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Many buses, one late evening with the cello
It's ten to one in the morning and I've just gotten home. I drafted my friend and violist Jennifer and an incredible violinist from our orchestra to play for a friend who is recording an album. I wrote out the parts last week, and then tonight we did the recording.
It's funny, this isn't even the same thing I was posting about before, but something else entirely.
I was quite stressed about this, because a) I wrote out the parts when I was tired after work and my alto clef skills are limited at best and b) I've not done this before.
It's funny, because loads of the music I listen to that isn't classical is nowhere near virtuoso performance, and I enjoy that aspect of it. Lo-fi folk, loud and messy punk rock – I enjoy the sheer exuberance. But when it comes to cello, I consciously only listen to performers who are, essentially, some of the best cellists in the world, so it when it comes to recording tonight I was pretty much freaking out. The parts were dead simple, and virtuoso performance was not required as it will all be treated and processed anyway. Free musicians were required, so you know, he got us!
I reckon it's similar to my paranoia of speaking foreign languages. Growing up in Canada next to Quebec, my French is quite good. I can listen to people and pretty much know what's going on if it's a general conversation, I know how to order food and explain most simple things without looking like a fool. But yet I am terrified of saying anything unless I'm sure my grammar is flawless. Which is ridiculous because I talk to people all the time for whom English is not their first language and I excuse incredible lapses in grammar, including never bothering to conjugate verbs. I'd rather die and sink deep into the earth than speak French that way, but I excuse it in everyone else.
So when it comes to playing less-than-professional level cello as a favour to friend, why on earth would I think I have to be Slava to pull it off? Sheesh. As I said before, waiting until you're magically perfect is pointless. And will never arrive anyway. So whether I felt brave enough or not, I took a bloody beta blocker and did it anyway. First steps, my friends, first steps.
But… we recorded in this huge old insane asylum, and the man at the pub we went to afterwards thought we'd been recording with Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins as he lives around the corner from the asylum. Ha!
The reoccurring theme of non-impossibility
It was my first lesson in quite awhile this afternoon. Sometimes I go off the rails a bit when I haven't had a lesson for a bit, either not really concentrating when I'm practising or just, well, not really practising. That didn't happen this time, which is nice.
As you know, I've been working on the Bourée quite a bit, and I've made good progress. The tricky fingering passage is nearly there – as my teacher said today I need to stop thinking about the fingers because I can do it. I've got myself convinced it's Hard, so every time I come to it I sound 'uneasy', was the phrase he used.
So. The plan of action is to stop freaking out so much, essentially. I need to relax, give it a lighter touch. I am not as far from getting the hang of it as I thought.
Most importantly, I think, it doesn't feel impossible. Which is miles from where I was even two weeks ago.
Do the robot wave
Via Cello Geek I came across this great website by cello professor Jamie Fiste. There are some truly helpful videos there, as well as extensive articles about technique. At the moment, I'm trying to get the hang of vibrato and found this video had some hilariously named, and informative, exercises.
New and exciting, and sort of frightening
More than once I've held myself back because I think I'm not good enough to do something.
I remind myself of what my mum told me ages ago, about her experience in art school: 'It's not the people who were the best artists who succeeded, it's the ones who talked about themselves, who could talk about their art, and were willing to get out there. And often they weren't the best artists, but they're the ones who made it.'
The other week a friend asked me if I would record some music with her band, and possibly perform with them at some point. It's very electronic and would likely involve my sound being quite heavily processed. And I would love love love to do it. I picked up this instrument, and have stuck by it, because of my love for indie pop augmented by cellos as well as my love for Haydn and Bach.
There is a voice, squeaking at the back of my head: 'You are nowhere near good enough to do this. What do you think you're doing? YOU WILL MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF.'
But, as we all know, there is nothing gained by sitting around until you're magically perfect. And in a classical music land, I throw myself into all sorts of impossible situations and manage just fine (sight reading huge piles of new repertoire, spending an entire term as the only cello in the orchestra, picking up my flute for the first time in 10 years and playing Mozart 40 all come to mind).
So, here's to going forward and pretending everything is fine.
