I'm frustrated.
I feel like my fingers have progressed further than my bow arm. Does that make sense? Essentially, I can do all sorts of things with my left hand that just isn't being supported by the tone I can make.
And I'm not quite sure how to practise that bit.
It's funny how all the areas of cello playing that I find the hardest, are the ones that came to me relatively naturally in flute playing. I somehow managed to get a good full sound on flute, not that breathy horrible, spitty sounding thing I hear sometimes, even in professional orchestras.
But how do I transfer that clarity of sound to this giant wooden box with strings I've decided to learn?
Is it slow bow practise? Is it listening…? But what am I meant to be doing while listening? Or what?
I feel a bit stuck. I normally have an idea of how to fix something – I just happen to not quite do enough of it. But I really don't know. I've been practising like mad lately, so it's not that. Though I've been doing mad hyperventilation orchestral part practising, not necessarily the most tone-focussed practise I've ever done.
A small part of me is freaking in the back of my mind – can I ever make a nice noise?
Elaine Fine
17 November 2008 at 12:50 pm
Have courage Erin. The muscles that you use for flute playing (the ones that help you make a nice sound) are muscles that you use all the time when you talk, sing, eat, run, or even sleep. They have had a lifetime of development.
The development of muscles and the connections between nerve endings that go into string playing are not elements that you use (collectively, at least) in normal day-to-day activities, but through a lot of practicing over a significant number of years they will obey your desire to make a beautiful sound. One of these days you will hear your voice come out of your cello, and it will blow you away. You can't make it happen though, and there are no short cuts.
Now that I have been a string player for 15 or 16 years (making me a contemporary with a first year graduate student as far as technical ability is concerned), I have the kind of control of sound that I had on the flute after playing that for 5 years or so.
That is, unfortunately, the way it is. Flute playing comes easier than string playing, but string playing, for me, at least, offers a far richer musical experience, and it is really worth all the work and the time.
Erin
17 November 2008 at 2:49 pm
Oh Elaine, you are right, but you're also distressing me with these insane timescales! I know, I completely and utterly know, that cello playing is harder than flute playing. Definitely, no question there. It just constantly amazes me how different it is, as well. Which sounds obvious, but you know what I mean.
Sometimes it gets me down, not being able to communicate the way I can with the flute, with my cello. Eventually… I know.
Sallyfran
28 November 2008 at 2:28 pm
Dear Erin
I have been playing a little longer than you – four years – and also came to cello with experience of another instrument, in my case piano. My experience too was that I raced away (relatively speaking) with my left hand, at least in navigating the fingerboard, and found myself playing a lot of music with decent intonation but poor sound. I would say that my sound really started to improve after three and a half years, for you it may be quicker. For me, a lot of it was just getting the ‘feel’ of it over time but I was also provoked into a little breakthrough after coming out a of a lesson and sobbing with rage when, for the umpteenth time my teacher said disdainfully that I needed to be ‘in the cello’. I just couldn’t understand what she meant or what I needed to do but I spent pretty much the whole of the next week playing the first six notes of a piece over and over, experimenting with trying to make my arm more heavy and relaxed and with different bow speeds and listening to the sounds I was making. I can’t say that it transformed me overnight but it was the start of a process that did result in my sound becoming much more powerful and ‘true’. I am now craving a more juicy, dense, grown-up sound and get tiny glimpses of it coming through to tantalise me, but I suspect I need to get a decent vibrato as well as better bowing to deliver that, and that’s another story … Best wishes with your efforts,
Sal
Erin
1 December 2008 at 4:28 pm
Hi Sal,
Thanks for leaving that note… it’s good to hear it does come eventually with some work. Sometimes it feels so intangible it’s hard to believe you can practise to make it happen. I’m finding that my vibrato is coming slowly but surely, and now that I’ve got the mechanics right I’m just choosing to let it happen when it happens outside of practising it a bit in my warm-up.
Best…
–Erin