The Cellist’s Journey #4 Life with Practice

If you've been following the previous episodes, you've heard me talk about taking the step into making the cello a part of your life in the first place, which things you should acquire before you're ready to start, and on the topic of finding a cello teacher.

This trajectory has now led you to your first cello lesson, and you find yourself at home the day after the lesson and you think "What now?"

That's what today's episode is about.

One of the benefits of being an adult when you start playing the cello is that you are aware of the value of practice, and you are able to find a structure that works for you and that makes sense to you. You also remember what you did the previous days.

I think many of us who started learning when we were children, have few recollections of our cello practice for the first few years.

As children, we were so much in the moment and if our parents didn't encourage us to take out our cello, we might not even have been aware that there was a cello in the house. When we did unpack it, we didn't have a clear idea of what we were doing or why.

As an adult, you have an accumulated well of knowledge from your life experience that you can utilize when it comes to your cello practice.

You have been learning for decades already, and you have an idea about how important it is for you to read about the thing, watching demonstrations of the thing, actually doing the thing, and reflecting on the thing.

Some are more on the doer side and they throw themselves into the thing, while others feel safer after first having read about it or watched other people do it for a while.

Cello playing is mainly something that we do. In my teaching I've seen how people vary when it comes to jumping into it or standing on the shore dipping a toe into it.

Some are scared of making anything sound, and the cello can produce quite a level of volume.

Some are scared of sounding bad, and so they play very hesitantly and stop immediately when they make a sound that they dislike.

There can be some childhood conditioning underlying all of this.

Some think that they are not musical, some are even told as children that they are not musical, and they are almost waiting for the moment in their cello practice when this fact is yet again proven.

A lack of self-confidence is in this case a big barrier.

Some are simply not used to being immersed in a creative activity, and the power of it can be daunting.

Playing the cello is also something that will make you drop tension in your body, in order for the arms to weigh down on the cello and the bow instead of holding anything up, as well as freeing up your breathing and ideally also letting go of tension in the neck and the forehead. This can be challenging for people who carry a lot of tension in their body on an everyday basis.

I'm just saying all of this because you can from the very beginning observe if any of these descriptions fit you, and you can therefore be aware of it from the start.

It's much easier to work with something when there is awareness around it.

All of that being said,

now imagine that you are at home, or wherever you will practice, you have a chair that is high enough to give you at least an angle of 90 degrees between your hips and your thighs, you have unpacked, and you're trying to remember what the cello teacher showed you yesterday, or the day before that.

Maybe your teacher gave you clear instructions and you know what to do. That's great.

And if it's all a bit vague, you can of course contact them and ask.

What I would say to a student reaching out to me with that question is the following:

Start with the bow only.

Take it out of it's case, tighten the hair, and hold it vertically so that the tip is pointing at the ceiling.

Feel the middle finger on the metal of the frog, or maybe it's halfway on metal and bow hair, or only on the bow hair. There are different preferences when it comes to this. Place the other fingers as they naturally are, as if you're holding a small glass of water. Don't flex any of the joints.

How are you breathing right now?

We find that as soon as we start to concentrate on something, we stop breathing.

So check in with yourself briefly and see if you want to breathe just a little deeper, and when you exhale you can let go of the tension in your forehead that usually also comes when we concentrate on something. Even when we focus on holding the bow, it's amazing how much of the rest of our body can tense up.

Now, while you're holding the bow, stretch out all your fingers as if you're writing a short line in the ceiling with the bow tip. Then bend your fingers, without moving your wrist.

Do this exercise a few times so that you warm up your bow hold and feel a little more connection between your fingers and the frog.

Then, put your bow down on the music stand or a table or somewhere else, and get your cello out.

If you don't have a carpet or wooden floor to support the spike of the cello, also get your strap out. Whatever you have to strap around the front left leg of the chair. Sit towards the edge of the chair. Lay the cello over your thighs and adjust the length of the spike, or end pin.

Place the cello in front of you so that the tuning peg of the c string is just behind your ear. Your left ear. Adjust the length of the end pin if needed. Tilt the cello a tiny bit towards your right, so that when you look down you don't see your left leg at all.

Now you can tune your cello. I won't go into the ways of doing that here, but I have a video on it in my online course.

As a beginner, all of the above can take several minutes already. But it will take less time as you continue your practice. You'll get used to how long the spike should be when you're sitting on the chair you use at home. You'll also get used to positioning the cello in front of you, and there will be less tuning needed as your cello stabilizes.

After your cello is tuned, you can spend some quality minutes on playing open strings.

Then you can give your bow arm a rest, and get a feel for how it's like to press down the strings with your left hand. Without the bow, you can focus entirely on the sensations that come with pressing down the strings, without worrying about playing out of tune.

When you want to play with both hands at the same time, I suggest you start with a glissando. That's when your bow is moving evenly on the string while you press down a string with a finger and move up and down on the fingerboard.

There are no wrong notes in a glissando. You can vary which string, which finger, how fast, how slow, how loud and how quiet. So there is an element of improvisation to this as well, without it being too daunting.

If you've come this far in your practice, I say take a short break.

Lay the cello on its side on the floor, get up from your chair, take a sip of water, and see if you feel like rolling your shoulders or shaking your hands or anything else.

Then you can get back to the cello. Maybe you were given a simple tune consisting only of open strings, or maybe you were given a piece consisting of pizzicato.

Whatever you have to practice, this is the time for that.

You can vary between playing through from beginning to end, and repeat just one bar. You can use a metronome if you like, and remember to at least once check in with how you're breathing again.

When you feel your focus is waning, it's time to finish.

With a cloth, wipe rosin off the stick of your bow, and the strings and belly of the cello. I also like to wipe the whole fingerboard, since everything we touch regularly becomes greasy after a while.

Loosen the bow hair, and put your instrument back in its case, which is usually the safest place to keep it.

What you are doing with this type of practice is to lay the foundation of your technique. It's easier to play a piece of music when you're used to playing open strings.

When it comes to using the left hand on the fingerboard, first check if you're able to adjust your intonation by ear.

If that's just frustrating, you can put tapes around the neck similar to the frets on the guitar. That's something that your teacher can help you with, or you can try yourself with the help of a tuner.

Aside from the 'what' in regard to cello practice, there's also the 'when'.

You can try to schedule in a short cello practice in the early morning, after lunch, or in the evening, and see what you prefer.

A practice session only once a week will not propel your progress forward at a satisfying pace. Try every other day, or three to five days a week.

There's also a 'why' in regard to your practice.

Answering the 'why' for yourself can give you some clarity in your work.

If your goal is to play a specific piece of music, it makes sense to focus on the foundational technique in order to build skills that will allow you to eventually play this piece. Being clear with what your goal is can be an energy source and inspiration in itself.

In the end, the whats, whens, wheres and whys are all personal choices and preferences.

The beauty of cello practice is the unique way in which you will develop a relationship to your cello playing, based on your personality, your life experiences, your goals and desires.

But anyway, now that we know how to get started with our practice, what shall we play?

That's what I'll say a little bit about in the next episode.

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