Tag practice

On the 6th day of Cellomas

My teacher told to me: 6) Practice sightreading at least once a week, if it’s not already part of your routine. There are few tricks to getting better at sightreading. You just have to do it; preferably with a metronome.…

On the 5th day of Cellomas

My teacher told to me: 5) Go slow, go fast, go slow again. The hallmark of erratic driving is a great test of true grasp of technique and timing. Take a short piece or study that you have roughly under…

On the 4th Day of Cellomas

My teacher told to me: 4) When you can’t practice your cello, there are still ways to practice being a better musician. Let’s say you’re away from your instrument during the holidays for more than 3 days (the amount of…

On the 3rd Day of Cellomas

My teacher told to me: 3) Tune your half steps. Ideally, you should have half steps between your fingers with a nice big space between 2 and 3 which is flexible enough to be tempered up or down. Using a…

On the 2nd Day of Cellomas

My teacher told to me: 2) Find a way to record yourself. Lots of my students have balked at this one. “I get nervous!” “It will sound bad!” etc. To me, those are reasons to record yourself. Unless you are…

The 12 (or so) days of Cellomas

I’m not swimming in time these days, but I thought I it might be fun to offer a few basic reminders to take into your next practice session. Whether you’re an agnostic low-layer, a celebrant of another religion or a…

The impossible dream

Though we sometimes hesitate to admit it, even professional cellists and teachers have bits of technique that we develop “work arounds” for. It seems like forever ago that I developed one such habit to adjust for my weak left pinky…

and finally

Andrew Cook turned me on to the final permutation of the scale exercise I’m prescribing: Start the scale from the lowest note on the cello in the key, not just the tonic. So that means you start every scale on…

upon your return

The early stages of coming back from an injury or a long break can be like starting over, except that you have these remnants of knowledge, muscle memory, and expectation to tempt you right back into pain and frustration again…

seasons

Must be something about summer. We all kind of fall off of the horse in one way or another. Cellists stop practicing. Bloggers quit blogging (or go all sporadic, like me). L’s work parallels the TV season, and it’s interesting…

real time, part 4: really real

Yesterday, Jen had to take a little break because of a long-standing back issue (which does not benefit from tense cello playing, or any cello playing for that matter). So here’s her 2 cents worth. We have a lesson tomorrow,…

real time, part 2: giant steps

Here’s the next entry in Jen’s battle, tentatively named CelloQuest ’08: Today was all about learning to feel the strings. I would not allow myself to squeeze at all with my left thumb and this caused me to change the…

real time

One of my students has agreed to chronicle the progress in her battle with arm tension here on SRCB. A little preface: She has been playing for 2 years, has participated in every recital I have scheduled in that period,…

Really good practice session

Ever the masochist, I have decided to go crazy on concert studies. In addition to the audition repertoire, I have added the 4 Bukinik studies, with a special focus on the 2nd one. People, if you don’t know these, well…I…

Don(ting) Juan {sic}

There’s an audition coming up in June, and I am thinking of taking it. Whether or not I do, I enjoy dusting off the excerpts and Haydn D for some critical work, which is amazingly never finished, even after 15…