Lesson 121 - New year & study; Duport Etude 2

It's the first lesson of the year and I'm still taking it slow; mostly getting used to thumb position from a new angle and no flat fingers which was what I was previously doing.

Deryn wanted me to get used to being comfortable and familiar with the thumb position before enforcing the "no collapsed fingers" rule as the horrible discomfort was the plight that she had to go through when she was younger which then created additional bad habits to form to accommodate the distress.

Since the thumb position needs a whole new regime of muscle memory reprogramming, also including a "proper" curved hand shape to the technique will push the learner towards information overload.

Now that I'm more or less comfortable and familiar with playing and shifting to the high registers, I can now focus more on not collapsing my fingers here.

From the looks of it, my thumb still needs conditioning for a healthy callus to form. A more regular routine of the rubbing alcohol and moisturiser / vaseline combination after each practise should encourage this though now it's just a matter of reminding oneself to do it. Deryn suggests placing the alcohol and vaseline combo right where I practise so I don't forget. A great advice :}



Etude 2 starts at 9:01

Deryn also suggested a new study to support the new pieces I've been given recently - Duport Etude No. 2 in F minor for cello and continuo, a duet we could play together as it's been quite a while since we've done that. We also took a look at 2 and 3 octave scales to prepare myself for the study which has large position changes and arpeggios; a stamina piece, if you will.


And now, a luscious rendition of Johannes Brahms' Feldeinsamkeit by Karmen Pečar and Srebrenka Poljak.