Wow, it's been a bad month for posting! I've been absolutely innundated at work, where I am monitoring a contest (sponsored by work) where we are asking people around the world to submit ideas to us - the prize is funding for their idea. I've been monitoring the site along with 2 other people, posting comments, writing a blog on the site, answering email inquiries, and doing the first reading and evaluation of the ideas. It is amazing to see the creativity of people from around the world pouring out - we have hundreds of ideas submitted so far. This in of itself has been pretty time-consuming. Then I got another large time-critical project thrown at me, and so...well everything not work-related this month has suffered, including, to my sorrow, cello. I've been working every day since the contest started and it won't be over for months.
Tomorrow's orchestra rehearsal is dress rehearsal for a set of 3 concerts we will give starting Dec 3rd. I'm not sure how those dates crept up so fast and now I'm spending some practice time getting ready, including practicing what I have now nicknamed the "carpal tunnel suite", otherwise known as the Sibelius Karelia Suite. I continue to practice finger exercises and thumb-free bow holds, hoping that it will pay off. At least I can do some of the exercises without a cello, on a plane, etc... I've been practicing my part of the Popper Requiem; we've had a few rehearsals but will need many more to be ready for our concert date in late March/early April.
Today's rehearsal with my Sunday chamber group was weird. Recently another cellist joined us. She asked if we could join our group, and my input was that she is a "first cellist", but we decided to let her play with us for now and to see what happens. Our group jokes about what different attitudes first and second violinists have, and most of the jokes aren't necessarily that complimentary towards the firsts (our violinists take turns playing first violin, and play second violin the orchestras they are in). Those of you in orchestras probably know what I'm talking about! Anyway, today, since there were 5 of us there we decided to play the Schubert quintet. Our new cellist hasn't played it with our group before. As I was handing out parts, I said, well, I've been playing the first part when our group has been playing this so why don't you play second cello. She refused. Flat out refused to play anything but first cello. So, finally,I just said, ok, I'll play second. It was very strange...I didn't mind reading the 2nd part but everyone else in the group (including a few people who weren't there) is much more relaxed about which part they play and would have instantly taken whatever part they were given. I thought it was pretty weird, and so did everyone else when we were standing around talking after the other cellist had left. At least it wasn't just me who thought it was weird. All through rehearsal, too, she just assumed she would always play first cello. The other cellist who plays with us wasn't there (I adore playing with her) and we generally alternate parts - a much better system, in my mind, since one of the reasons why we're there is to have fun. Well, enough for the ranting. Back to reading what new thing we should be doing....
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
Look Ma! No Thumb!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, October 26, 2007
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....
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....
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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...
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...
Monday, October 15, 2007
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!
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!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
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.
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.
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