Originally published 12 June 2007. Near the end of this piece, I talk about resisting change and looking down on a teacher I had in London because she wasn’t up to speed on the Rococo Variations. I am still struck…
The way I see it, there is this thing, this Difficulty (capital D, for emphasis) to playing the cello. And it’s there; sitting, waiting, towering, looming, quivering. Many a student has tried to devise strategies to get around this Difficulty.…
I find this very useful. Want more?
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…
Sometimes a change in perspective makes a long process more bearable. Enjoyable, even. I came to this realization a few days as I looked ahead with dread to the longest day of the year. I thought of the miserable summer…
I am a big believer in messages to (and from) the universe. I think that everything one does is a message, a request. It’s that “you get what you give” thing, where the style of life you live is, in…
Nearly everything about the cello is, upon initial inspection, prohibitive. It’s big. It’s low. It’s difficult. It’s expensive. It reads that clef you didn’t really master when you took piano lessons. If you manage to get past all of those…
Other possible blog titles include: Acting the partAll for showTest yer gesture (ha) As many of you know, I am in the business of teaching how to play the cello. I was about to write, “I teach the cello” but…