Category Archives: Cello

Cello Musings

(Oh look, I found a journal entry I’d been working on in fits and starts over the week. Evidently the headaches and work have given me the attention span of a gnat.)

I have the money to buy my current 7/8. Which, of course, now makes me all wibbly again. I’m just going to need to upgrade in a few years anyhow, now that I’m taking lessons again and advancing properly.

But why do you wibble? I hear my Gentle Readers say. We thought you were decided.

Well, insofar as I like the cello and it’s good to play, yes. When it comes to handing over just under $2K? Not so much.

I just dragged the 4/4 up from downstairs, though. And yes, wow, it’s great: it’s balanced, and projects really well. But it’s huge. And… I’ve come to prefer the tone of the 7/8. It’s more… caramel-y. My 4/4 is kind of like espresso: delicious, but with a bite. The 4/4 is easier to play action-wise; string crossings were effortless and the sound match between first and fourth position is smoother. But the 7/8 has that lovely mellow, nutty sound to it that’s always been my preference in cello tonal colour. And it’s improved since I got it; it likes being played and the sound has certainly developed. It will only get better.

I know I want to sell my 4/4. That much is decided. Love the sound, but I’m never going to be the kind of cellist that needs it, as in a soloist who needs to be heard through the orchestra. I’m small-ensemble and chamber material. So there’s hopefully around $1000 to be recouped from that. Whether or not it will sell is a different story; I’ve seen cellos posted repeatedly on Craigslist and Kijiji, with prices revised downward. I know this one is a gem; it’s a question of getting people to understand that.

Apart from the looming purchase of the 7/8, I also have hard case woes. The one I bought secondhand last year just isn’t going to work for a 7/8. The suspension is all wrong, the curved parts that are supposed to fit into the cello’s waist don’t fit into where the 7/8’s waist actually is, and there’s two inches of gap at the bottom. Even when I pad the bottom, the weight of the cello pulls it down so that the lower pegs hit the bottom of the scroll box, which means the cello’s weight is suspended from the lower pegs. (Bad? Yes. Very.)

Having bought both new-to-me hard and soft case last year, I’m loathe to buy a new one again. The soft case I bought is roomy on my oversized 4/4; the 7/8 swims in it. Yes, I could sell them along with my oversized 4/4 when I sell it, but adding another $300 on to the price of the 4/4 isn’t going to help sell it. But if I buy the 7/8, I want a good case to protect it. The one the luthier included with the rental 7/8 is a super-padded soft case which would be another $140 extra. If I want a new low-end hard case it will be about $300 and I’ll have the problem of finding a small 4/4 one in which the 7/8 won’t swim, or a large 3/4. There’s a local place that will let me send them my measurements and they’ll tell me if the 7/8 will fit one of their 3/4 cases, but they’d have to order a 3/4 in and it’s non-refundable if the measurements don’t match up after all. A hard case designed specifically for a 7/8 will be over $500.

The main problem with the 4/4 I’ve got is that the curved areas for the waist actually interfere with the bouts when the 7/8 is placed high enough to try to avoid the pegs mashing into the bottom of the scroll portion of the case. Putting foam padding in the bottom to support the base of the cello only helps to a point, because the tips of the bouts bonk into the semi-circular bits, and they stop the padding from lifting the cello enough to avoid the pegs problem. I’ve talked to HRH and checked the material of the case, and it’s made of that high-density stuff cycling helmets are made from. So we’re going to remove the padding, he’s going to trim off the semi-circular sections that are designed to fit the waist of the cello, we’ll insert a crescent-shaped piece in the base to make the body area smaller and snugger, and replace the cotton velvet covering. It’s not like removing the curved sections is heretical; most of the cases I see don’t have them at all. Then I won’t need to worry so much, and the 7/8 won’t bang around.

So the first thing we’ll try is modifying the hard case I’ve got. (I hear certain Gentle Readers hooting about the fact that I’m modding a case.) If that doesn’t work, well… we’ll make it work.

In the end, I know what I need to do; I just have to steel myself to hand over the money, and trust that I’ll recoup part of it eventually. It’s just that the money is so reassuring in my bank account. Taking it out leaves me with not very much at all, even if I knew that it was earmarked for the 7/8 to begin with.

