Today I practiced cello to my heart’s content.   After the last class, I got some new songs:  1) Take My Life and Let It be  2) For Unto Us a Child is Born  (from Handel’s Messiah)  3) Pathetique Sonata Op. 13 2nd Movement Solos  (one would have heard of it; here’s a piano version) 4) Hatikvah

The first two songs are hymns which I am very familar with.  The third one is a Beethoven’s song; the last one – I had no clue what it sounded like.  So I searched on the internet for Hatikvah (or Ha Tikvah, which means The Hope in Hebrew).  Then I realized it’s the national anthem of Israel.  I listened to it once (a man performed this with his mouth making a trumpet sound).  Then I tried to play the hymns and Hatikvah.

I used to think if I play better if I know the melody line well.  Today I discovered that’s not always the case…. to my surprise.

Tone-wise, Hatikvah came out best.  It came out fine even the first attempt.

My conclusion of the day:  For my cello, either I get it, or I don’t.  I am not a true musician.

I was quite pleased with myself, until I saw this… 

Fingers hurt…. argh!!!

p.s. my lovely hubby applied some WD40 to the cello’s fine tuners – they’re not so tight anymore – sweeeeet. 

It’s been a while since I wrote about my cello lessons.  I have been “progressing” SSSSSLOWLY.  Sometimes I felt like I was getting somewhere, yet in the class I played really badly.  Last week – my single takeaway exercise was to “make the strings resonate”.  What a blow… but I really need to do that.

Last class, my practice piece was Scherzo by C. Webster (melody style ABA).  It has a busy (étude-like) first part, a meno mosso expressive second part, and it closes with the busy notes again.  The middle part was my main course (hungry…) – it has a bit of shifting and it covers 2nd/4th positions.  As usual, my fingering is all over the place (I keep playing notes that marked with the number “2″ with my index finger… sigh!!).  But that’s not the main problem.  I’ve transcribed the melody to solfège names and my teacher reacted greatly to that.  He said I was cheating.  I was supposed to play by the letter, not by the solfège syllable.  I told him that’s how I sing, and he absolutely hates it.  Honestly, sometimes in the class, he’d ask me to play a note (by the letter, like a F#) and I would totally look like an idiot and my response would be so retarded and he might have thought that I was evening-dreaming or I simply turned deaf.  When I play, I play the melody.  I rarely map the note to the Music Letter in my head (tho I roughly map the note to the note on music, but not the letter of the note).  I don’t work the Letter system when I play.  I won’t say don’t work with it “at all” but I’m far better with the solfège system.  This is going to be a BIG adjustment – perhaps a barrier for me to cross if I want to move further.  Argh!!!

Anyways, my solfège system’s busted now.   DXXX!

My two most recently favourite subjects – cello and Korean.  The korean words in the title of this post mean – let’s start!

I have had my first lesson learning cello vibrato tonight.  (I can’t tell you how happy and exciting I am right now…  … … ! !! !!!)

I will practice this with my hymn song (exercise from last lesson)- Amazing Grace (which I need definitely).  Did I mention I nag my teacher to give me some hymns in cello?  So I got a couple hymns last time, and there I need to work on shifting and extensions.   Now, vibrato is added.  Ah, don’t forget swelling.

And since I am so new on this technique, I can’t tell you how I am going to do vibrato - wait till I am natural and confident…  one day…

Yeeha!!!

Soler recently came to Toronto as special guests for a talent quest organized by the local Fairchild Media at Wonderland.  I didn’t go to that event as my hubby wasn’t interested.  I caught their TV interview after tho.

I remember Soler (I even spelt their name wrong initially at the writing of this post as ‘Solar’ – execuse me…) as a music band of twin brothers who don’t look too oriental but had made their Hong Kong music debut couple years ago, and they’re quite fluent in Cantonese.  They seem to be a band with certain real music talents – I think they write and compose their own songs.  I think they both sing.  And they both play some music (instruments) (and now I think only Dino plays guitar during performances – hey but I could be wrong…).  Their first album were released in Europe but I think their ideal music style didn’t jive with the European market.  Having an edge on language, they got notice and acceptance since their HK debut.  Since I read HK newspaper (sometimes), I notice them as well.

I quite like their remake of the “Season of the Wind” (風的季節) (original singer Paula Tsui (徐小鳳)).  Quite nicely done – very rhythmatic and flowing.

For their other info, you can search on the web.  I just wanted to state one thing.  I used to think they look identical.  I used to think only really close friends would be able to tell who’s who.  But after watching the TV interview, I think I can tell them apart.

