Seven Things

I was tagged by Maricello, another cellist and Renaissance woman and will share seven things that I hope you will find interesting.

1. I started playing the piano when I was four, and took lessons through college. In college I had the privilege of playing and studying on 2 period instruments, a square built in 1806 and a grand built in 1811 that was a twin to a piano Beethoven owned. Pianos have evolved so much over their history, really appealing to the geek in me. Mozart sounds edgy on these instruments, and I could feel firsthand why Beethoven broke pianos and why his music was really written for an instrument he didn't have.

2. My first job was becoming my church's organist and choir accompanist, a post I held for my 3 years in high school. I learned to enjoy playing for a crowd on limited or no rehearsal time, sight reading organ music (talk about a full body experience), and experienced every embarrassing thing that can happen to a performer (including the mouse that ran out from under the organ while I was playing, during one memorable service). My worst accompanist experience was playing for a blind singer - I couldn't tell what he was going to do at any given time!

3. When I was growing up, I wanted to become a famous scientist. But no, alas, I ended up majoring in mechanical engineering, indulging my love for figuring out how things work and my passion for technology. My first job was as a manufacturing engineer, where I got to shock machinists decades older than me that I was the engineer.

4. I love the job I have now - after going to business school and getting my MBA I did what many engineers do when they burn out of engineering - I went into marketing. After doing 4 startups, about 4 years ago I returned to a large company that had acquired one of my startups. I am on a team that figures out what internal startups to incubate. It really appeals to my love for looking at very new technologies and working with new businesses. Hence the travel that I whine about in my blog...

5. I love to swim, and met my husband while I was swimming with a Masters group. He had just joined the coaching staff of the swim club and, well, the rest is history. He has retired from coaching and doesn't like to get near a pool, but I am still swimming. I never was very fast, but for a while my competitiveness won out and I was always trying to go faster and set personal bests. Now I've mellowed out and I swim so that I can eat more. The slowing body metabolism that accompanies getting older is not very pleasant!

6. I've often had to do a icebreaker exercise with groups at work where each person tells the group 3 things about them, 1 of which is not true. The group then has to try to pick out the lie. I've fooled every group (did I say I was competitive?) into picking out one of my true statements as the lie. It is this statement: "I've swum across the Golden Gate." No group has ever believed this is true, but it is. No wetsuits; the swim was scheduled during ebb tide, and I remember flipping on my back when I went under the bridge just to take a look at it from underneath.

7. I love to travel (for pleasure) and have had the opportunity to see many parts of the world - Asia, Europe, Australia/New Zealand...with many more places on my list to go!


I found CelloDonna and MusicGal's seven things quite interesting, and you will too!

As it is my turn to tag others, I'd like to tag (hopefully they haven't already been tagged by someone else)

CelloGal - who lives in Scotland and blogs about her orchestra and other ensemble experiences;
Cello teacher Emily Wright - whose passion for cello and teaching inspires me and whose blog educates and amuses me;
Celliste - an aspiring cellist who lives in Singapore;
and Yarnplayer, a cellist who shares her experiences playing in a community orchestra.

The Gig Report

It's been quite a week. I'm not sure which direction is up at the moment. I thought I'd be able to stay home but ended up having to trek down to the Bay Area this week anyway. We're about to hit a major milestone on a project that has been on a whirlwind schedule, so by the middle of next week I hope I can take a little time to breathe. As a consequence I've had very little time for practicing or blogging.

The gig on Sunday had its ups and downs. I think it was because we had a really good rehearsal the week before. We didn't do a sound check before we started, a mistake, because it was a little hard to see and hear everyone; not a good thing for ensemble playing. On one piece we had a really hard time staying together and I got lost and realized later that the reason why I had so much trouble figuring out where to come back in was because the rest of the group weren't all playing together either. I finally pulled myself back in and we managed to end together which was a victory for that particular performance. We did play Copeland's Hoedown better than we've ever played it before - real tight together on the rhythms (which are very tricky!) and even had the audience clapping and stomping with us. The Bolling piece (flute and jazz piano) went extremely well; the flutist and I were tight the whole way through and I had fun swinging through my solo bits. The piano sounded ok, not well balanced volume-wise from bass to treble and with no sensitivity to touch - I had to pound the keys to get sound out of it. The pedal was fine though (I agree, Cellodonna, some pianos have awful pedals!) The group wants us to come back, though, so all in all there were more good bits than bad bits.

I hope I'll have time to play this weekend - work will definitely be taking over part of my weekend and I am hoping that it won't interfere with either one of my groups....

A Heavier Arm

The flight I took home yesterday was actually early. And I managed to work my schedule out to come home on an early afternoon flight, rather than in the evening. The bonus to coming home early was getting to see my husband, the kitties, and actually getting a little piano and cello practice in.

