Category Archives: Cello

Playing Away The Desensitisation

The cello section of my chamber orchestra has rather shrunk. Or perhaps the proper term to use would be “refined”, which suggests a reduction with a positive result. There’s four or five of us now, as opposed to the ten we had at the beginning of January. Our sound is now more focused, and certainly more dynamically accurate.

I’ve written polite rants before on how I feel regarding the devaluation of certain over-played pieces of classical music, so I won’t repeat myself now. To my dismay, I found several of these “pops” on our Canada Day playlist: Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite no. 1 featuring “Morning” and “The Hall of the Mountain King”, and Bizet’s Carmen Suite no. 1. When I hear these on the radio, I cringe, and they leave me cold. Desensitisation will do that.

Playing them, however, is a different matter, I have discovered. When I played Strauss’ Also Spracht Zarathrustra two years ago, I was blown away by the power and the building chords as they wove back and forth between the sections. As we’ve worked on Peer Gynt, I’ve discovered the uniquely Nordic harmonies and beautiful phrasing. Besides, it’s just plain fun to be sawing furiously a haute volume by the final crashing chord of “Hall of the Mountain King”; everyone’s grinning at the end. When you’re actively engaged in the production of music, you hear it in a completely different way: from the inside out, as opposed to hearing a smooth unified product. The complexities and the various musical lines all become clearer, and I appreciate them more. Playing “pops” is redeeming them for me, somehow.

The only drawback is that we play Grieg over and over, faster and faster, and when I sat down this morning to practice, I couldn’t because my fingers were too tender. Looks like I’ll have to work on my calluses.

Defending The Stand

Thanks to my circle of friends who bought me the Uber-Music-Stand last summer for my birthday, I am happily equipped for home practice and concerts. No one, I thought, would ever have a stand like mine. (Mainly because no one else would be enough of a loon to cart the six-ton thing around. But I digress.) Solid and sturdy, with a beautiful shiny black desk that folds out to both sides, creating space enough to lay out an entire string quartet if I so desired. Adieu, page turning! Of course, adieu to page turning at home, not at concerts; we’re usually packed in like little musical sardines, so there’s no room for my Uber-Stand to achieve its full wingspan in public.

Well, at our last concert, I set up my Uber-Stand and went downstairs to stash my coat. When I came back, a second violinist was walking away with it.

“Hey! Hey!” I said. “That’s my stand!”

We argued about it for a moment, then I convinced her that it was mine and off she went in a bad mood to locate hers, which she had just bought. (Someone had put it behind the door. Go figure.) So, with my beloved Uber-Stand back in my possession, I then and there resolved to find some way to identify it as mine forever and ever.

As of yesterday, I now have sparkly Harry Potter Hedwig owly stickers to put on it in a relatively inconspicuous place. Heck, I’ve had one on my laptop since I got it; why shouldn’t I put some on my music stand too?

No one will try to claim it as theirs now. No, sir.

Ow

My right wrist has been inflamed for a couple of days, and it hurts when I type or use my mouse. I just finished editing a thirty-page document that was time-sensitive and a pleasure to edit, but I’m now pretty useless for most of the things I usually do, like typing, writing, and playing the cello.

Yesterday, I heard that a friend got a light tablet and stylus to use in place of a mouse, and it’s an attractive thought. So’s an ergonomic keyboard at this point. I’m using a rolled-up towel to rest my wrist on, but the mouse keeps bumping into it. After I post this I think I’ll take a walk, which requires no wrist work at all.

I’ve been seized with the extremely odd desire to write verse lately. Not that I’m being inspired with poetry, I just want to be writing it. This is extremely frustrating.

I slept for ten hours last night. I think I’m officially back on track.

Coveting Electric

See, it’s times like this, when it’s quarter to one in the morning (oh, lord), when I wish that I had one of those silent Yamaha electric cellos, so I could plug in a set of earphones and practice without waking anyone up.

Two AA batteries not included, of course. And you have to supply your own headphones. But I’d never have to worry about people kicking my cello on the bus again, or fielding dumb comments about the big guitar that I’m carrying, now, would I.

Carrying an amp around with me might be problematic, though. I already have enough trouble with the full-size classic acoustic cello and a music stand.

New Music

So, orchestra last night, and we got new music (a necessity, since we handed back all the old stuff after that smashing concert). We’re doing the Peer Gynt suite, Haydn’s Military symphony, and Beethoven’s Prometheus overture. Not bad – at least, nothing I looked at and went “eep!” at tenor clef or evil sixteenth note passages by an idealistic pianist. (Okay, the Mendelssohn might have gone well at the concert, but that doesn’t mean I’m not bitter about the months of failure before that.)

My old stand partner and I were the only two cellists there last night, which meant that (a) we occupied the first and second chairs, and (b) we got to be stand partners again, which I’ve really missed. It was slightly harrowing, because we were sight-reading things we’d never seen before, but we pulled it off really well, expect for one place in the Haydn where we had a three-bar compressed rest whose numeral looked like an eight.

All in all, a spectacular night, and we were pretty damn proud of ourselves. Two celli holding their own against twenty violins, a wind section and some violas. There were places where we were supposed to play divisi, too, which is where half the celli play one part and the other half play the second part. With only two instruments, of course, that means one of you is carrying an entire line on your own. We pulled it off, and were heard. Go us.

And I wrote 2,693 words of the Great Canadian Novel yesterday afternoon when Ceri came over to work. I am wonderful. Yay me!

Now I must scurry to work through the – snow? Argh!

April 2003 Concert Review

I had an absolutely smashing concert last night, attended by friends whom I hadn’t known were going to be there. Apart from not being thrilled about half the selection of music, I enjoyed myself immensely. It was decided that rather than using the traditional concert seating, the viola section and the cello section should switch, putting the violas on the outside and the cello players between them and the wind players in the centre. I think it worked quite well, and I hope we stick with it.

I know I’ve complained about the Mendelssohn for months, but it came off beautifully. Pretty much everything did; there were no major or minor disasters, although the music was technically challenging. The pieces were mostly crowd-pleasers, and the audience certainly seemed pleased. I’m pleased to say that the only place I lost my focus was in the Brahms Hungarian Dances.

During a concert, I’m living in the moment to such an extent that it’s always a surprise when it’s over. Now I’m stuck humming the last piece on the program (Strauss, who’s not my favourite composer by a long shot, damn it all), defiantly pleased that I can pack away most of the music, sad to leave other pieces (such as the overture to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which I have always adored; playing it in concert fulfilled one of my life-long dreams). It was an enjoyable evening, followed by coffee and doughnuts at our place and a darned good sleep.

I wonder what we’ll be playing next, for the Canada Day concert.

My private seminar on Friday night was lots of fun, too. Whenever I teach a basic class, I wonder if I’m just rehashing stuff they already know, but I’m always told that no, I’m filling in blanks and connecting dots for them and they’re terribly grateful for being shown the whole picture. I suppose I lose perspective a bit, having studied all this for eight years or so. Anyway, lots of fun, yummy food and wine, and we’ll definitely do it again. Also on the class-subject, some of my current Saturday morning students have asked me to put together a meditation class for them. I feel a fuzzy inside when things like this happen – you know, sort of, “You like me! You really like me! And you evidently think that I’m a good teacher!” I also appear to be inspiring students to create their own one-session workshops to share with other students, which flatters me beyond belief. I never, ever thought that I’d be An Example someday. Never. Now I feel like I have to live up to it, somehow. Okay, yes, evidently I believe that I’m a passable teacher, or I wouldn’t keep on doing it; but a compliment like this always surprises me, for some reason.