March 2015 Update

I have finished Francis Grant's 3rd book.  My instructor has me working out of "Position Pieces for Cello" by Rick Mooney.  Right now I am working on the 4th position exercises and the 3rd movement to Breval's "Sonata in C".

I have the best instructor EVER.  He does a great job of balancing real life with cello.  He knows I am doing this for fun but pushes me just enough to get me to make progress.  He is underpaid.

During my last lesson one of the things we worked on is continuous motion.  I was working on the Bb major scale but pausing between the shifts.  We spent about 15 minutes working through why and how to overcome it. 

One of the exercises in the Mooney book has me shifting from 4th to first.  He showed me that by emphasizing a little on the up bow during a string crossing I can gain the momentum to shift in time.  It blew my mind when it worked.

Right now I am going back to school to finish my B.S. degree.  I am working full time, commuting, running a household, a marriage, and taking 3 classes online simultaneously.  Actually it's just 2 classes but one of them is an 8 week class so it's twice as much work.  Again, my instructor is patient with me when I come in for my bi-weekly lesson I've only practiced 4 times.  Without asking, he detects that I didn't practice much so he pulls out a duet that we sight-read and work through.  Did I mention he is underpaid?

Finally, last night we went to a bar that had live Irish music (St. Patrick's day is celebrated in America on March 17).  The violinist went through both of her bows in the first set.  Someone in the crowd (a friend maybe?) happen to live nearby and happen to have a violin bow.  I saw the lady in the crowd hand the bow over to the violinist.  We happen to be standing next to her a little bit later.  I commented to her that violinist is shredding her bow.  She told me the story.  I asked if she played and it turns out she is a cellist and plays locally.  She also plays violin--which is why she had the bow to lend to the performer that night.  She said the violinist had her bows re-haired last week and then during the first set of performance they both failed.  I told her I played and we chatted a bit.  That was just so freaking cool to be able to talk to someone like that.