I'm glad we decided to leave tomorrow morning for, yes, the Bay Area! As if I don't get enough of it for work. Everyone at work laughed at me when I told them that I was coming back down for the holidays. Last week was so hectic for both of us that nothing got done, so this weekend was a frenzy of baking, cleaning, putting together gifts (including the results of the frenzied baking) for our neighbors, and organizing for the trip. What is it about going away for a week that makes me think that I have to clean something that hasn't been cleaned in months?
Our groups didn't meet this weekend. I think everyone is in a similar situation with family and holiday events. I had my last lesson for the year on Friday. The funny thing was that since I was home this week and am on a break from all of my groups, I had about as much time to practice as a normal week, even though my previous lesson was on Monday. This week's lesson was on shifting, so I have added a long set of shifting exercises (same finger, same string; different fingers, same string; different fingers, different strings; same finger, different string) in all sorts of configurations. I have to fight my piano training to keep my fingers in contact with the string.
I brought my cello over to our next-door neighbor's house last night. Her parents are visiting, and I brought my cello over to bring them all some Christmas music. It was so much fun. They started requesting different carols, and it was so much fun to start playing what they wanted to hear. The only one that I had a little trouble with was Silver Bells. Let's see...I played What Child is This?, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Away in a Manger, We Three Kings, Joy to the World, O Holy Night, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, O Tannenbaum, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, ...can't remember what else. I really enjoyed watching them...it is such a pleasure to watch people enjoy listening to music. And it was so much fun to hear them say "can you play ...." and then to just launch into it.
Hmm...should have played Silent Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem! It definitely got us all in a holiday mood!
3 comments:
How festive! That's quite a comprehensive repertoire of Carols. Were you playing all that Christmas music from memory? Or can you play "by ear"? Either way, I'm impressed.
Have a wonderful Christmas with you family.
Thank you Cellodonna! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas too!
I'm not sure how I play carols any more - most of them are very deeply ingrained since I've been playing and singing them for so long - so I guess they're all from memory. Although I do think when I first learned them it was by ear - when I first started playing the cello carols were the first songs that I tried to pick out to try figure out where all of the notes were and to marvel at the fact that you could play the same note on different parts of the fingerboard.
Do you play them all in G Major? Or mix things up for fun?
Merry Christmas, CelloGeek!
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