Lethargy

Well, to be honest, it’s felt like lethargy, but it’s mostly been workworkwork and headaches, none of which are particularly conducive to writing blog posts. And it would be more of the same old, same old:

Work: Turned a freelance assignment around in five work hours; this is so much easier when the manuscripts are good. Got kudos for struggling through the last one that was so hard to read. Billed for three evaluations in ten work days; very nice. Got the galleys for the anthology, due back in ten days. Found a glaring error in the very first story. Sigh.

Cello: Excellent lesson Tuesday night, with yet another spontaneous appreciative comment from my teacher about how my left hand, confidence, and intonation have all really improved, both in my lesson and ensemble stuff as well as orchestra. Now we just really need to train the final tendencies to lift and lead from the wrist out of my bow hand and we’re good. (Ha ha ha. This is, of course, a lifetime-long struggle.) I was feeling pretty darn good about my celloing. And then yesterday I had another two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, in which my bow was controlled by aliens. I’m serious. I certainly had no say in what it did. It sounded awful and squeaky and I shall wrap the frog in tinfoil so they don’t do it again during the recital on Sunday. We did good work, but I sounded awful in the duet. It did a real number on my self-confidence.

Weather: Yesterday was sunny with a hot wind; all the windows were open and the scent of lilacs poured in. It almost hit 30 C. For the first time, I officially wore no socks. Hello, summer. Today is damp and overcast and not warm. Hello again, spring.

Food: No interest. Thinking of food to feed other people is hard when you don’t feel like eating.

Boy: He has started drawing people and is very good at it. I nearly cried when he drew one in front of me for the first time. (Representational drawing is a big step; representational drawing of human figures is even bigger.) Language skills continue to freak me out. He’s been guaranteed a full-time preschool slot as of mid-August, which is fabulous, but which also means that I will never have the car to myself on a weekday again come the new fall term. He’s about two-thirds my height, which isn’t tall to begin with, but he’s about to turn four; c’mon. We also found out that the little con artist can and does use the pedals on the school trikes, which he claims he cannot do.

Cats: Cricket has been throwing up her food for a while, so we got her some Hills sensitive-stomach stuff and she’s kept it down just fine. Except Nix has figured out that Cricket’s getting Special Treatment, and won’t eat her own food now: she hooks the new food out from under Cricket’s nose and eats it herself. If we put Cricket in another room to eat, Nixie ignores her own dish entirely. Nixie is pretty much fur, bones, and whiskers and can’t afford to not eat. Scarlet told me about an Iams formula that is good for sensitive stomachs and is cheaper than the Hills, which she feeds to her herd of beasts, so we can feed it to all three cats and no one has to feel left out. Good grief.

HRH has booked today off, as he had a bunch of vacation days he needed to use by the end of May. The tentative plan is to go see the new Star Trek film, except I’ve had an awful headache for the past twelve hours. If it doesn’t get better, I’m calling it off. He’s taking next Thursday and Friday off as well, and the plan for next Friday is to take the boy to see Up in the theatre, his first such outing. It’s probably proof of my lethargy/fibro flareups/perpetual headaches that I’m more excited about next week’s film outing than today’s.

Holiday Weekend Roundup

Victoria Day Weekend is generally planting weekend around here. We’re more concerned with getting things into the ground than being able to wear white again without offending traditional fashion rules. It’s generally planting weekend because (a) it’s a long weekend, (b) theoretically it’s warm enough that night frosts are over, and (c) because we say so. And so of course, Saturday it poured rain, and Sunday was rainshowery and overcast and downright cold; both days saw really high winds. And the temperature, flouting Victoria Day decree, went within four degrees of freezing at night and only barely made it to 10 C during the day.

