with recital stuff and orchestra stuff. Everything I work on ties in somehow, and lots of what I'm working on in the technical sense is universally applicable.

When I think about the mental list of things I wanted to accomplish through lessons (becoming more familiar with the geography of the finger board, a more solid foundation in theory, improved intonation, a better bow hold, more efficient left hand movement, accurate thumb position, a better vibrato) we've done so much work on most of them. I no longer panic when a conductor uses most solfège terms (although I still can't keep dièse and bémol and bécarre straight, and when someone starts using movable solfège terms I panic because why can't we all just agree that do is C, why does it have to shift to indicate the tonic of whatever key you're in?), my bow grip no longer causes cramps or locking of joints, my left hand can fly all over the place, and I know where notes are in different places with more certainty than ever before. I still trip a lot, and over- or under-shoot shifts, and my wrist keeps trying to reassert its reign over my right arm and lift the damn bow instead of leaving it on the string, but in general, I can tell that my technique has refined by leaps and bounds over the past eight months. And I'm filled with a smug kind of glee to think that I will only get better, and better, and better.

I am so glad that I decided to do this, and so very thankful that my teacher and I seem to fit one another's teaching/learning styles. She charges so little and waves her hand at me when I say that we go overtime pretty much every lesson; apart from the buying of the new cello thing (which is two-thirds covered by the now-confirmed pending sale of the 4/4!) this is very affordable financially, and time-wise is worth it. The discipline and reward are good for me in many different ways.

~
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~

All Cello, All The Time

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.

~
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~

A Happy Friday

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
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Ongoing

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
~

Lesson Highs and Lows

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
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~

Hello, Thumb Position

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
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~

Astonishing

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
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A State Of The Me Update

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
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~

Recital Countdown

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
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~

Resigned

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Life Is Good

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.

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