It's been ages since I posted

....but I've been busy, playing, traveling, working. I had to go to Singapore for work a few weeks ago and was able to fly my husband over to meet me. We went to Bali for a few days before returning home. That was wonderfully relaxing but coming home has been hard. Going from 12 hours of daylight to around 8 or less has been difficult. My travel for work has picked up again, so it's been hard to get consistent practice time.

This summer I hit a lull in my cello playing but the travel break seems to have done me a lot of good. My cello teacher commented at my lesson that my tone has improved and that I am starting to play lyrically. That felt good!!! I noticed the improvement after my trip...think I'm more relaxed. After expending so much effort to learn I forgot that I didn't have to work so hard as my skills improved. Last night we worked on vibrato and the basic message was to not work so hard at it. When I relaxed my left hand it immediately sounded better. I'm also working relaxing my right hand while keeping pressure down on the string; working on a smooth change of bow direction. Occasionally it's hard to tell when I'm switching bow directions (wish that could be any time I wanted it!).

My cello teacher started a group practice log where many of his students post practice times. It's pretty amazing what competition will do. I find myself playing a little longer because everyone sees my time. The good news is that when I'm home I'm getting in at least 1 hour a day, which is my goal. I've also started playing the piano more frequently. I finished reading through all of the Beethoven sonatas and am now reading Schumann's piano works. So now what, it's time to go play ...hmm.. piano!

Sight Reading Tips

I was wondering what had happened to the wonderful teacher I had for the 3 years that I studied fortepiano while in college.

A fortepiano is a piano, but in this case it was a piano that had been built in 1811 by Broadwood of London. Pianos have changed and developed quite a bit since its invention in 1700. The piano as we know it today came into its glory in the middle of the 19th century. So this 6-foot grand piano that I played, a twin to the one that Broadwood sent to the deaf Beethoven, has some significant differences in both construction and sound. For one, there is no iron frame (Steinway's patented cross-strung frame for their grand pianos was a major invention and greatly increased the piano's sound volume) and in fact no metal frame whatsoever. The next significant difference is that the hammers are covered with leather. Felt-covered hammers were introduced in 1826. Leather is harder than felt, so the timbre of sound from this fortepiano is not as lush as a modern piano, and the sound decayed very quickly. Whenever I played the fortepiano I finally understood why piano players regularly broke strings and how delicate the instrument was. And Beethoven's 'Moonlight' sonata on a period instrument...ahh..that's a topic for another post.

But that was a long digression, but into one of my favorite topics (the history of the piano is absolutely fascinating, at least in my opinion!). I Googled my former teacher's name and one of the first things that came up was a link to some videos she's recorded recently. I've linked to one on sight reading tips, because listening to it reminded me of the lessons I had with her and it was so nice to see her!

New Strings!

I changed my strings today! I'd forgotten how wonderful new strings sound. It was like I'd suddenly improved a lot - all just from the new strings! I use Larsen soloist for my A & D strings, and Piastro Permanent for the G & C strings. The strings had been sitting there for a few months waiting for me to take the time to change them. Actually, I decided to wait until a few weeks before our concert. I need all the help I can get!

Yesterday at my lesson we continued to work on improving the form of my left arm and worked on using it more, especially for speed work. It's amazing how good form improves tone. We were laughing about why my teacher hadn't gotten me to do this before. I feel like I've been constantly making changes to improve form, and I suppose that I haven't been ready to work on this part of my form prior to building up form and technique with other things.

Chamber group this morning was fun. We had a piano quartet again, although people straggled in during the morning. Cello2 (who I'm playing the Popper with) arrived first, so we spent some time reading through some Offenbach cello duets, Op. 52 Nos. 1 & 2. When our violist showed up I switched to the piano and pretended to be a violin for a Hiller string trio. When our violinist showed up we read through a piano quartet by Novak. It had some good moments; the 2nd movement was nice; the 3rd movement felt like a counting exercise (it kept changing from 6/8 to 3/4 to 6/8 to 2/4 to 6/8 to 4/4....so keeping together was pretty challenging). After that I pretended to be a violin again. Our violinist had found a (or perhaps I should say 'the') Puccini string quartet, so I played violin 2. The quartet was pieced together from a variety of manuscripts. He apparently wrote the quartet as a student composition, and none of it survived together. There was even an alternate version of the trio in it. We really liked the last movement of it. Once we finished that we were done for the day.