So our original plans for all-out gardening were put on hold and we did small dashes when we could. Saturday morning we went out and picked up fourteen bags of black earth to add to the beds, and four double flats of cosmos for the front garden. The boys put the cosmos in while I hid in a dark bedroom, trying to deal with a migraine. On Sunday HRH went out and got four double flats of pansies to line the front garden and scatter through the back garden. On Monday afternoon we went out and picked up twenty-four tomato seedlings, lots of mixed lettuce greens, and seed packets of green onions, carrots, cucumber, peas, and poppies. The boys planted all of that (except the poppies) while I made dinner. Monday afternoon was really the nicest weather of the entire long weekend, sunny and warm enough to leave off one’s jacket and garden in just a long-sleeved jersey.

That was the gardening component of the weekend. There was, of course, more. Saturday was dubbed the Day Of Baking. I made my first ever batch of homemade ice cream, from the recipe in the most recent issue of Fine Cooking, and froze it in a pan, beating it with a hand-held mixer once an hour. I did that three times, and it ended up beautifully creamy. (The original plan was to finally buy an ice-cream maker, but the only one I found was too expensive. Bah; who needs a machine?) I also baked the most incredibly brownie-like cookies to use in making ice cream sandwiches. The first tray didn’t spread as much as I’d hoped, so I pressed the second batch down to be thinner, and those worked better. I had five egg whites left over, so I made meringues, and if I haven’t said it enough, I love my stand mixer: I set it up to beat the egg whites and sugar and walked away for ten minutes. When I came back it was so think I could spoon some up and throw it on the pan, and it would keep its shape. Incredible! I had to bake them twice, though, because it was so damp on Saturday they kept going sticky. I left them in the cool oven overnight instead of a container, then baked them the second time for three hours at 100 F, to thoroughly dry them. It worked, too; they were light and crunchy all the way through.

Victoria Day itself was a beautiful, sunny day, most welcome after the rainy overcast days of Saturday and Sunday. We visited Ceri and Scott for lunch, and ate delicious gourmet burgers and grilled veggies done on the barbecue. Dessert was sandwiches made from my ice cream and chocolate cookies, with meringues to follow. It was absolutely wonderful. Ceri and Scott also sent us home with a small slide they’d found behind their shed, which fits perfectly within the space on the swingset that used to house the odd glider/seesaw thing we took down. Liam is over the moon.

For those who want to know the outcome of the dramatically bad manuscript evaluation I had to do, I kept slogging and handed something in with a note explaining the drastic shortcomings and the lack of examples that are usually required to demonstrate problems that need to be addressed. (Hard to prove a negative regarding plot or characterization when you can’t find any.) The department got back to me with kudos for handling a hopeless case and said they understood how hard it must have been, and thanked me for sticking to it and for being as encouraging as I had been. Result: warm fuzzy feeling. Go me.

I really had a tough time dealing with this. As an author, I know what it’s like to get an editorial letter. Even though these evaluations are anonymous, I felt like I was slaughtering this author’s hopes and dreams. A couple of writer friends, one of whom also copyedits, pointed out that part of a writer’s job is receiving criticism and applying it to improve the product, just as part of the editor’s responsibility is to critique in order to elicit a stronger product. Neither are enjoyable one hundred percent of the time, but we both have to perform our duties to the best of our abilities. We owe it to ourselves, to one another, and to the product. While I wasn’t functioning as a traditional editor in this instance, I was responsible to pointing out weaknesses and errors in order to ascertain what level of editing was required to bring it to publishable standard. And when I have to say that the writing is of such a low quality that I can’t find the story the author is trying to tell, well, I get downright miserable, because that’s not news I ever want to have to tell someone.

Let’s see, what else? I finished reading Catherynne Valente’s Palimpsest; a most beautifully written book. And I finally began The Children’s Book, the new book by A.S. Byatt. I hadn’t known a new one was out until I saw it on the new release shelf at the library two weeks ago. It’s gorgeous; I will own it. Possibly even in hardcover. And HRH and I finally saw the fourth Indiana Jones movie, which was not as abysmal as the world said it was when it came out. Yes, it was flawed, and yes, there were things I would have changed about it, but it wasn’t the travesty we’d been led to believe it was.

Right; on to the day. I have a new freelance assignment, and there is cello in my future, both practise and a duet lesson tonight. Recital on Sunday! Five days!

