I've been plagued by a number of injuries over the past month, which has required me to slow down. First is the herniated disk which is causing pain and tingling in my left hand, arm, shoulder, and neck. That hasn't really affected my cello playing but waking up with tingling in my fingers is not very much fun.
The second injury is a very sore right thumb. I think I was straining it with my bow hand, so over the past few weeks I've been playing much more lightly and I've modified my bow grip to relax my whole hand more, use my arm more for weight, and just played more lightly. I've also decreased my practice time (which drives me nuts), and have been icing my thumb after playing. It is slowly getting better, and has been a good reason to spend time working on vibrato.
The third injury is a pulled shoulder muscle from swimming. My husband the former swim coach tells me it's because I don't rotate enough. So the past week I've backed off from swimming very hard, focused on rotating, and have basically driven myself nuts taking it easy in the pool. I've forced myself to swim behind people I normally swim in front of, and to stay back and swim slowly behind people who I know are slower than me. Although I've had my share of amusement making them work really hard while I've been cruising at a slower speed than normal (they all know that I'm not working hard while they're busting their guts to stay with me) it's not been very much fun to swim slowly.
It's been really hard to pull back and take it easy, on my neck/arm/fingers, thumb, and shoulder. I want to accelerate the healing and the irony is that I need to change what I'm doing and rest each injury in order to let it heal.
My vibrato practice has been mostly practicing controlling the wobble to a metronome, very slowly. 2 wobbles per beat. 3 wobbles per beat. 4 wobbles per beat. It's very hard to keep consistent. I've also added trying to keep the wobbles steady while changing bow speed, and while shifting. It's been instructive to see where my vibrato falls apart, and to slow down to get it consistent and right. And, it's been driving me nuts go to slow. Unfortunately I've learned that in order to master a skill it's necessary to slow down before speeding up. So a few more weeks of 2 wobbles per beat, then 3 wobbles per beat,....
Showing posts with label vibrato. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vibrato. Show all posts
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Random Notes to Start the Month
It's been a while since I've posted - I've been really busy at work and still commuting to the Bay Area nearly every week. Although I heard what I think is good news - tight budgets mean that we have to cut our travel budget - meaning that I hope I get to stay home a bit more!
Today our violist came for the first time in 15 months! She hopefully is cancer-free - she's now in the clear after a year of surgery, etc. It was really good to have her back. We played piano quartets. Mendelssohn Op 1; he had to have been a very young child when he wrote this piano quartet but it already sounds like him. Not a mature (ha! as in 15 years old!) Mendelssohn but most definitely him. We also played the Arthur Foote piano quartet that I've been eager to play for over a year. The slow movement and the last movement of it are spectacular, and the whole piece was a lot of fun to play.
I had a week where I felt like I didn't make much progress, even though I had my usual amount of practice during the week (not enough!). We worked on vibrato again. My teacher had me make some changes to my left hand position, so that when I place my fingers down I am using my arm more to get my hand in position, not hovering over the fingerboard putting fingers down like playing the piano. It was tough trying to figure out how to change my perspective of how my arm/hand/fingers reached for notes, but after a while I finally could do what he asked for a short period before I would lose it. It really helps with speed - I found that I could articulate notes much more cleanly and faster during a fast descent down the A string when I thought about using my arm. It also helps my vibrato.
Tomomrow I will miss my chamber group in order to get together with the other 2 cellists to rehearse the Popper. Hopefully this time my vibrato will be better than the last time we played it!
Today our violist came for the first time in 15 months! She hopefully is cancer-free - she's now in the clear after a year of surgery, etc. It was really good to have her back. We played piano quartets. Mendelssohn Op 1; he had to have been a very young child when he wrote this piano quartet but it already sounds like him. Not a mature (ha! as in 15 years old!) Mendelssohn but most definitely him. We also played the Arthur Foote piano quartet that I've been eager to play for over a year. The slow movement and the last movement of it are spectacular, and the whole piece was a lot of fun to play.
I had a week where I felt like I didn't make much progress, even though I had my usual amount of practice during the week (not enough!). We worked on vibrato again. My teacher had me make some changes to my left hand position, so that when I place my fingers down I am using my arm more to get my hand in position, not hovering over the fingerboard putting fingers down like playing the piano. It was tough trying to figure out how to change my perspective of how my arm/hand/fingers reached for notes, but after a while I finally could do what he asked for a short period before I would lose it. It really helps with speed - I found that I could articulate notes much more cleanly and faster during a fast descent down the A string when I thought about using my arm. It also helps my vibrato.
Tomomrow I will miss my chamber group in order to get together with the other 2 cellists to rehearse the Popper. Hopefully this time my vibrato will be better than the last time we played it!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Shake Shake Shake!
Last night I told my teacher about the 2nd rehearsal we had playing the Popper Requiem with the orchestra. We were all louder, and hopefully can get even louder. I felt like my volume compromised my tone, and my vibrato pretty much disappeared. For a long time I've had a problem with vibrato that I've known about - that I'll start a long note with vibrato, but then I'll stop doing vibrato before the note ends. Plus I haven't been happy with my vibrato anyway--it's always sounded a little tight and felt very uncomfortable. It's that pat your head and rub your tummy thing, I think. Now seemed like the perfect time to start fixing my vibrato problems!
So, we went back to something he had told me a while ago but finally clicked. Funny how many times this has happened during my cello journey (like we joke...everything we need to know about playing the cello is in Suzuki Book 1). He told me to concentrate on doing the vibrato from my arm, not my fingers, and to remember to keep my bow arm relaxed (as I've been working on for the last few weeks to get my volume up). Shake shake shake from the arm! And it worked...I could hear my tone warming up, and for the first time my vibrato looked, sounded, and felt pretty good.
I played the Popper during my lesson concentrating on vibrato...my vibrato got better but my bowing and timing went haywire...so I'm going to spend time this week trying to pull things back together and concentrate on shaking....from the arm.
meaning... practicing my F# minor scale with lots of vibrato. Today I started doing a shortened version of my shifting exercise but practicing doing a lot of vibrato as soon as I land the shifts...and everything I'm playing this week gets a lot of vibrato whether it requires it or not. I need to burn that shaking feeling in all sorts of positions on the fingerboard into my brain....the next thing that I want to become automatic!
So, we went back to something he had told me a while ago but finally clicked. Funny how many times this has happened during my cello journey (like we joke...everything we need to know about playing the cello is in Suzuki Book 1). He told me to concentrate on doing the vibrato from my arm, not my fingers, and to remember to keep my bow arm relaxed (as I've been working on for the last few weeks to get my volume up). Shake shake shake from the arm! And it worked...I could hear my tone warming up, and for the first time my vibrato looked, sounded, and felt pretty good.
I played the Popper during my lesson concentrating on vibrato...my vibrato got better but my bowing and timing went haywire...so I'm going to spend time this week trying to pull things back together and concentrate on shaking....from the arm.
meaning... practicing my F# minor scale with lots of vibrato. Today I started doing a shortened version of my shifting exercise but practicing doing a lot of vibrato as soon as I land the shifts...and everything I'm playing this week gets a lot of vibrato whether it requires it or not. I need to burn that shaking feeling in all sorts of positions on the fingerboard into my brain....the next thing that I want to become automatic!
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