Today at work we had our holiday potluck. It was supposed to be in December, but got cancelled because of the snowstorms in Seattle over the holidays. I had volunteered to play cello with a co-worker who plays the flute, and we had picked out Christmas music. Somehow Christmas music in January didn't seem appropriate. When the new date of the potluck got announced, we started looking for new music.
We played a Beethoven duet originally written for clarinet and bassoon, and a selection of "Rustic Airs and Dances" by Febonio. I think we played some of the pieces much better in the 2 rehearsals we had. Friday, less than a week ago, was the first time I saw the Febonio pieces. Needless to say I had a panic practice session last night. I think what threw me off today was that I wasn't seated where I could see the flautist very easily, so it was hard to stay together. Oh well. A lesson learned. Everyone who listened really liked what we played. One of the things I've learned through lots of performing is that most mistakes are not noticeable. It was a lot of fun to play!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Busy!
It's been a busy week - got in some extra practice time because I actually had Martin Luther King Jr. day off as a holiday. Trying to fit in everything I want to practice is tough.
We had our first orchestra practice for the new year! The program is very nice - Holst 2nd Suite; Butterworth "A Shropshire Lad", and Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony. I was really confused about which part I was playing - the cellos go divisi a lot and sometimes it was by stand and sometimes it was inside/outside...so a lot of the time I wasn't sure if I was playing the correct part.
This Wednesday I'm playing a gig at work with a flautist. We were supposed to play at the office holiday party, but the party got postponed because of all of the snow Seattle got around Christmas. We had to find some new music to play because Christmas carols in January didn't really seem like a good idea. So Friday we played some music together for the first time, to pick what we'll play on Wednesday. We're going to play some dances from Febonio op29 "Rustic Airs and Dances" (I've never heard of Febonio before!), and a Beethoven duet that was originally written for clarinet and bassoon. fortunately, today I was able to run through everything with the violinist in my chamber group...not much time to get it ready for Wednesday.
Today's chamber group was a duet for a while, then a string trio. The string trio we read was a keeper! It was 3 string trios by Hyacinthe Jadin (a male, not a female). We were pretty excited about every movement in every trio!
and last but not least...my lessons continue and we just started playing a Kummer duet op156, duo #4 - we played through all of the movements at my lesson on Friday and hopefully soon will be able to play it at speed. I have my list of things that I'm working on..
--loosening my wrist while bowing, right now really working on dotted rhythms and a quick snap of the wrist and getting the short note to articulate
--detached bowing (on the string and off the string)
--arpeggios: this week need to work on nailing the shift down from the root to the fifth of the chord when descending)
--shifting exercise from Sevecik op8
--trill exercise (based on Cossman)
--vibrato
--scales: work on controlling bow pressure so that sound volume stays consistent (my teacher pointed out the it looked like I was easing up at the tip and at the frog...and hence producing inconsistent volume/tone)
oh..and don't forget to have fun playing...!
We had our first orchestra practice for the new year! The program is very nice - Holst 2nd Suite; Butterworth "A Shropshire Lad", and Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony. I was really confused about which part I was playing - the cellos go divisi a lot and sometimes it was by stand and sometimes it was inside/outside...so a lot of the time I wasn't sure if I was playing the correct part.
This Wednesday I'm playing a gig at work with a flautist. We were supposed to play at the office holiday party, but the party got postponed because of all of the snow Seattle got around Christmas. We had to find some new music to play because Christmas carols in January didn't really seem like a good idea. So Friday we played some music together for the first time, to pick what we'll play on Wednesday. We're going to play some dances from Febonio op29 "Rustic Airs and Dances" (I've never heard of Febonio before!), and a Beethoven duet that was originally written for clarinet and bassoon. fortunately, today I was able to run through everything with the violinist in my chamber group...not much time to get it ready for Wednesday.
Today's chamber group was a duet for a while, then a string trio. The string trio we read was a keeper! It was 3 string trios by Hyacinthe Jadin (a male, not a female). We were pretty excited about every movement in every trio!
and last but not least...my lessons continue and we just started playing a Kummer duet op156, duo #4 - we played through all of the movements at my lesson on Friday and hopefully soon will be able to play it at speed. I have my list of things that I'm working on..
--loosening my wrist while bowing, right now really working on dotted rhythms and a quick snap of the wrist and getting the short note to articulate
--detached bowing (on the string and off the string)
--arpeggios: this week need to work on nailing the shift down from the root to the fifth of the chord when descending)
--shifting exercise from Sevecik op8
--trill exercise (based on Cossman)
--vibrato
--scales: work on controlling bow pressure so that sound volume stays consistent (my teacher pointed out the it looked like I was easing up at the tip and at the frog...and hence producing inconsistent volume/tone)
oh..and don't forget to have fun playing...!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Logging My Practice Time
Recently I decided to throw away my concerns about privacy and joined Facebook. One of my friends is my cello teacher. Last year he logged an average of almost 4 hours a day of practice time, a really impressive number, which I found out about in one of his wall posts. I say almost 4 hours because he was so close...but missed it by 20 seconds a day....he was bummed. What got me thinking about tracking how much I practice was listening to him talk about how he logs his practice time, what counts as practice time, and how he finds the time to practice.
