I added up my practice hours in 2010 and it totaled 561 hours. It is almost the same number of hours as last year! I was pretty happy because I traveled so much more this year - nearly 120 days - taking out nearly 4 months of practice time. Each year I've set a goal of averaging an hour a day for the year. Maybe this year I could try to break 600 hours, which would be a worthy stretch goal.
I looked back at the year and am happy with my progress and am looking forward to next year. Some of skills I'd like to improve this year:
--better vibrato. My teacher called the current state of my vibrato "acceptable for ensemble playing" but I'd like to get more of a "solo vibrato" and be able to keep it going.
--a singing line more often. One of the biggest improvements I made this year was that sometimes I can actually hear phrasing and a musical line. I'd like to turn that "sometimes" into "most of the time"
--control the volume. Would love to control those crescendos and decrescendos!
My Dungey cello is starting to develop a wonderful tone as it goes through its terrible twos - in February it will be 2 years old. In early December I was able to see Christopher and have him do some overdue work on the cello. I met him at the house of Ken Finch, a member of the Portland Symphony and owner of an older Dungey cello. I asked for and got a lesson from Ken! It was very exciting to play for him and get his encouragement and tips on what I could do better. I also got to hear him play my cello. He was loathe to give up both my cello and my bow :-) He's agreed to give me additional lessons if I make it down to Portland again!
So here's to 2011 and happy new year to all!
2 comments:
Sounds good! Vibrato is tricky: I developed a probem with it before my surgery, got worse after, and just the other day, after watching a bunch of Jacqueline duPre did it sort of work itself out. I'd be curious to hear what directions your teacher gives you to improve your vibrato.
Happy new year!
Thanks Emily! I'm sure you could help me with vibrato too.
-my teacher helped me fix my vibrato by making me focus on thinking about shaking my arm and not my fingers. it helped me 'unbind' the whole vibrato and keep the shaking relatively steady (as opposed to the different speeds of vibrato i had with different fingers) the other problem I had was that my fingers were sliding around, and he helped me fix that by observing that my thumb was too loose (in my share of cello-playing problems a too rigid/tight left thumb grip has not been one) - so by keeping my thumb in place and shaking my whole vibrato improved.
I am working to learn and improve
1. keeping my vibrato going through the duration of the note (i start thinking about the next note or the upcoming bow change or whatever is next and my vibrato stops) - so I've been practicing scales with various bow patterns that aren't steady and trying to keep my vibrato going (with and without a metronome)
2. keeping my vibrato going when I change fingers - been practicing basic patterns (1-2 1-3 1-4 etc) while keeping the vibrato going..on different strings...with different bow speeds
3. keeping my vibrato going when I shift - same thing - practicing basic shifting but with vibrato
4. i'm trying to figure out how to add string crossings to the mix...
pretty much what I'm doing is just slogging through some basic grinding and drilling and then try to keep my vibrato going when I play etudes and pieces i'm learning...think it is what you call carrying water? the nice thing is that while each exercise has started out sounding and feeling horrible, with daily work I am starting to hear improvement and each exercise is beginning to feel better.
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