Lately, 15 minutes is all the practice time I get. I set up the little monkey (who turned three months today, approximately) in his special baby chair next to me, out of reach of my bow but not in front of the cello, and launch into my scales.
I'm slowly making my way through my major two octaves, a few each time, aiming for even tone, seamless bow changes and a relaxed bow arm. I've always hated minor scales so I admit I'm leaving those until later. And the no open string scale fingering pattern can wait until I really feel like punishing myself.
When it comes to a piece, I'm adapting a writing technique described in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, what she calls the small frame, to practising music. For a writer, it's a way of avoiding that whole blank page staring back at you – you're to imagine a 4cm x 4cm frame and all you have to do is fill that frame. In cello practice, I'm using a small frame to block out that page full of black squidge I'm not ready to handle yet. Most recently, I only tackled the first two lines of the Vivaldi Sonata No.5, second movement. At a snail's pace. Things sounded slightly better, and I upped the tempo a couple clicks. Then the burbling going on beside me turned into a hiccuping wail, so that was the end of that!
