Lesson 115 - Full string contact

During lesson, I brought up bow contact, specifically maintaining a full one on the string going down and up. I've been focusing mostly on trying to get a good solid sound with mostly Bunting's bow regime and Feuillard's grand detache exercises. Those ones are really fun to do when no one is around or if you think no one is listening. Otherwise, it's a real earache to those unfortunate enough to be within hearing distance. Besides, the hot metal on butter effect after a few bars of those is really satisfying.

One thing I have been noticing - oh who am I kidding, it's been happening since day 0 - is my constant slipping on the A string; as if the fingerboard is suddenly super slippery there. It depends though, on whether I was paying full attention to what I was doing or I am distracted with other things - like reading the notes or dynamics.

Deryn says I should think of my strengths as well as improving on my weaknesses. This way, I won't be too bogged down by the negatives which may deter me from practising. I never thought of this approach. I mean, it makes sense! I've always thought of my strengths as something in the background, supporting whatever weakness I wanted to focus on during a practise session. For some reason, I've never thought of making it a foreground thing - if that makes any sense.

Anyway, Deryn sent me away with some of Mat Lidstrom's warm ups including slow vibrato exercises, playing on different fingers on the same note, with dynamics in mind. The point was to condense as many techniques into a single exercise for efficient practise time but keep the focus strong per exercise, for example; bunting bow regime, one octave asc or desc slurred, with dynamics (p to f).

Before lesson ended, Deryn asked me to play a one octave scale as loudly as I could muster, close to the bridge.

Mezzo forte was ever going to be my loudest on this cello. If I pushed, I could just barely make a scratchy Fortissimo and my balance was completely off during this acrobatic move. Looking at my sitting position, Deryn asked if I was able to get up and leave. This, I could. I was then asked to repeat this movement 5 times and play the same scale. Lo and behold, due to being in a much better balanced sitting position (the attack position), the notes played sounded louder!

And then the crux of it all - Deryn hinted that it was possibly time for a new bow. Something I've been putting off for quite a while now (months and months it seems) so Deryn let me borrow her Jon Paul Legacy until I was able to get a new one. Playing this bow, I was again struck by how different and superior it felt to wielding my current L.G.Chen student bow. One could say a better bow forces you to work with it to get the desired sound and a bad bow merely prolongs the plateau.