Lower strings hero
I don't often mention double bass. I don't play the thing, that's one reason. But considering in my amateur orchestra career I spend most of my time hearing: 'cellos and basses from bar 24…' You would think I would consider them more often.
But tonight I spent most of my time thinking about them, so maybe that will make up for it somewhat. I was at the Vortex watching Portico Quartet and their double bassist Milo Fitzpatrick is something else. Bowed notes, harmonics, pizz and a host of percussive tapping and banging that at one point takes over the entire rhythm section. The man is something to watch, I tell you. If you can in any way get to their shows coming up at Ronnie Scott's or the Purcell Room, do it. And make sure you can see Mr Fitzpatrick from your seat. (listen to Zavodoski Island to hear him in action, a song inspired by penguins and Sir Richard Attenborough if they weren't being cheeky tonight).
These lovely guys have been nominated for the Mercury Prize, so well done them. It's so refreshing to see some musicians just out of university going off and doing something different instead of yet another post-rock/indie/nu folk band. They can be brilliant, but enough already. Bring on the post-jazz and chamber pop I say.
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Two little memories brought to you by tonight’s Maestro
Moment number one: Made up words of O Fortuna…
Moment number two: In my local surgery last year, in the middle of an, ahem, rather intensely personal examination, the nurse started expounding on her love for Borodin, and how she hated the ENO's production of Kismet so much she walked out. (Granted this was after she found out where I work, Borodin didn't come up in random conversation).
And close one Alex! Whew.
Two Capuçons for the price of one
Discussing their recording of Brahm's Piano Quartets with Gérard Caussé and Nicholas Angelich. The cellists are always the coolest ones in the group aren't they?
In front of a live studio audience
Waiting in the foyer before being let into the studio for the live Maestro broadcast, yes those are my feet on the left
This week I watched Maestro from inside BBC Television Centre! Very exciting. I didn't get much of an insight, except for the good view I had of the contestants box while they watched their fellow students. It seems my early endorsement of Sue Perkins to win is starting to look like a shrewd prediction. Alex seems like a bit more of a baby in person it has to be said. I watched him chew the bulb end of his baton while watching someone else conduct. Yes, chew.
Anyway, much more thrillingly, let's talk about my rehearsal last night where I was again, the sole cello. I have to work so hard, and there is nowhere to hide. We're working on a string quartet of a composer I don't recognise (and I'm tired and can not face digging the music out of my cello case to tell you), but it's sorta early Beethoven era stuff, loads of repeated quavers while the violins do interesting things on top. That can get really tiring when you're feeling under pressure as the only one in a section. Thankfully the term is ending soon, or at least, I'm not coming after the first week in September.
I've joined a different orchestra to play flute with – and the rep I've been sent includes the Strauss Serenade for Winds, Beethoven's Symphony No.1 and the Don Giovanni Overture. Hmmm. This will be a bit of a massive gear shift from spending an entire year on the Mozart Clarinet Concerto (all 32 bars of the flute part). I'm wishing I'd joined with cello instead, but I'm not sure I can pull it off yet. I'll give it a term and see how the ensemble goes. This is a new group, so I'm loathe to lose a woodwind place as I'll probably never get it back – but I just don't feel in the right headspace as a flautist these days. It takes so much energy and attitude, and some days I just don't have it in me.
The Story of a Dog and his Insistent Need to Chew Things, or Disappearing Black Holes
Once upon a time we had two rubber black holes in our house. We kicked them over to the bookcase when we finished practising, or occasionally put them next to the television. When our orchestra performed in a church with slippery floors, we'd bring them with us.
One day, one of the black holes disappeared. Christopher assumed I left it at rehearsal, I assumed Christopher had squirrelled it away in his case. Around the same time we found some chunks of black rubber near the couch.
Two days ago, I heard Christopher say to Gusdog: 'No no no! That's not yours! Ohhh Gus, what have you done?''
I came rushing out of the loo to find Gusdog looking disappointed and Christopher looking pissed off, a completely disfigured black hole in his hand and black rubber chunks all over the floor.
To this day there has been no further trace of the first black hole.
