A couple of weeks ago I pulled out my metronome (ok, I finally replaced the battery) and started using it again. I've been doing bowing exercises from the Sevcik School of Bowing Technique (adapted for cello) and have started on No. 6. It is basically straight eighth notes with more bowing variations than any human could possibly get through.
I decided to run the metronome to make sure that I was on the recommended tempo (104). I discovered something that really pissed me off. My eighth notes were just a shade short on my up bows. It wasn't enough to be noticeable without the metronome, and I'm sure I had been compensating for it by playing slightly too long on the down bows.
Anyway, at my last lesson I told my teacher what I had discovered and we spent a good deal of this lesson on this topic. He gave me an awesome tool to help fix the problem. Most of us can adjust to the metronome beating steadily, so it doesn't help fix the underlying problem which is a rock solid sense of the underlying pulse of the beat. So, he gave me something that he had put together with a drummer friend. The drummer beats the tempo, but he only beats the drum for all of the beats in the measure during the first measure. On the next measure he doesn't play the last beat, then on the 3rd measure he drops the last 2 beats, and on and on until the only time he hits the drum is the first beat of the measure. It was a humbling experience to see how far off I was when the first beat of the next measure played - and this was playing straight notes!
It's not like my sense of timing and rhythm is bad - but it clearly is something that can get much more solid. I've also been practicing playing on the off beat (on the 'and'). The other humbling experience was having my teacher point out to me that I wasn't as relaxed playing on the off beat and what I needed to do physically was no different than playing on the beat. Another thing to work on!
Post note, though - these exercises have really helped how solidly I play with others. My reading chamber group decided to play the Mendelssohn D Minor piano trio (which we've read through a few times) while waiting for some of the other members to show up. I was on piano (this is one where I think the piano part is the hardest of the 3 parts - think Mendelssohn writing for himself! - gives me many moments of panic while playing), but our 1st violinist said after the 1st movement that my tempo was the steadiest that she'd heard me play. So definitely progress!
Slow, but steady. Part of the journey...
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