Lesson 105 - New Piece, Minsky's Train Whistle

Totally missed posting about the previous two lessons in May. I suppose I'm still getting used to the travel and waiting time during lessons to fully use it optimally. There is a narrow window of 5 minutes between arriving at the bus stop after a lesson and the bus turning up which seems rather consistent so this is probably the perfect moment to condense all thoughts about the lesson into a blog post.

Why couldn't I just write the post on the bus you say? Motion sickness. I suffer from terrible motion sickness, so much so I force myself to sleep during the journey just in case I feel the urge to throw up which, sadly happens more often than I like it to.

In any case, I've been noticing something rather unnerving happening to Gracie - a weird staining has begun to develop where the cello body rests on my chest during playing. Closer to something that resembles condensation more than anything else except it stays on until hours later when it dissipates and the varnish is back to its original form.

Deryn says it could be a few things; my unique combination of chemical make up reacting to Gracie, the clothes I'm wearing reacting to Gracie or even a combination of both. She's never seen anything like it so it's not something she can advice further on. The only thing I could think of were those strange bibs that cellists use when they play; I've always thought of them as strange and superfluous if it's to protect the cello from jewellery or friction from clothing but now I suppose it's to protect the instrument from something more nefarious - sweat! Or rather, strange reactive sweat from someone like me :/

Looks like it's time to use a bib or possibly just a black micro fibre cloth with a slit to fit through the neck of the cello.

We spent some time playing through some double stop exercises from the Grade 8 ABRSM book where we played through some broken chords of G Major (fingering for major 3rd interval is closed, minor is stretched) and explored the universal fingering for playing with and without open strings before heading to page 37 of Feuillard's Daily Exercises. There was a bizarre moment when my brain was totally disconnected from my fingers; it was obvious that I was to play a certain note but the finger just would not move to the right string.

Know where your fingers are - easier in theory, that's for sure!

Finally, it was time for Minsky's Train Whistle - possibly one of the most fun I've had on the cello ever. Looks and sounds deceptively easy but the piece is a perfect balance of challenge and fun. Oh so very fun.