anniversary

Oscar-the-cello and I have been together for a year.

It's been a good relationship so far. Oscar sounds better in the new practice space (the room with the moon and stars). It's a smaller and cozier room, so I can hear his tones a whole lot better.

We're up to fourth position and about to dive into thumb positions. Our vibrato is coming along nicely. Well, all but first finger vibrato, but we're working on that. We have a better bow hold, too. A nagging ganglion cyst on my left wrist sometimes gets in the way of developing our relationship. However, my left hand grip is a lot looser than it used to be, so the cyst doesn't bother me as much as it used to.

The kitties like Oscar, too. They take turns hanging out in the room during my practice sessions.

Appropriately enough, I had a cello lesson tonight. More work on the Scherzo. Funny how relaxed you have to be to play the frenzied bits so they sound convincing.

Oscar puts up with me even on my bad days when I'm cranky or tired or depressed or angry or doubtful or dejected. Some days we sound truly awful together, and we can occasionally find humor in that. Some days I tell him I don't feel like practicing and can only manage a scale or two. He's okay with that because he knows that more often than not just getting started with a scale can be enough momentum to get me to stay seated and continue with an étude and maybe even wander over to tackle a bit of the current full piece I'm working on.

Here's to many more years together with Oscar.