Random Practice Notes

These past few weeks I've heard some random (or maybe not so random) comments about my playing that have given me new things to think about and work on during my practice time...

...my bow hold
I'm continuing to work on thinking about my hand following my arm, and on the equal and opposite reaction (to counteract the problem I have with my hand sliding towards the tip of the bow)

...my bow speed
At my last lesson, I told my teacher that I wasn't happy with the way I was playing part of one of my solo bits on the Popper Requiem. This has a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note, followed by a quarter note where I have to shift up to hit the quarter note. He watched me and said that I was speeding up my bowing when I was shifting. That darn right hand/left hand independence thing again! I've modified my shifting exercise this week to change the rhythm of the shifting but keeping the bow speed steady. Another skill to burn into my brain...

...controlling the rate of my vibrato
That was the other thing I told my teacher I wasn't happy about. It's the right hand/left hand independence thing again...and the overall coordination thing (you know, the pat your head and rub your stomach thing). Plus I can't seem to hold my bow speed steady and increase or decrease the rate of my vibrato. My right hand wants to speed up or slow down with my left hand. Sigh. Another set of exercises...

...starting a note
During our Popper rehearsal yesterday, Cello1 gave me a little lesson on starting a note...putting some pressure on the string and then getting it to vibrate immediately, but without the horrible scratching sounds that I sometimes make. My teacher has been saying the same thing...I think it's a skill that I can't do automatically yet...what happens when I start a note doesn't always feel like I have it under control, even though I am trying.

...and the previous week's Cello1 tip on bowing
She's been telling me, "Sing, Sing!!!" and finally told me to bow with a "Round bow, round bow! not straight...it's not natural!!" She showed me what she meant, and I've been practicing...and it's helped my overall tone. This week she told me that my solo parts sounded a lot better . I told her that I've been practicing round bows and she was really happy.

I finally figured out why she doesn't want to get coaching from my teacher...she believes that teachers are not useful to learning how to play well. I don't agree, but it did explain why she doesn't want to have my teacher listen to the 3 of us play the Popper.

Popper rehearsal notes
I think we have decided where we are bowing together and where we are not...we made some major bowing changes yesterday that improved the overall sound. Cello1 suggested fingering changes to both Cello2 and me on our parts; they were good suggestions but then she kept reminding us about the changes when we'd forget. Cello2 finally said, I need this coming week to practice the new fingerings and bowings...I'll have it changed by next week.

...And the Saturday Chamber Group
We were foiled again...Our second violinist is out with an injured finger. We thought our violist would make it but she wasn't able to and we were back to...piano trios. I love piano trios but am really looking forward to another configuration..plus we thought we would be able to play piano quartets or string trios and I have a piano quartet by Arthur Foote that I really wanted to play...maybe next week. I was looking forward to playing the cello but ended up on the piano. We played a Frederick Gernsheim piano trio (can't remember the opus...it just was loaded to the Eastman School of Music site) and it had a really hard first movement (rhythmically hard) but was really nice overall. Then we switched to Beethoven and played Trios #5 and #8. #8 was fun because it was a set of 10 variations.

...and the Brahms Piano quintet
I'm still working on it...playing bits and pieces of it when I can find time to practice the piano. I've been using a method that I read about from a link on Gottagopractice's blog - a flexible tempo - to learn the music - it really works. I've found that the sections that I've played through very slowly but concentrating on learning the music really well, that I'm able to speed it up much more quickly and accurately. I still only have small sections that I can play at speed, but more and more of each movement is starting to come together.

...and orchestra rehearsal tonight!
I missed last week's rehearsal; the first of this cycle...it was snowing so hard last week that I decided to drive home rather than stay at rehearsal. I even postponed my trip to the Bay Area for a day from Tuesday to Wednesday because I figured that it would be really icy...and for once I got lucky with the travel gods because the San Jose airport was closed Tuesday morning and I didn't have to deal with it!

