Home Again, Briefly

I got home late last night, exhausted from long days, not sleeping well while on the road, and dealing with airports. It's definitely summertime--it's been really crowded. I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I watch what people do while going through the airport security lines. There are the people who have to practically undress to go through, the people who get the random selection for the full search and body scan, and people who look completely bewildered at all of the TSA people screaming "take out laptops!" "Take off your shoes!" "Take out liquids!"

What I don't get is when someone forgets to put their less-than-3-ounces-container-of-liquid into a plastic bag and it gets caught, the TSA people will tell them the same-container-of-liquid will be OK if that person puts the same-container-of-liquid-or-gel into a quart size plastic bag and puts it back through the screening machine. I really don't understand the logic there. It's the same container of liquid! Or wonder how many 6.4 ounce tubes of toothpaste get thrown away (would you go out of security again to check your luggage so that you can take that big tube along???)

Well, enough ranting. I had a great lesson today. I've been working on a whole bunch of rhythm exercises, trying to really get steady while playing. I am wearing out my metronone with all of the variations of where I am placing beats. Today during my lesson we started off with the metronome with every eighth note, then kept backing off the metronome until it was only beating the first beat of the measure. Today I was able to hold it steady or at least recover if I was a little off (early or late). Victory! Or at least, progress! It did become clear as I continued playing that I get really unsteady when I cross strings. So my next round of rhythm games will be try to fix that...although it will have to wait until we get back from vacation. More rest for my thumb. The enforced rest from travelling was good for it - it felt fine today.

On an airplane again....and a break from music...and swimming. I always hate what I feel like when I've taken a break. With swimming I feel like I can't swim when I get back in the water. Same with the cello...I know I'll be happy to see it when I get back but who knows whether it will feel great or feel awful????

Just the Eighth Notes, Ma'am

Who would have thought that just playing straight eighth notes could be so hard? At today's lesson that's all I did. Sometimes really well, but for a lot of my lesson, my playing was just slightly off. I had to switch bowing patterns after playing the first 4 bars of No.6 of the Sevcik, and my up bows were most definitely a bit shorter than my down bows. It was harder to play strict eighth notes when the metronome was on the off beats - but that was the point. The only thing that was different was the relationship of what I was doing physically relative to my sense of where the timing was, but it was hard to do. Also, the effort involved in playing something that sounds smooth and even is anything but that. That's certainly not so true on the piano!

Of course, playing eighth notes in strict time is not necessarily the most musical way to play, but you have to have the foundation before you can deviate. Plus I want to become a better ensemble player, and my timing/rhythm needs to improve. Being trained as a solo pianist didn't prepare me for this.

Rhythm Blues

A couple of weeks ago I pulled out my metronome (ok, I finally replaced the battery) and started using it again. I've been doing bowing exercises from the Sevcik School of Bowing Technique (adapted for cello) and have started on No. 6. It is basically straight eighth notes with more bowing variations than any human could possibly get through.

I decided to run the metronome to make sure that I was on the recommended tempo (104). I discovered something that really pissed me off. My eighth notes were just a shade short on my up bows. It wasn't enough to be noticeable without the metronome, and I'm sure I had been compensating for it by playing slightly too long on the down bows.

Anyway, at my last lesson I told my teacher what I had discovered and we spent a good deal of this lesson on this topic. He gave me an awesome tool to help fix the problem. Most of us can adjust to the metronome beating steadily, so it doesn't help fix the underlying problem which is a rock solid sense of the underlying pulse of the beat. So, he gave me something that he had put together with a drummer friend. The drummer beats the tempo, but he only beats the drum for all of the beats in the measure during the first measure. On the next measure he doesn't play the last beat, then on the 3rd measure he drops the last 2 beats, and on and on until the only time he hits the drum is the first beat of the measure. It was a humbling experience to see how far off I was when the first beat of the next measure played - and this was playing straight notes!

It's not like my sense of timing and rhythm is bad - but it clearly is something that can get much more solid. I've also been practicing playing on the off beat (on the 'and'). The other humbling experience was having my teacher point out to me that I wasn't as relaxed playing on the off beat and what I needed to do physically was no different than playing on the beat. Another thing to work on!

Post note, though - these exercises have really helped how solidly I play with others. My reading chamber group decided to play the Mendelssohn D Minor piano trio (which we've read through a few times) while waiting for some of the other members to show up. I was on piano (this is one where I think the piano part is the hardest of the 3 parts - think Mendelssohn writing for himself! - gives me many moments of panic while playing), but our 1st violinist said after the 1st movement that my tempo was the steadiest that she'd heard me play. So definitely progress!

Slow, but steady. Part of the journey...