I'm as ready as I'm going to be on the piano for the Bolling suite - this morning I ran through it a few times and my solo parts feel very solid - I'm at the point where I can start thinking about how I want to play with each note or phrase while I'm playing. There are still a few rough spots, but they are going to be what they are. Our gig is tomorrow, and the flutist and I are meeting a little early at the venue to run through it before the gig, so we can get back in sync, and more importantly for me, so that I can try out the piano and find out what its idiosyncracies are. Every piano is different. Pianists have to play the instrument that is provided (unless, of course, you are willing to travel with your own!) and every one has a different feel and tone that can vary note to note, may or may not be in tune note to note, responds differently to things like fast repeated notes, and has pedals that engage differently. At least with the cello you bring your own instrument.

This morning it was just our first violinist and me. She's been nice about helping me get ready for the gig, but I was tired of playing the one piece of the Bolling suite that we're playing, so we played through the rest of the suite. Then we switched - she played the piano and I got to play my cello. It was really fun - we read through Schubert's Arpeggionne Sonata, which I love. We've tried to play it before, and I'm getting better and better each time. I had trouble with the 3rd movement, but then again, we were just reading through it. This was the first time that I've played it where I've felt that I could actually play it if I worked on it....during prior times playing it I've felt that many of the sections were beyond my level of playing. Then we read through a Klengel piece that I found (I think it was on the International Music Music Score Library wiki, which unfortunately as of Oct 13th has been taken down). It was titled "Three Mazurkas" and was a lot of fun to play.

My lesson this afternoon was good; we worked on increasing the weight of my arm and increasing the speed of my vibrato to get even more sound out. My teacher wants me to "kick up my playing another notch by getting another gear." I could relax and make my arm heavy to get more volume, or I could increase the speed of my vibrato. I have trouble doing both at the same time. Most cello skills seem to me to be some variation of patting your head with one hand and rubbing your stomach with the other, and then switching what you're doing very quickly. I guess that's the point of practicing...

At the Airport, Yet Again

In a twist on my usual wait at the San Jose airport, I'm stuck waiting for a flight at the Seattle airport. It's Alaska Airlines. It's late. That is my normal experience on an evening flight. I'm really bummed to have to leave tonight, in order to make it to an early meeting tomorrow morning. I try really hard to protect Monday nights so that I can make it to orchestra rehearsal. My worst showing was one cycle where I missed half of the rehearsals because of my travel schedule. This cycle I'll miss about once a month. The same with Friday nights, when I have my lesson, although I have to be in the Bay Area all week, so I had to reschedule my lesson to Saturday. Good thing it is bow and hand exercises, because they are easier to do on the road. I have a horrid rental cello and bow in the Bay Area, but I hate practicing and playing on it so as a consequence don't play as much when I'm there. Also, I'm usually pretty busy, since I cram all of my face-to-face meetings during the time I'm there so it isn't unusual to have a day that starts at 5am and ends at 10pm.

the other bummer is that my sunday chamber group is doing a gig on Sunday, and I don't have access to a piano when I'm in the Bay Area. The Bolling piece we're doing is really hard on the pianist - i've practiced and practiced my solo riffs. yesterday I rehearsed with the flautist and we fine tuned the transitions, entrances, playing in total synch with each other. It's a really fun piece but I am worried about not being able to play until Saturday - it'd be really nice to play it every day this week. oh well. Rehearsal was mostly getting ready for the gig.

looks like they might be ready to board us...thank goodness!

Flexibility and Suppleness - My Bow Hold Dream

It's been a busy week with a trip to the Bay Area and working on a large project with a tight timeline. I haven't had a lot of time to practice, but will be able to practice some of the exercises I got from my lesson without a cello.

This week's lesson was about bow holds. I've been trying to modify my bow hold yet again, to get a different position for my thumb. I'm trying to make sure it stays flexible and supple - much easier said than done. When I'm not careful it tends to slip back to a more straight, rigid hold, which makes it hard to produce a full tone.

My teacher gave me a lot of hand exercises - I tried some of them while on my walk this morning. I definitely do not have a supple, loose hand. When I practiced today I tried some of the exercises - moving the bow up and down with just my fingers, rocking the bow back and forth over my (curved and relaxed - ha!) thumb, lifting the bow with just my index finger and letting the bow drop on the string. I really feel like I've started at the beginning again. Well...maybe not. For kicks I shifted everything to the other side --- bowing with my left hand and fingering with my right hand (and moved the cello over to my right shoulder) -- now if you really want to feel like a beginner again you should try that! I don't know why I did it but after I attempted to play that way I felt better about my attempts to play normally - definitely it was much easier!

My teacher also asked me to practice relaxing and putting more dead weight into my arm - asking me to ratchet up my volume even more. That was easier to do than relaxing my right hand! It was nice to hear my volume come up even more than before - need to get better control over it - sometimes I would press to hard and the sound would get scratchy.