Happy New Year

After a week's break from music it was sure nice to get home and pick up my cello. No lesson this week, so I've been having fun reading through music and playing mostly for fun (isn't that why I took up the cello in the first place?). Although I still am working on those interminable shifting exercises...

It's hard to play the piano after a few glasses of champagne.

We have concert dates set for the Popper Requiem...guess I need to step up practicing it.

We learned how to make tamales from a Mexican-American grandmother - wow they were good. She taught me how to make "red sauce" - here I was thinking that it was some secret recipe that took hours to make, and it took all of 5 minutes to make and was incredibly delicious...

Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rat, begins February 8th.

I'm on page 810 of 1474 pages of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy and am trying to finish it before I have to return it to the library.

Happy New Year!

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!

Weekend report

It was so nice to be home this weekend and to spend time playing music. As much fun as it was to be in Barcelona, missing out on 2 weekends at home really took it out of me.

Friday night's lesson was good. I had started working on exercises to loosen up my wrist, so we took a look at what I've been doing and my teacher made a few suggestions. Then we spent time looking at the 3rd cello part for Popper's Requiem. We are definitely going to play it with the orchestra, probably in March. I spent time this week playing bits and pieces of all 3 parts very slowly, to start burning it into my brain.

My Saturday chamber group finally met again - we've had quite a break with people traveling. There were only 3 of us, so I spent the whole time on the piano. Since I hadn't played the piano in a while it was a good workout. We warmed up with 2 Haydn piano trios, and then moved on to 2 Dvorak piano trios. We played an early trio, Bflat major, op. 21, and one in G minor (op. 26). I recognized the G minor trio once we started playing it. We definitely want to play this one again. Then we finished up with a piano trio by Fibich (it apparently was Czech composer day) and then we were finished.

My Sunday group is rehearsing for a gig in 3 weeks. The end was fun. For some reason every flautist I have ever met wants to play Claude Bolling's Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano. So, I am playing the piano for one of the flautists in the group. We're playing the first piece in the suite. Now I'm most definitely a classical stiff so jazz is tough for me. After the end of practice today we played a few of the pieces together (the first to rehearse and then the others for fun) and I think we sounded pretty good. In the limited piano practice time I have I've been starting the piece we're playing cold, with no warmup, to simulate what my hands will feel like when we perform it in a few weeks.

Tomorrow night is orchestra, and then on Tuesday I am off to Pocatello to go visit Christopher Dungey, to get started on my new cello! More on that this week!

Getting a Little Bit Smarter, Perhaps?

Last night I was inspired by Cellodonna's comment on my previous post that she warms up with Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca (last movement of sonata no. 11 in A major kv331). I stopped midway through playing the Mozart sonata I warm up with to switch to the Rondo. I had to drag out the music for the Rondo because I only have bits and pieces of it memorized. Since I had my collection of Mozart piano sonatas out, I decided to play the next sonata KV332, No. 12 in F major, all of KV333 (my warmup sonata, No. 13 in B flat major), and KV283, No. 5 in G major. It's been a long time since I've played any Mozart sonata other than the one I warm up with and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I could feel the effect of the rhythm practice too, I was having a much easier time with the ornaments, and I even added extra ones and improvised for fun. My last piano teacher was really big on improvising within the context of the music - a common practice of the period - but I digress.

I figure that since I played Mozart last night I must be a teeny bit smarter! I've always wondered if listening to Mozart really does make a difference in kids' performance in other school subjects.

It's been so nice to be home and play the cello every day. I've continued to work on bowing straight - mixing in exercises to try to burn the feeling of the changes I've made in wrist position and bow angle into muscle memory. I've spent time playing through pieces, making them progressively harder, trying to concentrate on bowing straight, to see at what point I start losing it. Once I notice that I've lost control I step back and try to bow straight again with just simple rhythms and bowing patterns.

Warmup Routines

I read Guanaco's post about his warmup routine and it got me thinking about the warmup routines I have for cello, piano, and swimming. I definitely have developed routines - they are comforting. Plus I really need them now as I've gotten older.

