I had a good lesson tonight - first I played scales on a single string with various 7th chords - every single key. My fourths were a little sharp and my fifths were a little flat, but by the end of 12 keys I was really hitting it well. I could hear when I was right with the chords - the reinforcement of tone was really nice.
Then we switched to the same thing we did at my last lesson, listening to Pablo Casals play the Sarabande from Bach's first cello suite. I'd been listening to it at full speed and a slower speed all week. Today we listened at a variety of speeds and would talk about what Casals was doing, then I would try to channel Casals and play what I had just heard. I had been doing this all week (well, at least when I had a cello, traveling makes it tough to play) and it was fun! At the end of one passage, my teacher said, "That was the best Casals I've heard all day!" Grin.
We ended by listening to a Jacqueline du Pre recording of Sarabande and starting to analyze it. Her version is much slower than Casals and she uses silent spaces between some of the notes more than Casals does - it's really effective. This is what I love so much about making music - every musician puts his or her own stamp on what they play.
Off to bed - leaving for Barcelona very early tomorrow morning - will try to post pictures from my phone while I'm there next week.
1 comment:
This post has inspired me so much. (I even made a note about it in my day planner the other day.) But right now all I can focus on is the repertoire for our upcoming pops concert.
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