Sextets Are Fun

I am meeting this weekend with a sextet ensemble formed because I love Brahms sextet #1 so much that bought the music. It is mostly members from the quartet I play in plus 2 or 3 other players. We met a few months ago to read Brahms #1 and it was a lot of fun. I like this sextet configuration (2vln, 2vla, 2cello) - everyone has different parts but you're not alone. A sextet is practically a chamber orchestra so you create a lot of sound...hiding any mistakes I might make in sight reading. :)

This time, I ordered more sextet music from Shar - Brahms Sextet #2 and Dvorak Sextet in A major. It was shipped in a Priority Mail box with a picture of a cello on it. Now how did they know I was a cellist???

Suspect Drain

Taken from http://life-coach-thea.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-power-tip-501.html


Plug the holes where your life energy is escaping.

If you are at all feeling overwhelmed or becoming more fatigued, then it might be time to take a look around for your energy drains. It could be the people with who you associate often, that bill you haven't yet paid, a project you haven't touched for a while, or a shirt button that still needs sewing. Anything incomplete that's hanging around in your life, are potential energy drainers. Either decide to be 100% OK with the way they are and let them go, or attend to them.

A few weeks ago, my car battery died after only a couple of years. AAA came to the rescue with a new battery. After performing some diagnostic tests, they told me that there was a "suspect drain" on my car battery that needed to be checked out. I got it checked and it turns out the suspect was the trunk light which never turned off, draining my battery over time.

What a great term - "Suspect Drain". I have many little things in my life that I put off and it is a drain on my daily energy level whether I realize it or not. I think I put them off because I don't want to take the time to find a solution. Putting it off today takes less energy than doing it today so I decide to put it off. Not before long, I've spent more energy procrastinating than I would have spent dealing with the task at hand. And worst yet, I'm still standing in the same position.

So..goal this summer is to procrastinate less and eliminate suspect drains on my life.

Now that I'm on Twitter...

no time to post!

For those of you in the southeast, you may want to consider going to Chamber Music Weekend in Chattanooga, www.chambermusicweekend.org. I went last year and had a great time. Four days of playing in various ensemble groups - duos, trios, etc. It's heavenly to have access to all kinds of music and the people to play them.

I'm going again this year. Email me if you if you want more information.

Play like your ax is made of gold

A while ago, I read a book called the Violin Maker by John Marchese. This is a story of a luthier named Sam Zygmuntowicz who was commissioned to build a violin for Eugene Drucker of the Emmerson String Quartet. The book follows the building of the violin right from the selection of the wood to the end product. Gene Drucker owns a Stradivarius but wanted a modern instrument that would hold up better in his travels. Zygmuntowicz has to build Gene's rival violin.

I won't ruin the end of the book in case any one wants to read it but there was a point made in the story that I thought was great. No one knows why a Strad sounds better than a modern instrument. There are lots of theories - aged of the wood, kind of wood available when Stradivarius was alive, etc. This book addresses an interesting point though. Part of the reason why a Strad sounds better could be because of the musician's connection with a historical instrument. It's hard not to romanticize owning and playing an instrument with so much history. When a musician plays on a Strad, they are playing with all that history in mind. I have heard of musicians feeling like they need to "live up" to the instrument they own. This HAS to affect how they play which in turn affects how an instrument sounds. They have done tests with audiences listening to a strad vs. a modern instrument - and most times, the audience cannot hear the difference. So..the deciding factor is how the musician is playing, not so much the instrument itself. And how a musician is playing is dependent on so much.

The reason I thought of all this is because I recently had a sound post adjustment on my cello. Since then, my cello has not sounded as good. It sounded good in the shop but I'm know what it used to sound like in my house and it is not close to being as good. I need to go back and get it redone but I've been too busy. I can't tell you how much this change in sound has affected my playing. Notes that used to ring don't ring the same way. Other notes sound nasally at best. It's awful - I had to give it to my teacher at the last lesson to play so that I could hear it away from the instrument. Strangely, it sounded fine. Very frustrating! All this made me think of the point that was made in The Violin Maker - that our connection to the instrument plays a big part in how we sound. I felt like my cello was inferior in setup when I got home. Once that gets in your head, it's tough to work your way out of it and make yourself think it's ok no matter how good it sounds when someone else plays it.

Wow - is it all in our heads? This relationship with the instrument?

Hynotic cellists

Some cellists do not look good when they play. They could play beautifully but something about the way they play is not enjoyable to watch. I remember seeing a cellist perform the 6th Bach suite and although she played it beautifully (she was a student of Starker's so she's obviously GOOD) I was nervous the entire time I watched her. I kept feeling like she was going to miss notes. Every shift looked like an effort. I remember another cellist a couple of months ago who was so rough on the cello that I felt sorry for it! Enjoyable to hear but a little nerve racking to watch.

Then there are the cellists who hypnotize you when they play. There's no worry in their playing. Every note is as if their hand was built to reach it and every phrase looks as if it was built for their bow. I remember watching Matt Haimovitz play a few years ago and it was such a lovely experience. It looked easy! So easy that I felt I could go home and do it too, at which point I am reminded of how NOT easy it is. Today I saw a recording of David Starkweather, professor at UGA, performing a Schumann piece. Very hypnotic because it looked like he was meditating on the music. I could stare at him play all day.

One day, I hope to make it look easy.

Back at it again!

It's been a few weeks but I am officially out of 'I hate cello week'. I guess it wasn't a week...it was almost a month.

I've had some good lessons during this time though. Here's some notes on the breakthroughs:

1) I picked up Popper #2 again a few weeks ago to see if I made any progress since working on it 2 years ago. Not a hard piece but the etude has long bows. During the lesson, D noticed that I was pushing and pulling throughout the entire draw of the bow creating excess junk in the sound. He told me that once the bow is drawn, I need to let go and not keep drawing throughout the phrase. The action is at the beginning of the down bow or up bow but after I start the initial draw..I need to let the bow move without forcing it. This worked wonders for me! (I'm not sure that I'm explaining it very well)

2) Still working on Bach 3 Prelude and had a major breakthrough here too. This month...I focused on not clunking down on the string when I changed bows..to get as even of a legato sound as I could. At the last lesson, I played the whole thing for him and he said that I was torqued the entire time I was playing it. I needed to find places to release tension. I am still having bow issues and working too hard at it. D had me pick out certain spots in various phrases where there was an increase of tension with the bow and then we picked out where I would release that tension in the phrase. This increase/decrease in tension sets up my phrase. He used the visualization of a top spinning. I would draw the bow (similar to pulling a string to get a top spinning) and once the bow moved, let it spin on its own (decrease of tension) for the rest of the phrase. I tried it with a few phrases and the change was astonishing. It's funny how visualizing something like this can help. Not only was my tone better, I felt so FREE. I haven't been able to get that feeling back this week in practice but I feel like I'm really close. I understand it much better now. I see how the breathing plays into it. The breath in is really the increase in tension and the breath out is the release of that tension.

Geez...I hope one day I don't have to think about it so much. The visualization helped a lot! I asked D if he had think about it like this all this time. He said he used to but he doesn't have to anymore..it's second nature now. So..there's hope for me yet! I hope some of this is helping somebody else out there. I felt so good when I nailed it in the lesson that I threw my arms up in the air and exclaimed, "Yay!!!!"

Down on practice

The last few weeks have been low on practice for me. Teacher says that if you practice through those times when you don't feel like practicing, those are usually the times when you will grow the most musically.

Ok...I'm ready for that growth now...and for me to want to practice again.