Concert Went Well

Our final concert was fun.  A local (very talented) violinist joined us as "guest concertmaster", which added to the balance of our ensemble which has 4 cellos, a bass and only 2 violins and 1 viola.  That was a big help for our overall balance of sound.  We played at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod; it has a large high ceiling room which makes for beautiful sound.  It's a fantastic place to play.  Here's the program:

I think the pieces (at least to my ears) that sounded the best were the Boyce Symphony (1st Movement) and the Sibelius Andante Festivo.  Everyone played well in those pieces.  My husband thought that the Panus Angelicus was good (our guest concertmaster played inspiringly in that) and most everyone enjoyed the final raucous piece, Shepherd's Hey.  The hardest piece was the Bach Double Concerto; the program says it was an arrangement, but looking over the original score you can see that the cello part is identical to the original.  The solo violin parts were arranged for string orchestra, rather than solo and violin section.  I thought it went well, but it is a piece that is a real challenge to play accurately at the fast tempo!  The Vivaldi (an easy arrangement) and the Mahler went very well, too.  All in all, a very satisfying finish to the winter/spring season.  Our conductor, the principal cellist of the local symphony, is a real teaching conductor, and he holds us all to high standards of intonation and rhythm.  That's why I like playing with this ensemble.

Bass Section Playing at the Spring Concert

With my practice load considerably lighter (both Ensemble and Cello Choir are finished until the fall), I can concentrate on Bach and Popper.  I have the Prelude to the third Bach Suite memorized; I can play it through acceptably without the music.  Now I have to work on tempo and musicality.  At my teacher's suggestion I will take sections of the piece and work on them separately to polish them.  I'm closing in on finishing Popper's Opus 76 etudes (he designated them 'preparatory' to the HS of Cello Playing, although he wrote them after he wrote the HS etudes).  I'm working the final two etudes (9 and 10) at the same time. #9 has an arpeggio pattern with a tune that is reminiscent of one of the earlier etudes; I'm using what I learned about target notes in #8 to reach the high notes accurately.  The special difficulty of this piece is the key signature of 5 flats, no open strings or harmonics to help you find pitches.  Only C and F and not flatted!  Etude 10 is especially nice; it's a chromatic exercise, but is lovely and tuneful and a pleasure to learn.

I will miss my group playing this summer.  I hope to get together some with friends to play informally, maybe practice a few solo pieces with a pianist friend, and maybe play in a summer reading session with the local chamber orchestra.  All things to look forward to!

Spring Concert

The Conservatory String Ensemble Concert for this spring is on May 7th (Tuesday at 7pm) at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod.  I'm looking forward to playing at the Cultural Center again; the acoustics are wonderful in the room and there is plenty of space for the ensemble.  New Cape Musica will play a movement from a piano quartet to begin the program and the ensemble will play 6 or 7 pieces.

We have two difficult, but beautiful, pieces programed this spring and played in the original.  One is Bach's Concerto in D Minor for two violins and strings.  This piece is a challenge for all of us (I think Bach is always a challenge), but the second violin part is quite difficult.  It's sounding good in practice, though, and with two weeks to practice we should be fine.  The other original piece is Sibelius's "Andante Festivo" for string orchestra.  Slow and majestic.  I love the piece and its beautiful harmonies.

We're also playing Vivaldi's "Spring" and "Autumn" (not hard), the first movement from Boyce's "Symphony #4", Cesar Frank's "Panis Angelicus", a Morris dance called "Shepherd's Hey", and if we have the time to be ready the second movement from Mahler's Symphony #1 (the cellos are fine with it, but the violins and viola aren't quite there yet).

Ensemble at last fall's concert at Thirwood Place (with the Conservatory Flute Choir)

Monthly Cello Choir meeting and more Popper

Our seven member cello choir meets the first Thursday of each month at our teacher's studio.  One of our members (who sings in two chorales) brought us a four part adaptation of Stravinsky's "Pater Noster", a chorale piece composed as an addition to Russian Orthodox Church mass music.  The four parts adapt easily for cello and the harmonies, even though the piece is straightforward and a relatively easy play through, were quite lovely.  A nice start to the practice.

