In response to and support of GottaGoPractice’s Fauré efforts of the same ilk, I was posting “relaxed Dvorak” videos over on YouTube. This one ran longer than 10 minutes due to one particularly hammy cat whose name begins with an L and ends with “ucy”. So in lieu of busting out the ol’ Final Cut or iMovie, I’m just sticking it here until I have the willpower to edit it into two separate videos. My favorite part is out of the frame: Lucy rubs her face on my glasses when I pick her up. Aww. Makes all the Dvorak worth it. I know it’s a theme here, but really: it’s so useful to have to articulate this stuff. I work on being relaxed all the time. It’s key to my rehab and also part of preventing a new injury. Having to sit in front of a camera and talk about it is an edifying exercise for me, and I thank you for the opportunity and inspiration.
PS: I say “first to fourth” position when I mean “fourth to first” towards the beginning. Sorry! 🙂
2 Responses
Fabulous. You make every note ring beautifully. I like how you pointed out what my teacher calls "technical shifts". Sorry we missed the Lucy lick! She is a beauty.
I love the video!
It made me feel especially good to hear you talk about finding first position. I'm still relatively new at the instrument, having played for about 2 (non-consecutive) years. Until Sunday night, I still had a sticker on the back of my cello's neck, to indicate where my thumb should be for first position. It was pretty, and I never bothered to take it off.
On Sunday it finally fell off. And even though I know very well where first position is, I found myself second guessing everything without that sticker there as a reassurance that I know what I'm doing. It's a shame, because I was so proud of the work I had done that week, and prepared for an awesome lesson on Monday. But the sticker thing threw me off, and I was more distracted than I should have been. Aah, well.
In any case, it's good for my ego to see that it's normal to sometimes work at finding good ol' first position. I think I'm going to mimic your warm up and do tons of fourth to first shifts this week, to prove to myself that I don't need that blasted sticker.