Practice Goals for June

One of the nice things about being a member of CelloBloggers is that one of the sub-groups is the Practice Club. There are 13 members and we are keeping each other honest by sharing our practice goals and reporting our progress. Here are my goals for June, which as it's more than halfway over, are a little late (but hopefully doable!)

--being ready for the last concerts of the season for orchestra. That means panic practicing to be ready for the first concert on Monday. We have a hard program; the 1812 overture, Copeland's Rodeo (rhythms are really hard on this!), a really neat trombone concerto, and some other pops and patriotic music.

--improving my ability to get a consistent and even sound when I'm changing bow direction. Today my husband said that for the first time he heard my play the longest sustained sound he's ever heard...meaning that he couldn't tell when I changed the bow direction! Now if I could only do that consistently and reliably...that's the goal

--and for consistency, practicing every day that I'm home. I'm traveling 3 out of 4 weeks this month, but have managed to practice all except for one day when I was at home. My excuse for the day that I missed was that it was the evening I arrived home from a trip and I had a pile of work to finish before the next day.

I forgot to add this last goal to my post, and it's an important one, and that's being very careful to be very relaxed and in good form with very little tension while playing. For the past few weeks I've been suffering from pain in my neck and having problems with numbness, pain, and tingling in my left shoulder, arm, hand, and fingers. My doctor sent me to get an MRI done and the MRI showed a bone spur and a disk protrusion in my neck, along with degeneration in the disk. I think this is the long term effect from a rear-end collision I was in 6 years ago. The pain started a few weeks ago but so far I've tried to keep it from interfering with my practicing. But I am so aware now of whether I have extra tension in my neck and arm...and have actively sought to get rid of that. I want to be able to keep playing the cello for a long, long time!