That went well!

When we last left our cellists, we were prepping for the end of year recital, and I was feeling neutral about my piece, which was about as good as I could feel when I’d been working on it with no guidance for four or five months. The last two lessons were full of things going wrong (everything falling apart is an important part of the constructive process, I know, but it’s no fun when it happens and certainly not seven to ten days before a performance, because reconstruction and mental rewiring usually takes longer than that), and my rehearsal with the accompanist was mostly a disaster with a couple of acceptable patches. By that point I had pretty much accepted that whatever happened happened, and as long as I muddled through it and came out somewhat alive then I’d be okay with it. Now, that’s a huge step forward for me, because usually I worry and worry and worry. This time, I knew that I’d had months off, and if my performance reflected that, well then, that was fair. I was also more concerned about Sparky, who was being more sensitive than usual about performing his piece. (If such a thing is possible, because he angsts about it every time.)

Sparky played second, and he did very well indeed, keeping a steady rhythm and remembering to keep a high third and fourth finger so that his F# and G were in tune, and to reach back to get his E in tune as well. He played a pre-Twinkle piece called “The Little Mouse,” which ends in a squeaky bit played on the string between the bridge and the tailpiece that he just loves to do. I was near the end, and I went in with pretty much zero expectations. I wasn’t entirely happy with how thin the sound was at the beginning, but around the third line of the first page things kind of clicked and I sailed through all the trouble spots and even sounded good. If I ever see the video I’m sure I’ll be embarrassed at how incredulously thrilled I looked at the end when I’d done and I looked at both my teacher and my accompanist.

So that’s the end of Suzuki book 3. Due to both my and my teacher’s schedules we can’t fit in another lesson this month, and we’re both taking the summer off, so that’s it till September. Now I get to start working on book 4 and the Breval sonata, which I played in its entirety with my first teacher; it was my first public recital piece, in fact. And I get to do some swotting up on the orchestra pieces, since the Canada Day concert is in only two weeks.