Playing Catch-Up

Yesterday was all cello, all the time. Well, not precisely; I did three hours of errands and grocery shopping and such in the morning. But I had an excellent two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, then had half an hour to tidy up, and headed then off to my cello lesson. It was great to hear my teacher say that it was really coming together, and there were just twiddly things to do to the duet. When I was packing up she said that in general I was sounding good: my bow was more confident, and my intonation was really improving. It put me in a great mood as I left, and it stayed with me for the rest of the day, even through the traffic from hell on the highway that nearly made me late to collect the boy from the caregiver. (Hello, construction season. I have not missed you.)

The night before had been orchestra, so in effect I had five hours of cello in the space of eighteen waking hours. *flexes her callouses* I have to find a way to keep my left hand relaxed through the Vaughn Williams; I’m using way too much pressure. It’s not like I have to press any harder with my left fingers if I’m playing louder, after all. It’s all about bow speed.

I’m currently struggling with my latest work project. My job is to evaluate several different aspects of a manuscript in order to recommend the proper level of editing. I’ve run into a situation I’ve never had to deal with before, namely that the writing level is so low that I can’t find the plot or any characterization. I need to supply examples of things to be fixed, and it’s very hard to prove a negative. Spending yesterday away from it was helpful, I think; I did what I could on Wednesday, and now I’m going to try to wrap it up today. The bad ones take so much more time than the good ones, partly because it’s harder to read them, and partly because it’s difficult to be diplomatic about the shortcomings. It takes me more time to write up my report than it does to make my notes on the problems.

I’m also struggling with a decision regarding tomorrow’s outing. Originally we were scheduled to spend Victoria Day weekend with my parents, but HRH realised that it’s the Creative Arts show tonight and he couldn’t take Friday off to make the trip out to southern Ontario worth the drive. The substitute plan was to travel to the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa for the Glenn Gould exhibit, which I hadn’t known about until I saw that it was being held over till May 18. I’ve missed every major Gould event for the past ten years, so the new plan was to do this on Saturday. Except the orchard planting last Saturday really exhausted me, and I’m still not operating at one hundred percent. I’ve been achy and low on energy all week. I don’t know if another two-hour drive plus a museum visit is going to be worth the energy invested in it. I can’t find a review of the exhibit, which would help me decide if it’s worth it or not. It’s a decision that will have to be made Saturday morning.

In the meantime, the 1981 Goldberg recording, some Dragon Moon Darjeeling, open windows, and good incense.

Trees, People, Cello

Or, What My Weekend Was Like, By Me.

Saturday we trekked out to the wilds of North Stormont/Maxville to help t! and Jan dig and plant their orchard. A dozen heritage apples and other fruit trees were planted, each assigned to a different pagan friend. Everyone was invited to bless the tree they planted in whatever way they felt drawn to do so. Some blessings were elaborate; some were quiet; all were blessed with sweat and laughter. Despite assurances otherwise (and here absolutely NO ONE looks at HRH, no) it, well, it poured rain. (Except when HRH planted his tree. Ahem.) I’m a fan of rain, and it wasn’t even cold, but having trekked around after a wiggly four year old for a couple of hours and trying to keep him focused during the cumulatively long first half of the orchard, eventually agreeing to hold him on my hip while he snuggled his very wet head into my neck, took its toll on me. My blessing ended up being rushed because the boy decided he needed to use the bathroom again and we got back right when it was my turn. In the end I did nothing like what I’d prepared and pretty much just shoved the tree in the ground and told those with spades to fill the hole in. I had prepared a charged pebble that I tossed into the hole, though, and I’d brought a bottle of water blended from some Chalice Well water a friend had brought back from Glastonbury for me and a small vial of water blessed and charged at the last BFC Clan Camping I’d attended in 2004, which I poured on the ground once it was planted.

