For the past few weeks during my swim workout I have been concentrating on exhaling completely. It sounds rather silly to think about breathing, but it is amazing how much it has helped me feel strong during some hard swims. Yesterday one of our sets was 6 100 IM's. In the past I would have cheated on the butterfly, maybe swimming half of the length fly and finish with freestyle, but with my new mantra of breathing out (if I exhale loudly when my face is in the water no one can hear it!) I was able to do all 6 IM's with the 25 fly and even felt reasonably good going into the backstroke. wow.
So that got me thinking about what simple-sounding thing I could do during cello practice. How could I change a practice approach? The 'aha!' moment I had was thinking about feeling the bow against the string. I've been worrying about the flexibility of my bow hand, drawing the bow straight, and a whole host of other things. During the past couple of days I've been concentrating on feeling the bow - feeling my bow catch and move the string when I change bow direction, feeling and controlling string pressure against the bow during long slow bows, feeling the string when I change bow speed. The other issues are probably still there, but I've already noticed that my tone is much steadier and consistent. another wow! why didn't I think of that before?
Today we had piano trios and I got to be on the cello instead of the piano. Yay! We played the Mendelssohn D minor trio, the Schubert Eb major trio (love the cello solo in the slow movement!), Beethoven Piano Trio #5 (the 'Ghost'), and Fanny Mendelssohn's Piano trio. I am really happy with my cello. It is beginning to open up in sound. It was really fun to crank it up! after we were all done, I even got to try to play the Arpeggione sonata. There are sections that I can play now that I've never been able to play, and it is so nice to have a cello that can handle the high notes...really easy to play over the piano. it was so much fun today!
2 comments:
Great on doing the butterfly the entire length. That is a stroke I never really learned!
I heard exhaling works for cello too but I still play as if breathing is optional ;-)
Breathing! Now there's a topic I can get into! :) Good for you. I try to swim at the Y once or twice a week but my knee has even started complaining about that, too. Still, when I go, you know who kicks my butt? One amazing Asian olympic speedo dude and this cabal of 65 year old women who just cruise past me faster, and for longer. They're swimming when I arrive, and still going when I get out of the pool. Impressive. Your post inspires me to try some more.
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