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!
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