The boy’s tree was next, and he tossed his pebble into the hole. We reminded him that there was something he wanted to sing, so he announced that he had a special song to sing for his tree. “It’s a song we sing at school, and it is my favourite, and it’s about something that is under the water, and yellow,” he informed those gathered. HRH and I tried hard not to laugh as people realized what he meant, and I reminded him that no, he hadn’t planned to sing ‘Yellow Submarine,’ there was another song he’d been singing at home. So we chanted “Up and down, and sky and ground” together while those with spades filled the hole and covered the roots. It was pretty special. Then he stood looking at the base of the tree for a while as everyone collected themselves to move on to the next hole. I’m not sure if he was a bit sad that he hadn’t been able to sing ‘Yellow Submarine’ to his tree, or if he was thinking about how he’d just planted a real tree. He didn’t seem upset, just thoughtful.

As Janice planted her rowan, the first in the orchard, she named the tree Rowan Tree Farm, which feels entirely appropriate.

That night, while the boy ate a late dinner of a grilled cheese sandwich, he said, “Mama, what was your favourite part of the day?” I thought about it and said, “After we had planted all the trees and went back inside, and we’d all changed into our dry clothes, and we all had drinks and pie, and looked around and enjoyed being with our dear friends after sharing something special.” He then asked his father the same question. When I asked him what his favourite part of the day was, he said thoughtfully, “I loved meeting the dog named Carter and petting him and not hurting his leg.” (Carter, the resident year-old collie/husky/shepherd mix, has had a bad run of luck with his right foreleg, and it is splinted.) Carter’s a big dog, loves people, and is currently sporting the latest in Elizabethan collars so he doesn’t gnaw at the leg, but none of this bothered Liam; he was completely in love with the dog and very careful not to knock the splint. As I was useless with the digging part of the day (thanks, fibro) I spent some time with Carter on a leash along the edge of the field so t! could get some work done, and the dog is definitely personable. I quite enjoyed his company.

Also at dinner, Liam said, “I like Amanda.” (Amanda, whom I have known since I was about eleven, had been a passenger in our car there and back.) And then, completely out of the blue, he said something I’d never heard him say before: “When I’m bigger, I’m going to marry her.” We suspect that her admiration of Blackie and her willingness to get down on the floor and play trucks with him led him to this momentous decision.

Sunday morning I was in a lot of pain, as I’d expected; one doesn’t walk around in an uneven field holding a drenched preschooler and expect to escape unscathed. By the time my in-laws arrived for the Mother’s Day brunch we hosted I was at least functional, though. Savoury quiche, waffles, sausages, piles of fruit, salad, and mimosas. Mmm. The boy began crashing just before noon, so both he and I had a lie-down. He slept for two and a half hours (not surprising given the expected lack of nap the day before) but a rude interruption by an arrogant Hydro rep at our door ruined my chance for rest. I then went off to our monthly group cello lesson after picking a dozen of the tulips from along the side of the house for my cello teacher. Great lesson prepping for the recital in two weeks, but alas, it seems as if we will be cutting my beloved “Ave Verum Corpus,” a hesitant announcement that made all three of us doing the top melody very sad. It’s being bumped to the Christmas recital, and I fully understand why; it needs more work so that all four voices move confidently at the same time, and as the lower voices don’t feel the melody the way we do they’re not as sure about where to move, or even how they’re supposed to sound like against the other parts. But I am sad indeed.

And then last night I finished reading Dan Simmons’ very excellent Drood.

That was my weekend. The end.

I Suspect That We’re… Different

What does it say about my family when my son digs through the CDs and chooses Brahms’ Fourth Symphony to listen to while he plays with his trains?

Also, I figured out a way around his stubborn insistence that I not practise when he’s at home: I played “Old Macdonald” and “Frère Jacques”, two of the exciting selections from our upcoming recital in which we accompany the two littlest girls. (After playing Jeff’s tab of Tom Waits’ “Ol’ 55”, that is. Which is what he claimed woke him up, despite me using a practise mute and playing pizzicato.)

