Lesson 106 - Relearning the cello

It's 3 years now since beginning this wonderful cello adventure. How time flies! Guess I must be having fun :}

And as tradition goes, at least for me after a long plateau, I find that I'm relearning the cello from the beginning. "It doesn't take much to stop a string." An advice from Deryn that has been said on many, numerous occasion which finally clicked at home during practise, literally today.

I finally understood what it means to just let go of the pressure in the left arm and by doing this, realised I was depending far too much on my left and not my right bowing arm. How odd! And now I find myself relearning the cello all over again and searching for that balance of weight and power from the back, from above and over the cello.

Despite this new frustration, playing now has not left me with the usual pain on the left arm and it seems no longer do I grip the fingerboard like I used to.

Another new addition to Gracie is the lupin-x to eliminate her wolf. The wolf that I've been refusing to acknowledge as it was a rather nice novelty not to have one on a cello. No idea why I find the eliminator as superfluous jewellery adorned on the cello or maybe I was hoping Gracie wasn't flawed / cursed by the moonlight. But no matter how hard I try, there the wolf was - howling away on the F#.

In any case, Deryn fitter the eliminator when she noticed the wolf and Gracie is now singing away again. Whilst doing so, I casually remarked at how wonderful that her cello, Nina, was not fitted with one at which point Deryn pointed to a small, inconspicuous dot on the right side of her belly. A Krentz wolf eliminator! Like a beauty mark, one could hardly make it out on Nina's dark, mahogany body. She then showed me the different sounds it could produce by moving it around the cello body, what a marvel of tech and nature.



Currently, I find myself enthralled watching the live webcast of The XV International Tchaikovsky Competition courtesy of medici.tv, you can watch it too here - http://tch15.medici.tv/en/live/cello. So many talented musicians with such a variety of interpretations and instruments from stradivarius to a modern 2012 cello, wish they all won the grand prize and not just a select few.

Hmm, suddenly it occurs to me that I don't know what the grand prize is. Oh, how grand if the grand prize went to the cellist with the modern 2012 cello :}

Also, what's with the token lady in the jury? Surely there are plenty qualified female cellists out there to choose from!