Hard to believe it's been almost 2 months since my last post but I've had a bit of a cello vacation as of late. It was nice and I needed it but I'm ready for another year on the cello. This is now year 7. Wow.
Time and time again, I've had teachers tell me the way to practice difficult passages is to slow the tempo down to a tempo you can actually play it. For people who lack patience (me), this is really hard to do...I frequently keep doing the runs I have trouble playing at frantic speeds thinking that one day, it'll fall into place. Guess what? It never does! All those frantic tries are just helping me practice how to do those passages the wrong way. I've had teachers go through passages slowly with me in many lessons. Almost every time, it has helped. Nevertheless, my first few tries at impossible passages will always be earnest attempts to do it "a tempo". It's probably not hard to guess that I run my life the same way. I am often disappointed at myself when I don't do things perfectly on the first try. I'm slowly learning to undo that thinking with the results I've seen in cello practice.
So...here's to a year of slowing things down, in cello practice and in life. Happy 2008!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)