For nearly 20 years I've kept a training log of my workouts, which now that I'm not training for any sort of competition, seems rather useless. But then again, I can see when I miss a day, or 2, and the log screams at me when there is an empty spot or an notation of "rest day - no time" (hopefully because it was a travel day...really no way to make the time).
So I've started tracking my cello practice time, noting the time in my training log. My goal is to average an hour a day over the year. That seems to be a realistic amount of time that I can spend, balancing work, family, exercise, and other life demands.
I've read other cello-related blogs and seen that many of you also log what you're doing as well as how long. I can't figure out why I have that discipline for my exercise log but don't really want to track what I'm doing during my practice time. I guess that I feel that the proof of how well I'm spending my practice time is measured by what my playing sounds like. How do you measure "producing a better quality sound"? So while I figure that out I'll just track how much time I spend practicing...all the while wishing that I could figure out how to allocate more time to playing the cello.
For nearly 20 years I've kept a training log of my workouts, which now that I'm not training for any sort of competition, seems rather useless. But then again, I can see when I miss a day, or 2, and the log screams at me when there is an empty spot or an notation of "rest day - no time" (hopefully because it was a travel day...really no way to make the time).
So I've started tracking my cello practice time, noting the time in my training log. My goal is to average an hour a day over the year. That seems to be a realistic amount of time that I can spend, balancing work, family, exercise, and other life demands.
I've read other cello-related blogs and seen that many of you also log what you're doing as well as how long. I can't figure out why I have that discipline for my exercise log but don't really want to track what I'm doing during my practice time. I guess that I feel that the proof of how well I'm spending my practice time is measured by what my playing sounds like. How do you measure "producing a better quality sound"? So while I figure that out I'll just track how much time I spend practicing...all the while wishing that I could figure out how to allocate more time to playing the cello.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
chamber music!
my saturday group finally met, after more than a month off. The holidays, the weather, travel, all conspired against us. We had 5 of us today! We started with violin/cello - a Telemann piece, very nice. When our violist showed up we started a Mozart Divertmento. Then our other cellist showed up and she and I doubled on the Mozart. When our 2nd violinist showed up we switched to string quintets. I got another shot at the Schubert...one of my all-time favorite pieces...it's so much fun to play. We finished with a Taneev string quintet (2 violins, viola, 2 cellos...there is Taneev string quintet with 2 violas...but we never seem to have 2 violas) That one was deemed worthy of another time reading though it.
very fun and sure nice to play with everyone again!
and really good news ... I got pictures of my new cello ... hope I will get it in a month or so....
very fun and sure nice to play with everyone again!
and really good news ... I got pictures of my new cello ... hope I will get it in a month or so....
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Fun at the Last Gig
We celebrated the new year with a gig at our other cellist's house. It was fun - people listening, drinking, eating, and having a good time. We had a good time playing. You can see me in the back but it's hard to see our other cellist.
We played a number of celtic tunes, our leader the fearless violinist/violist/cellist switched to cello so that we could play a Beethoven piece (op87) arranged for 3 cellos. I was really happy with the way I played - since I was playing first cello for it I spent the entire time (4 movements) in tenor...and even managed to figure out how to play the thumb position parts that were written in tenor. We had been practicing for a while...and this was the best we'd ever played the whole piece (good timing!) We played a Vivaldi violin and cello concerto but I got to take it easy with the cello part while our other cellist (we were at her house) did the solo. The big piece we did was 3 movements from the Schubert quintet - wow! We had our moments good and not so good, but it was so much fun to play it since it is one of my all-time favorite pieces of music.
After the gig was over we drove home in a snowstorm! It was the last bit of snow for us, now that it's warmed up. Poor Washington state, first hit by an unusual amount of snow and now it's warmed up, raining and it's flooding everywhere.
We played a number of celtic tunes, our leader the fearless violinist/violist/cellist switched to cello so that we could play a Beethoven piece (op87) arranged for 3 cellos. I was really happy with the way I played - since I was playing first cello for it I spent the entire time (4 movements) in tenor...and even managed to figure out how to play the thumb position parts that were written in tenor. We had been practicing for a while...and this was the best we'd ever played the whole piece (good timing!) We played a Vivaldi violin and cello concerto but I got to take it easy with the cello part while our other cellist (we were at her house) did the solo. The big piece we did was 3 movements from the Schubert quintet - wow! We had our moments good and not so good, but it was so much fun to play it since it is one of my all-time favorite pieces of music.
After the gig was over we drove home in a snowstorm! It was the last bit of snow for us, now that it's warmed up. Poor Washington state, first hit by an unusual amount of snow and now it's warmed up, raining and it's flooding everywhere.
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