A Heavier Arm

The flight I took home yesterday was actually early. And I managed to work my schedule out to come home on an early afternoon flight, rather than in the evening. The bonus to coming home early was getting to see my husband, the kitties, and actually getting a little piano and cello practice in.

I'm as ready as I'm going to be on the piano for the Bolling suite - this morning I ran through it a few times and my solo parts feel very solid - I'm at the point where I can start thinking about how I want to play with each note or phrase while I'm playing. There are still a few rough spots, but they are going to be what they are. Our gig is tomorrow, and the flutist and I are meeting a little early at the venue to run through it before the gig, so we can get back in sync, and more importantly for me, so that I can try out the piano and find out what its idiosyncracies are. Every piano is different. Pianists have to play the instrument that is provided (unless, of course, you are willing to travel with your own!) and every one has a different feel and tone that can vary note to note, may or may not be in tune note to note, responds differently to things like fast repeated notes, and has pedals that engage differently. At least with the cello you bring your own instrument.

This morning it was just our first violinist and me. She's been nice about helping me get ready for the gig, but I was tired of playing the one piece of the Bolling suite that we're playing, so we played through the rest of the suite. Then we switched - she played the piano and I got to play my cello. It was really fun - we read through Schubert's Arpeggionne Sonata, which I love. We've tried to play it before, and I'm getting better and better each time. I had trouble with the 3rd movement, but then again, we were just reading through it. This was the first time that I've played it where I've felt that I could actually play it if I worked on it....during prior times playing it I've felt that many of the sections were beyond my level of playing. Then we read through a Klengel piece that I found (I think it was on the International Music Music Score Library wiki, which unfortunately as of Oct 13th has been taken down). It was titled "Three Mazurkas" and was a lot of fun to play.

My lesson this afternoon was good; we worked on increasing the weight of my arm and increasing the speed of my vibrato to get even more sound out. My teacher wants me to "kick up my playing another notch by getting another gear." I could relax and make my arm heavy to get more volume, or I could increase the speed of my vibrato. I have trouble doing both at the same time. Most cello skills seem to me to be some variation of patting your head with one hand and rubbing your stomach with the other, and then switching what you're doing very quickly. I guess that's the point of practicing...