Several of my cello friends blog about details of their lessons: techniques they learn or discoveries they make. I love reading these blogs, although they often leave me mystified because I’m not yet at a playing level where I can fully understand what they’re getting at to be able to apply it to my own practice (nothing makes me more aware of my own ignorance like cello does; Kermit is right – it really is not easy being green). I suppose reading these posts also leaves me overwhelmed because of all the detail – how do they keep it all in mind and active when playing a piece? That is a skill I would love to have.
I’ve avoided writing posts about my lessons and revelations because as such a beginner, I’m not sure what words to use to describe these things in a way that would be useful not only to me, but to anyone reading the entries. Pretty much all of my cello friends are way ahead of me in skill, so my learnings and discoveries would be old-hat yawns. (And we’ll take it as a given that non-cellists would want to skip these posts.)
I have been keeping a handwritten cello journal, however, at the request of my teacher. I log my daily practices and include what pieces I’m working on and any relevant notes (or more often than not – frustrations) with each piece. It’s rather sparse as journals go, which is odd for writer me. With just about any other topic, I can write volumes. With cello, not so much. I get finger-tied and only seem to manage a one- or two-line Twitter post or a vague and cryptic phrase in a journal entry. The desire to write about it is there, but the words aren’t.
And it’s annoying The Hell out of me. Something must be done about it.
So I’ve decided on an early goal for 2011 – more blog posts about my cello lessons and practices. If only for the sake of a personal need to better articulate what I learn so as to, er, learn it better. Or something. Anyway, they may be clumsy and vague and oh-so-obvious, and I apologize in advance for that, but hopefully, they will get better and more interesting.
Here’s my first go at it, because Michael asked:
I’ve been working on Handel’s Bourrée for a couple of weeks now. A light, skip-hop-jump piece with some position shifts and slurs to make it interesting. I’ve got the rhythm fairly accurate, and I can play it at a decent pace.
I’m slightly off with the fourth finger in the position shifts in the second half of the piece, especially after coming from a first-finger extension from second position. I tend to want to keep my first finger down (and with my long fingers, I can very nearly get away with it), but I’ve figured out that if I lift it as the fourth finger goes down in second position, the fourth finger is more accurate since my hand has more range of motion to go further south, which it can’t have if I use my first finger as an unhelpful anchor. (Go ahead and yawn here if you need to.)
I’m at a point in my cello studies where I’m starting to pay more attention to the layers of a piece instead of focusing solely on playing the right notes at the right time and calling it a day, which results in only really half-learning a piece that doesn’t sound very musically satisfying.
One layer of the Bourrée is volume. There are a number of sections that go from piano to forte. My teacher pointed out that the obvious thing to do to play louder is to put more weight on the bow with the right hand. However, there are other ways to get volume.
Since this is a Baroque piece, if I were to play it on a Baroque cello with a Baroque bow, weight on the bow would not be an option. The gut strings and the bow shape wouldn’t allow bow pressure because it would just be a mess of strings mashed against fingerboard and stick mashed against hair. In plain language, yucky-sounding.
Instead, we played around with how much bow to use – shorter sections for piano, gradually increasing to just about full bow length for forte. At the moment, the difference in sound is very subtle to my ears, but I’m hoping more practice will make it more obvious while still having a nice, smooth, watercolor-like gradation (slowly bleeding one into the other, rather than hard stops between). This method of volume is more in keeping with the Baroque style and therefore the thing to do in a Baroque piece. (Bloody obvious, right?)
Oy! It took me a ridiculous amount of time to write the above six paragraphs. Quite unlike me. How do you all do it?
2 comments:
I *still* can't remember to lift my first finger and after a first-finger extension before I place my 4. And if I do remember, the 4 is in tune. But apparently that's not enough to reinforce it. (I should remember to lift my 1 if I'm going to play a 4 most of the time, anyway; it's one of the things holding back my vibrato.) And I like your description of dynamics as watercolours, bleeding from one thing into another.
It's hard to write about music. I don't manage to convey what I want to convey most of the time. But then, I feel that way when I'm trying to play, too.
Thank you for digging deep and writing that . I'm sorry it was like pulling teeth. Since you worked so hard on that post, I think the reply should be substantive as well.
I think your description and approach to the Bourree was quite helpful to me, and revealed some things that I had not yet covered when I was working on that piece.
If you are at that phase where you are thinking about dynamics more carefully, then we are on the same level. So, it's not totally accurate to say "all your cello friends are way past me". I think you and I are approximately equal in development. Our past few lessons have been on this level, but only the past few.
I think a lot of what I write is just an attempt to help me remember what I did, and have yet to do. For a while I didn't think it was worthwhile. But, I went back and reread my really old entries and said - "hey, that's actually helpful - how did I forget to do this or that?"
But the best way to experience cello is to play it, so I may pick up the Bourree again and see what issues I'm facing as well. I tend to use the heavy bow technique as well.
Post a Comment