I was incredibly lucky with my first cello teacher, Catherine Graff MacLaughlin. You’ve probably heard me refer to her as my cello mom, a riff on Jackie calling William Pleeth her cello daddy. Fun fact: Cathy studied with Pleeth, too! And Casals! eeeee

Anyway, I seem to remember her explicitly instructing me to use the tuner in the way I describe in this video—using it to inform the spaces in your hand rather than treating it as some very boring video game where the goal is to move your hand until a line makes a 90º angle with the bottom of the music stand.

The thing we’re trying to do is train our hand. The tool we are sharpening is our ear. Don’t rely on the tuner too much, and when you do use it, remember: every time you have to adjust, turn it into a thesis statement about that adjustment. Examples might sound like:

• my body thinks that note is higher/lower than it actually is
• I need more/less space between 2 and 3
• the gap between 1 and 2 is smaller/bigger in this position

Happy practicing!