Redeeming Practice

Last night I had a redeeming practice.  The kind of practice where at the end I said to myself "maybe I won't chop this cello into small pieces after all".

I shared my struggles with my dad.  His advice was to focus more on the notes and rhythm. He is also a bass player in a blues/rock band out of Denver CO.  Prior to that he studied classical guitar for 15+ years.  So of course his advice is going to be to focus on the rhythm.

I told my instructor during my last practice that I was getting frustrated with the tone and inability to produce solid notes on the attack (is that what we call it in the cello world?  When I played trumpet the attack was the beginning of the note--try to hit it right and stay with it.  Don't hunt for the right tone, hit it right away).  What I heard my instructor tell me was that as I get more comfortable with the other things, like bow hold, bow speed, arm movement, those problems will diminish.

During last night's practice I didn't worry about the tone and just focused on getting the notes and rhythm.  Remembering back to the last lesson, and last weeks practice, I remember being so anxious about getting the right notes to play at the right time that the rest of me tensed up (like my right hand).  Then my right arm started looking like how a robot would play the cello, not smooth, round and leading into the next note as it should.  But last night after an hour of getting more comfortable with the notes (and ignoring the awful tone I was making) I could then start to think about the rest of my playing.  It was kind of a light-bulb moment for me.  I don't know if any of this is the right way to learn or practice but it made sense to me and seems to work.  I know I'm still not practicing as much as I want to but I'm doing the best as I can being a working adult.  After fighting through each exercise last night I forced myself to go through them all again once and it was much easier to then think about things like bow grip, arm movement, etc, now that I had committed the notes to muscle memory.

I met another programmer at church this past Sunday who is also an adult beginner cello player.  He taught himself over the last 1 1/2.  When I asked him why he picked the cello he said because it's highly technical, difficult and he needs a challenge in his life (like marriage and a kid aren't challenging enough?).  Which is funny because those are basically the same reasons why I started on the cello.  I wanted something to focus my extra time and energy on.  Something productive and sometime in the very distant future play with other musicians.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to practice tonight but my wife is already starting a list of things for me to do tonight so not sure how much time I'll have. Next lesson is on Thursday. Looking forward to practicing still!