In Which She Apologises

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
~

First Lesson In Ten Years

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
~

*headdesk*

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.)

In Which She Gives A Bow Report, And Is Somewhat Astonished At Her Proficiency

Last night after Liam went to bed, I sat down and played the cello for seventy-five minutes. I had no idea time was flying the way it was.

Late that afternoon while the boy was playing with cars and trains I had sat down to page through one of my copies of the six solo cello suites by Bach, looking for something new to play. I thought I'd try the first movement of the sixth. I was fine for the first two systems and then things started sounding not quite right, so I put it aside and made dinner. When I came back to it I tried it again and it still didn't work. And then I looked more closely at the clef. I'd assumed it was tenor, but something began to nibble at the edges of my mind, so I turned and pulled out my other edition with the facsimile manuscript opposite the printed page. Sure enough -- the edition I'd been reading from was set in alto clef, instead of putting it in the more familiar-to-cellists tenor clef. (The facsimile looks like it's in alto too, which would make sense as it wasn't written for a regular cello.) What I had assumed was tenor was actually alto. No wonder things sounded odd.

And then I looked at the rest of the piece and saw three pages of alto clef moving into treble clef and said to myself, Self, this is just going to frustrate you. So I paged back to look for something else to play and found the Gigue of the third suite, which I'd never played before. (I haven't played most of the solo suites, actually. Half of the first and one or two bits of the second is all, really.)

And I played it pretty much off the top of my head.

I stumbled in two places and worked them for a while, because they're theoretically simple but my intonation was wonky because I wanted to play in higher positions to avoid an open A string (bars 50-58 and 104-106, if anyone's counting) and my shifts weren't secure when I sight-read it. And if I'm in a position I want to stay there as long as possible, so I ended up making fingerings up for the surrounding bars too. Then I played it a few times over because it sounded good, really good, and it was welcome balm for my self-esteem. When I tired of it I moved to playing the two trouble spots in the Faure Pavane (again, if anyone's counting, bars 62-63 and 69-73, the phrases where the celli are supposed to sound soft and beautiful but not like they're working at shifting at all, argh) and worked out yet another set of fingerings that may actually succeed this time.

It felt so wonderful to be able to just sit down and play something I'd never played before, and to hear it sound good. My tone was nice, sound production was good, shifting was pretty secure (except in bars 104-106 of the Bach, damn it, where I begin in first, shift to fifth to play the A, then shift down to fourth on the B flat of the following bar -- it's the shift from fifth to fourth that is usually not far enough, or I get frustrated, overcompensate, and shift too much), and everything felt right.

I really like working with this remodelled bow. I was playing with a full practice mute and it still made the strings ring very nicely. It makes the Gigue and the Pavane really sing. Wednesday night at orchestra my hand cramped a wee bit near the end of the evening because the frog and stick are slightly larger than my previous primary bow and I was still getting used to adjusting my grip to it, but apart from making minute adjustments for the heavier weight needing less speed at certain places, especially in both Pavanes, it went well. I had no problem with it at all last night. I like it a lot, and I'm going to keep working with it as my new primary bow. I showed our section leader at rehearsal and she was somewhat impressed, I think, at how successful the remodel had been, lifting an eyebrow in mild surprise (but not horror!) when I told her my husband had done it. It's still on the heavier end of the scale, but it's much better balanced and easier to handle. She ran it through some spectacular quick exercises that made me wish I could just throw things like that off. Someday, perhaps.

I've been toying with the idea of maybe starting lessons again this summer. It would be a better use of my money than a new instrument at this point.