We spent a good bit of the practice working on a version of an early American piece called "Farewell Anthem".  It's another piece with beautiful harmony and it is interesting because all of the parts use the same bowing.  We worked an additional early American piece ("Between the Mountain and the Deep Valley") and ended on a bright note with a trio arrangement of "Ashokan Farewell".  Intonation was excellent today; the group is starting to sound very good.  It's a joy to play with other cellists!

My lesson was today, too, and we spent the whole lesson on the 8th etude from Popper's Opus 76 (the preparatory etudes for the HS of Cello Playing).  This is quite an etude; it is two pages of arpeggios that travel up the A and D strings all the way to the end of the fingerboard, a real exercise in finding all of those thumb position notes (and in the key of A --3 sharps-- just to add a little extra degree of difficulty.)  What I found particularly helpful and amazing was the availability of target notes up in these high regions.  There are the harmonics, of course, to provide landmarks; however, in addition I learned today to play a note (perhaps with the 3rd finger), and then shift my 1st finger to that position while playing a higher note with my second or third finger.  Starting in 5th, 6th and 7th position, this etude challenges you to do this kind of target finding all the way to the end of the fingerboard.  There I was finding C#'s, D's, and F3's up in the stratosphere, landing on the right note, in tune.

We will see if I can repeat all this in my practice this week.  But I'm starting to see the light in terms of being able to find these high notes.  Of course the etude then drags you down to the the lower positions on the G, D and A strings and uses the same principles of note finding for the arpeggios there.  What a fantastic lesson.  I've worked with a lot of different (good and valuable) etude books (Schroeder, Lee, Matz, etc), but no one seems to be able to provide those 'aha' moments with such regularity as Popper.  I've been learning the Bach 3rd Suite Prelude (the second page has a big section of thumb position crossings); last week I was working on the 7th Opus 76 Popper etude.  Darned if there wasn't a low position thumb string crossing using the same fingering as the Bach.  Another 'aha' and a smile.....  Popper is really worth the trouble.

Top Cello Web Sites

There is wonderful information available now on the web, and that certainly applies to sites that relate to playing the cello.  Here are ones that I think are truly outstanding (and why I think so).  

BEST VIDEOS ABOUT CELLOS

Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han are an incredibly talented husband/wife duo; David played for many years with the Emerson Quartet, retiring just recently.  Their site contains over 100 videos about the cello, how it works, and mastering it.  They are the best videos I've watched on line. This is a wonderful reference for beginners and pros alike.  Excellent!

Here is their general website:

http://www.davidfinckelandwuhan.com/Site/home.html

Here is the link to the videos:

http://cellotalks.com/

I also should mention YouTube which has an amazing collection of performances of cello and orchestral music.  Videos of some of the cello greats can be found there; recently there have been postings of longer videos, even full length concerts. There's a wonderful long BBC portrait of Rostropovich.

BEST ORGANIZATIONAL WEBSITE

The Internet Cello Society provides a website with all sorts of informational articles about cellists and playing the cello, as well as a periodic newsletter "Tutti Celli", edited by Tim Janof.  

http://www.cello.org/

In their Forums, on yuku, you will find discussions about all sorts of cello related topics and find postings from students, amateur cellists, professional cellists and luthiers from all over the world.  You can ask questions or just read what others are saying and asking about.

http://cellofun.yuku.com/

BEST MAKER WEBSITE

Aitchison Nmatzaganian Makers and Restorers, a British dealer in cellos and bows, provides an amazing amount of information about the cello on their website. They have a large collection of articles about the cello, strings, and bows as well as information about setup.  They also post periodic newsletters.

http://www.aitchisoncellos.com/

I love their cello care guide, which can be downloaded as a pdf and printed out.

http://www.aitchisoncellos.com/CelloCareGuide4.pdf

BEST MUSIC SOURCE

IMSLP (The  International Music Score Library Project) is a site that makes available, in pdf form, the world's public domain music in their Petrucci Music Library.  You can browse by composer, nationality, time period, and Instrument.  Music there is available for solo cello, cello and piano, cello groups, cello and other instruments as well as scores and parts for much of the classical literature.  Although you may want to buy the nice published version of music that you are working on, this site allows you to explore music that you might be interested in (or that isn't available anywhere else).  This is all legal public domain sheet music.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

BEST INTERNET 'STORES'

There are many sites selling cellos, bows, sheet music and cello playing needs like strings and rosin.  There isn't one 'best' as far as I'm concerned, but the following sites are ones that I've ordered from and had particularly good experiences with.

