Exactly a week ago tonight, I had my 16th cello class.

Exactly a week ago, I changed my cello class schedule to every two weeks.

Then I haven’t touched my cello since last class, thinking, “Great, now I have 2 weeks’ time to practice…” Guess what…. I just had an half-hour practice today – first after the last class… I wasted one week!

My homework for next class is:

1) G arpeggio 2-octives – wow this is fun – starting on the C string playing G! The fingering is super cool.

2) Finish the entire Minuet #3 by J.S. Bach

My teacher was laughing at my shifting technique last week – seriously he’s laughing. He said when I shifted up, my first finger (i.e. index finger) was hurrying to reach the next note and my thumb was too slow. He said, “How would you know your position if your thumb’s not there? Your thumb is your anchor!” In my experience, I am not using my thumb as my anchor to know the fingering… I use my ears more to guide how much my hands should move… I guess I’m not too “mechanical” after all!

And I realize another thing (again): your treasure is someone’s garbage! In my experience, any song with a note playing on any open string is my best gift – I play open string notes best now. But my teacher told me, sometimes composers would deliberately change the fingering so a note is not played on open string. In first reaction was – WHY?!! Then my teacher said, “Composers esp those romantic ones would usually avoid open string.” I asked again, “WHY?!!” He then said, “It’s because they can’t manipulate open string notes.” Ah -coz they can’t put vibrato on open string. I got it (I got it myself! .. bragging… yes I am… hee hee) now.

I still love my open notes!!!