First, their voices are different.  If you listen to their conversation, you’ll notice the difference.  Julio, the elder brother, has a deeper voice.  Also, their speech tempo is different.  Dino speaks faster.  (I hate to say, I think during the interview, Dino made a mistake in describing Paul Wong (黃貫中) (another die-hard rock / music maker in HK).  But this mistake could be due to Dino’s Cantonese understanding as well…  He said Paul’s speech is sometimes 好浮誇.  Perhaps he really meant 好誇 instead of 好浮誇?  Or may be it’s my lack of understanding of the latest slang…  anyway.)   The two brothers sound different.

Second, they actually look different.  Their eyes are different.  Julio looks more mature.

If I only see one of them, not both side-by-side, would I be able to distinguish them? … … …  Hm.  I may, but not too sure. 

Soler, good luck with your music endeavor.   I wish you happiness and may your dreams come true. 

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!!!

Starting the class after next, I’ll change my cello schedule from weekly to every 2 weeks. This will give me more practice time before the lesson. Hopefully I won’t be feeling so “beat up”. Last class I told my teacher, “Somehow I played this song better at home …” and my teacher said, “I heard that from every other students. HHm!” I was just telling the truth.

I have started doing shifting. It’s less mystical than I originally thought. The technique is not very unnatural for me – I find it quite easy to do – but that’s probably because I don’t care if I am right on the note now – and the note after I shift isn’t too much off from the other notes I play normal… sometimes it’s dead on, sometimes it’s a little off. (That says a lot about how “well” I play.) :X

This week’s exercises 1) G major scales – 2 octives (with shifting on the last 3rd note) 2) the first half of Minuet No. 3 by J. S. Bach.

My confidence index (out of 10): 2.

This week, I would definitely blame the lab technician who drawn blood from both of my arms yesterday, and gave me one bruised right arm, and 2 red pea-sized needle marks on my left arm. I practiced for 20 minutes today and my arms and left shoulder were tired already. I bet my teacher can’t say “I heard that…” anymore – yay!

As I predicted, I had a waterloo-like class tonight.  It was a disaster.

Out of the 2 exercises, I could only play one song – the easier one – Minuet in C, and not The Happy Farmer.

And even with just one song, I didn’t get a pass.

Furthermore, I get a repeat on Minuet No. 2. 

And I won’t contest.

Feeling down now.

This week’s exercises:  Minuet in C by Bach and The Happy Farmer by Schumann!

I think I set myself up for failure by asking me teacher for 2 songs this week.  I am just recovered from a cold and I haven’t touched my cello for 5 days.

If I pass these songs, then I will be done with The Suzuki Volume 1.  My teacher said Volume 2 is too difficult for me now so he will be teaching me some other songs first before going into the next book.  I would probably start to do some scales. 

Question for experienced cellist:  what are the pre-requisites for playing vibratos and gliding please?  My teacher said these are beyond my abilities and I want to know what do I need to master first before I can start practicing for vibrato and gliding (actually is this the right word - gliding – sliding your finger on a string for some distance?)

This made my 11th cello class and my first class with my Sandner (my new cello!).  I can’t tell you enough how pleased I am with my Sandner. 

I preferred Etude to Rigadoon.  Etude has very nice drops to the G string and I deliberately played the base notes “longer” (by 1/16 time longer).  (No I was just exaggerating; I was just enjoying my base notes.)  A flute teacher was standing outside my classroom and he was applausing (via the tiny peek window) after I played Etude to the teacher.   :)  But hey… my teacher said, “he didn’t know how long you’ve played…” so perhaps he was making (oh “save me”) faces while I was playing, and just be “courteous” when i turned over to look at this “guest” – I noticed my teacher was looking at the peek window and making lip speech while I was playing…  perhaps I shouldn’t be overly excited.

Anyway, my next song will be Minuet No.2 by J.S.Bach – hey!  This is a nice song.  This is my first song playing over 3 strings in a bar.  I was afraid that my notes wouldn’t be on so I hesitated, and that broke the flowing phrase quite badly.

This is also my first song playing slurs, my first song playing two subsequent notes apart more than one string, and my first song having 2 up-bows on the same note with a slur – which is a stop bow after each note.  I first thought it’s going to be played with one up bow, then a quick circle-back and make another up bow with the same note.  So I asked the teacher how it would be transcribed on the music score if that’s what the composer intented.

Do you know?

I had my 10th cello class last week.   

The weekly exercise:  my first two songs playing with the middle finger (in cello, this is called the second finger (BTW, the first finger is the index finger – this is the “first finger” after the thumb that plays on a string) - Rigadoon, and one song is the first that plays over all four strings - Etude.

This week I didn’t have any because my teacher was sick.  Now then what do I do?  Hubby and I planned to bring the new cello to the class for assessment…. the new cello has to be returned this Saturday – would I be able to get an extension?