Cellos 2 Go: http://www.cellos2go.com/

Johnson String Instrument: http://www.johnsonstring.com/

Shar Music: http://www.sharmusic.com/

KUDOS

To the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the only orchestra in the US which is streaming many of their concerts on the web. Many European orchestras make some of their concerts available for streaming on line, but the Detroit Orchestra is the only orchestra in the country to do that.  Their marvelous opening concert this year featured circus performers performing along with the orchestra and they performed (and streamed the performances of) all of Beethoven's Symphonies this year.  This Sunday they are featuring Lynn Harrell as cello soloist!  Tune in and contribute to this wonderful orchestra if you can.

http://www.dso.org/videoReg.aspx?target=live

Check back: in a few weeks I'll post my favorite "cello bloggers", folks who write about their musical experiences with my favorite instrument.  

Play along CD's

Being able to play an ensemble piece with others (or a solo piece with a pianist) can be very hard to prepare for. Practice alone at home can cement the playing of 'your' part, but being able to play with the other parts, play in time and in tune, comes usually with those all too infrequent group practices. I'm learning pieces for both a string ensemble performance and for work in a larger cello group (as well as some cello/piano pieces). And there are no CD's available for purchase for the things I'm working on. I decided to use Finale to make synthesized sound tracks of both piano accompaniments for the cello/piano pieces (which are all public domain) and the cello choir pieces.

Although the typing is tedious and time consuming, the resulting sound files (I've made .wav files for the CD's) are pretty good, and because I can adjust the tempo, I end up with a very usable practice CD. I've used them over the past week, and they really help my practice. I would post a midi file here as an example, but blogger doesn't allow uploading of audio files (at least as far as I can see). Too bad!

One added benefit of doing something like this is that each time I type in a new file, I learn how to do something new in the Finale program. I now know how to do things like add tied notes (rather than just slurs), insert various expressions, insert first and second endings, and just this week I discovered how to change the initial tempo indication. Finale is such a complicated program, that you don't discover how to do many things until you end up needing to do something specific. A free limited version of Finale is available to anyone who wants to try using the program.
http://www.finalemusic.com/

 

String Ensemble - Winter/Spring

The Conservatory String Ensemble is playing some nice music this session. One piece, Andante Festivo, by Sibelius has some gorgeous harmonies and interesting parts for all the players. We are playing a string orchestra version of Bach's double concerto in D minor; that has a really challenging fast part for the cellos. Additionally a Morris Dance piece "Shepherd's Hey", an Andante section from a Mahler Symphony,"Panis Angelicus" and a couple other pieces are going to make for a nice concert at the Cultural Center on May 7th. I'm back to working on Popper etudes (am I crazy or what?) and I'm learning the Prelude from the Third Bach Suite (by memory). I'm staying busy!

Wonderful program

Ups and Downs

An interesting fall season in my cello world.  I did find that three days without electricity during Hurricane Sandy provided me with lots of free time to play the cello and made me appreciate the value of an instrument that doesn't require electricity.  My Allen electronic pipe organ and my Yamaha piano were silent without electricity, but my cello works anywhere!  I had to play during the day, though, as there was no light at night.  Those three days without power make me really appreciate the the comforts that electricity brings us, and make me think every day now about the trials that those in Staten Island and New Jersey are still undergoing.

My string ensemble is having a weird season; the group has only two violins, one viola, one bass and FIVE, count them 5, cellos.  That doesn't make for a great mix when playing standard string ensemble repertoire. The cello section is directed to play very softly; my teacher isn't so happy about that, as she keeps working with me on pulling a large sound from my cello.  The ensemble is spending 10 weeks on 5 very short and easy pieces, also not conducive for practicing.  I thought of all of this, as I watched this YouTube video of a cello orchestra:
What Cellos can do!
Where I live, we have many more cello players than other strings.  I think we need a cello orchestra!!!