I've been doing a very similar piano warmup (when I actually sit down to play, which seems to be rather infrequent these days) since high school, I think. I start with an exercise that I got from the teacher I had from age 9 until age 18. It is 2 hands, in unison, playing a simple pattern (C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C) repeated 4 times, then doing that pattern 4 times with the minor third (C-D-Eflat-F-G-F-Eflat-D-C); then 4 times diminished (C-D-Eflat-F-Gflat-F-Eflat-D-C); then 4 times with an augmented 5th (C-D-E-F-G#-F-E-D-C). When I'm done I move the whole thing up a half step. I keep going until I've done all 12 notes, checking for evenness of sound (volume and rhythm), how precisely in unison every note is, and checking how stiff my fingers feel. Next I move to arpeggios, doing major and minor, every key, 4 octaves or so. Then I do a major and minor scales in octaves, thirds, sixths, and tenths (I just keep cycling around the keys - c major/c minor one day, Dflat maj/C# minor the next, and so forth). I've just added in doing some 7th chord progressions. The last thing I do for warmup is play the first movement of Mozart's sonata KV333, no pedal, just to see how my fingers feel and to get a feeling for how well I'm playing that day. I'm not sure why that piece - I studied on 2 different period instruments while in college and usually think about how different a modern piano sounds compared to a piano built when Mozart was playing/composing.

My cello warmup is not yet as ritualized or elaborate. I warm up with bowing on open strings, then bowing a cross string pattern, then follow with scales and arpeggios (random keys, 2 or 3 octaves). Usually I try different bowing patterns. It takes me about 15 minutes or so before I feel loosened up. I've been trying to incorporate some of the exercises Emily Wright posted on her blog.

For swimming, I usually swim with a group (great cross-training for cello playing!!! develops arm strength!), and I'll do whatever warmup set we are doing that morning. We usually start off with some easy swimming, then kick or pull (or do some of both) and/or do drills. I can't just jump in and go full blast any more - I have to warm up (and at the end, do some easy swimming to loosen up). I don't usually feel good in the water until I've been swimming for a while - lately it's takes a mile before I feel good - I must have a lot of slow twitch muscles.

Chamber Music Time!

Ahh..it has been a good music day. I love it when I have time on the weekends for a lot of music. This morning my reading chamber group came over to my house and we were all exhausted at the end of the morning. The one frustrating thing is that every week we go through the email ritual of figuring out who's going to be there. We've gotten better at it - we haven't had a week in a while where we haven't had music for day's configuration of players. But various members will show up at different times,so we change what we're playing as people show up.

This morning our first violinist showed up first. We've had many weeks on the past where it has just been the 2 of us, so I've gotten to the point where I don't even have to look at her while she's playing anymore to know what she's going to do. We played the first movement of Beethoven's "Spring" sonata while waiting..then our other cellist showed up. Because we knew we were going to read through the Arthur Foote piano quartet later, we decided to play his first piano trio. It is a gorgeous piece that we've played before (except for the ending of the last movement is somewhat weird) and it was lovely to play it again. My rhythm practice is paying off as I felt steady throughout, even during parts where the piano part was all over the keyboard. We had time to play part of the first movement of Lalo's first piano trio (another gorgeous piece with lots of lovely cello solos, but alas, I was still on the piano), but we played it rather poorly (took it too fast for our state of consciousness) and fortunately our violist showed up. We only got through part of the 2nd movement of the Foote piano quartet - but oh it is gorgeous - when our 2nd violinist arrived. We will definitely have to play through all of the piano quartet another time.

I finally got to play cello! We switched to string quartets (I doubled with the other cellist), but the first one was weird. I can't even remember who the composer was; it was a modern piece with all of the weird harmonies and timing. We had to give up on the first movement - it was in 5/4 but the cello part had measures with 7 notes for 3 beats and other weird combinations. We couldn't figure out where the first beat of the measure was. The second and third movements were weird too but at least we think we managed to stay together. At least we ended at the same time (one definition of victory)!

The second quartet we played was by a Brazilian composer, Alberto Nepomuceno; we played his first string quartet. It was supposed to have been influenced by Brahms and Mendelssohn but with Brazilian melodies. It was hard to hear the influences. Good thing I had a partner playing the same thing. Then we got tired of very unfamiliar music and ended with the Mendelssohn Op.44 No.2 quartet - I think we may have played it once a while ago - and it was nice to be back in more familiar territory. After that we were exhausted.