Chamber music this morning was ok - I was on piano again for piano trios. I'm only playing the piano about once a week so it's always a little painful to play. We started out with some Haydn trios to warm up (they are nice for warmup - if my fingers are in the right location on the piano everything is just under my fingers). Then we played Mendelssohn's C minor trio (we had a laugh when we started when for some reason my brain spazzed and I thought it was in C# minor and I had to stop and reset my brain to the right key). We played a trio by Rheinberger, and then Schubert's Nocturno (for piano trio - gorgeous)! before calling it a day.

The Cello Trial

I mentioned in the previous post that I was able to watch a world-class cellist (WCC) try out a Christopher Dungey cello.

First, we were in a concert hall so the acoustics were really good. WCC had her cello and 2 bows. Chris stood ready to make any change she wanted while she played. She started playing and immediately said that she didn't like the sound of the A string, that it sounded 'closed'. Chris jumps in and in a few seconds changes the string. She plays some more. The sound is still not open enough. Chris changes the A string again. She continues to play and makes comments about the sound from all of the strings. She also said she heard a buzzing in the G string and said, is it a soundpost problem? Chris jumps in and adjusts the soundpost. By the time she gets a combination of strings she likes Chris has changed every string at least twice, with 4 strings on the A and G strings. As soon as he found the right combination of strings you could see the delight in WCC's face and hear the sound of the cello open up. Of course, it all sounded amazing to me from the very start....

Then she started comparing - she'd play a short passage on the Dungey cello, and then play the same passage on her cello. When she picked up her cello, you could hear a noticeable difference in sound. The Dungey cello had a fuller tone and had more power, especially in the lower registers.

Then WCC decided that she wanted to hear the cello while sitting in the concert hall. So, she asked me to play the 2 cellos! Terror! Horror! Oh. No. First, I have to say that hearing the cellos project in a concert hall from behind the cello is quite an experience. I played bits and pieces of various pieces (badly) so that she could hear all of the strings up and down each string. I did this with both cellos so she could compare the sound. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy the experience of playing her cello and bow because I was so uncomfortable. Think master class but being completely unprepared.

When I was done (and oh I was so ready to be done!) she took back the cellos and gave me a quick lesson. I appreciate the kindness and the suggestions (they were good - I practiced later doing what she suggested and it really helped) but still feel the mortification of playing so poorly in front of someone who plays so well.

At the end of the session WCC also decided to switch endpins, to try his endpin in her cello (I wrote about the endpin in a previous post.) WCC had one of the tungsten carbide endpins (Emily Wright had a post about this endpin). This has happened every time I've seen this - as soon as she put in the ChrisP'IN endpin into her cello and started playing, she immediately said, "wow, this sounds better".

The whole session ended with us going out to lunch (bringing both cellos into the restaurant) and my getting to hear some wonderful stories of musicians, concerts, music, ...

Knocking on Wood

I have so much to write about the past few days that I think it's going to take a few posts. I got to ask a bazillion questions about how a cellomaker makes a cello with a phenomenal sound. I got to play one of Chris's newer cellos. I got to choose the wood for my cello (with a lot of help from Chris). I got to listen to a world-class cellist try out and evaluate Chris's cello in a concert hall. I got a quick lesson from her after she had me play his cello and her cello so she could hear both instruments in the concert hall (I'll write about what she did and how mortifying it was to play for her in another post!). I got to see the block of wood that will become the one-piece back of a cello Chris is building for another Very Famous Cellist (trust me, you all have heard of this Very Famous Cellist).

One of the basic questions I had was how do you know what kind of sound the blocks of wood are going to make as they get formed into the top and back of a cello? I got a real education about what Chris looks for - wood grain, density, split of the wood, and yes, he knocks on the wood to hear its sound. Every piece of wood he showed me had its own ringing sound when he (or I) would knock on the wood. This was actually one of the last things we did.

The first thing Chris did when I got there was to hand me a cello and watch me play. I played a cello he built recently (that the world-class cellist was going to evaluate) and student cello with identical dimensions to my current cello so that I could compare the dimensions of that particular cello with something familiar. (with the hassles of flying I only brought my bow). I'm not very tall, and my arms relatively speaking are short for my body. Consequently one of the things I've found difficult is putting a lot of pressure on the A string when I'm at the tip of the bow. So we talked about what he could do to make that more comfortable for me without compromising the sound of the cello. He watched and asked about what I wanted in neck thickness, what it was like to move into thumb position, and how the width of the cello felt along the lower bout. The questions he asked were related to choosing the model/pattern of the cello (this is for the top and back of the cello). I'm so glad that Cellodonna recommended John Marchese's The Violin Maker, which I read before this trip. After we spent a while distilling down what was important to me, he recommended a pattern that is close to (but not exactly the same) as the pattern that he is using for the Very Famous Cellist. It will have some characteristics similar to a Stradivarius cello, but will not follow it completely. He will build my cello from a pattern that will be my very own!

I'll write more about some of the things he is doing to make a finished cello sound amazing in my next post...