Mid-Week

Well, the day home with the boy yesterday was mostly terrific. The morning was lovely; he watched TV while I slept, because three hours of sleep = Very Bad. The boys had a talk about how Mama needed some more sleep before she could get up and have a good day. The boy was mostly on board with this but decided to Take Care Of Me once HRH had left for work, which entailed bringing me various stuffed animals to cuddle while I slept, and informing me every time the TV show changed, which was at fifteen-minute intervals. Still, it was something. We went out to the big bookstore to noodle about and play with the trains, and wow, it’s nice and quiet on Tuesdays. We usually go once a month on a Friday, his regular at-home day, and it’s always packed. I finally picked up Dan Simmons’ Drood, which I am enjoying immensely, and the boy got a new Henry & Mudge book. He didn’t even fuss about not buying a train beyond pointing out the milk cars to me. Then I suggested wandering through the pet store, to which he readily agreed, and he didn’t kick and scream about leaving when we had to. We stopped by the Bramble House in its new location, which has more space but now feels like it carries fewer products as a result. It’s lost a bit of its charm. The boy got some Dairy Milk Buttons, and we bought a bottle of water at the corner store to share. (Very exciting if you are the boy.)

I was looking forward to his nap so I could nap too, but things went somewhat awry. He went to sleep willingly enough, but woke up after only forty-five minutes when I’d been counting on at least half an hour longer than that. Unfortunately for me, I’d only dozed for fifteen minutes myself before he pattered in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I told him he could either play in his room or the living room, or cuddle with me, but I wasn’t getting up till three. He chose to stay, but whispered and squirmed a lot trying to pet Gryff, so I didn’t actually get back to sleep. At least I got to lie down with my eyes closed.

We did a small grocery run, and he was pretty good there too, apart from continually stepping on my feet because he wasn’t paying attention to where his own were. If I’d had enough sleep I’d have been more patient, but the little things like this were starting to make me grit my teeth. Once back home he settled down to watch the last half of a movie and play with his cars while I practised. I explained that I needed to, and that I’d close my office door so I wouldn’t disturb him, and he was fine with that. He came to the door about ten minutes in to watch me, then grinned and dashed away. Later, while I took a brief break, he brought his box of trains into my office to play, but when I picked the cello up again he burst into tears and wailed. He didn’t want me to play with him, he just didn’t want me to practise while he was in the room. And that’s where my short-on-sleep really caught up with me; my mood flipped from relaxed to tight and annoyed. When my temper was even enough again I talked to him about it being (a) my office, in which I am allowed to do whatever I like, and (b) he’d been informed that I was practising, so he had no reason to get upset. We went over the “How do you think Mama feels when you cry and tell her she can’t play the cello?” thing, and he mumbled, “You feel sad.” I could see that he was upset because he’d upset me, but he still didn’t want me to play.

HRH eventually got home, which helped diffuse the tension, and we had dinner. The boy was chipper and cheerful and played with him, and they had an awesome time in the bath and doing story and bed while I got ready for my cello lesson. And a wonderful cello lesson it was: my duet partner and I had a shared lesson wherein we worked our duet for the upcoming recital. It’s sounding really, really good. All we’re doing at this point is tweaking little things like gentling the ends of phrases and doing more subtle shaping along the way. Of course, I blew some simple stuff in the ensemble pieces we played first to warm up. I need to work out a weekly practise schedule where I can assign specific times to work on lesson stuff, solo pieces, ensemble music, and orchestra pieces. Otherwise I just end up trying to read through everything or what I remember going wrong, and other things get lost along the way. That’s a lot of music, after all, no matter how many notes I take about changes and obstacles in lessons and at rehearsal.

I’m worried about what’s going to happen in the summer when lessons stop.

Other good things that happened yesterday: I got my new freelance assignment (naturally, while we are given a week to turn them around, it lands at such a time when I only have two work days before the due date); receiving the exquisite score to The Painted Veil by Alexandre Desplat; and hearing back from the accountant about having a nice chunk of money being returned to us by the government. Yay for tax refunds! Yay, slashing at Visa/credit line/dumping money into RRSPs! Yay, no longer stressing about not having quite enough money from the anthology delivery cheque to buy the new computer and the 7/8 cello (for which I have begun thinking about names, which means yes, it’s going to be mine pending the full physical exam I want the luthier to give it)! I am content. I may even be able to buy a new bow, as mine is on its last legs frog-wise and has a nasty hook at the tip.

So other than the mild annoyance about not being able to sleep whenever I tried to, and the kerfuffle about not being allowed to play my cello in my own office, it was a very good day indeed.