I'm playing several piano/cello duos with a friend who is a wonderful pianist.  This is such a treat, because in all my years of cello playing I have not had the chance to play with a pianist.  So many cello pieces just don't come to life unless they are played with a piano.  We're working on the second movement of the Brahms e minor sonata, as well as some other pieces that I've learned in the past and never had a chance to play with the piano (Dvorak's Humoresque, for example).

I'm working through a book of Matz etudes (relating the lower positions to thumb position using all four strings).  Lots of practice there on reading tenor and treble clef on all four strings.  If I can master all of these, we'll return to the Popper etudes.  I'm also working on scale exercises, shifting exercises, and vibrato exercises.  So much that I don't do well yet!

I'm still working with my teacher on the first two movements of the Brahms e minor (a very long term project), the Allegro Moderato from Bach's first sonata (not the Suzuki piece, but the full movement from the sonata) and I've just started learning the prelude to the third suite.  My teacher is requiring that I learn the prelude from memory as I go, so this is going to be a slow process.  When I played the piano growing up, my memory of pieces just sort of happened.  I'd practice and then the piece would be in my memory.  That doesn't happen with the cello.  Putting all the notes, the fingerings, the location of the notes on the strings, the phrasings and the dynamics into memory is just plain hard for me.  Perhaps this is because I started learning the cello so late in life.  But it continues to be a challenge.

Lastly, I'm playing duo music with a fellow cellist.  We've found two delightful holiday duo books (they use flute and recorder music as counterpoint to the christmas melodies) which we are working our way through.  We plan to play at the local art center in December during the annual arts market.  It will be fun to share what we've learned this fall.

While the cat's away......

Every summer my teacher takes a month long vacation. Strangely enough, I don't see this as an opportunity to take a vacation from the cello, but as a chance to solidify practice on that hard piece I've been working on for six months and a chance to play things that I've put aside because of lack of time.  I've spent some time playing Bach's first suite; after not playing it for several months I've gotten quite rusty.  I need to take one section each day, and devote some practice time to it.  That's a goal for this fall.

Yes, I'm continuing to work hard on the first two movements of the Brahms e minor sonata.  There are still notes that aren't quite right, some phrases that need more work, some shifts that I don't always make dead on, but I'm feeling that I can play the piece through decently.  Well enough, that I'm going to try playing with a pianist friend tomorrow.  That will challenge me to play with better timing and also work on dynamics.

I've begun to 'bring back' some of my older pieces and I'm going to try playing them with my pianist friend, too.  That's in the category of fun, because I do so love to play with others.  I've also been getting together with a cellist friend to play duo music.  This has not only been fun (we've playing music we both like), but with just the two of us it's wonderful practice for timing and intonation.  I can really hear when I'm not quite in tune.  We're hoping to develop a program that sounds good enough to share with others.  I think/hope we can do that!

String Ensemble starts for the fall tomorrow, too.  I'm glad to be back playing with a mix of other instruments, something I haven't done all summer.  Hope I'm not too rusty.  And cello lessons start this Thursday!  I guess I'll find out if my work on the Brahms Sonata is going as well as I think.....

Advice on Practicing from a master....

I love this advice of Itzhak Perlman's when he was asked about practicing.

Perlman: (Laughs) Hating practice is something quite natural. I hated practicing myself. So I don’t feel it’s an unusual trait. I’m always surprised when someone says, “I just love to practice.” For me that’s less natural than someone who says, “Gee, I hate practicing.”

The advice I always give is to practice slowly. That’s number one. Because when you do something slowly, it gets more of a chance to soak into your brain than if you do everything fast. It’s like throwing a stone on the water. It bounces off the water, never goes in, because it’s too fast. That’s what happens when you practice fast —everything you’re doing is repetitious. It bounces off your brain and nothing happens. So, practice slowly.

Also, the important thing is to have an actual plan. What are you practicing for? With the violin, it might be intonation, bow control. You need to know, not just put in three, four, or five hours and think it’s going to work. You’ve got to have a goal —it’s got to be organized. If that is the case, if you’re organized and have a goal, and practice slowly, you can actually achieve much more in less time.

Don’t ever practice more than five hours. That’s really, really tops. Some people feel, “If I practice six, seven, or eight hours, it will be that much better.” Not true. After a while, our brains stop working. I never practice five hours. In sort of the height of my student days, my practice was three hours.