Lesson 19 - Disappointing your teacher

Today we started with a revision of backward stretches and went through Chapter 20 of Langin. Overall I was still not as familiar with the technique despite being rather comfortable and natural playing the exercises as a first attempt 2 weeks ago. This pattern of attaining and then grasping at the same technique seems to be a rather normal occurance, even expected, when learning the cello; frustratingly so. It is never the case of say, like riding a bicycle.

The thing that matters most is the mindset of the individual and if she has done enough preparatory exercises before even attempting the scales, much rather any etudes or studies.

This becomes apparent when performing for your teacher when fumbling occurs, intonation suffers and so on. No amount of, "But I sounded really good at home! I was in key and everything!" will convince yourself that you were even close to okay.

In my case, far from getting the "A STARS ALL ROUND!" when I first attempted all the exercises for backward stretches, I was the notorious Miss Fumbles with her signature bad intonation, clutching at the A string with her elbows tucked in as far as she could get away with it.

Things did get better when we played the exercise by Romberg as by then, I was plenty warmed up and the stretches felt more natural; I was playing it almost effortlessly. This is specifically thanks to Bunting's exercises which I have been utilising in my daily warm exercises, sometimes purely on their own, where I found that my left hand fingers have gained strength significantly.

We then proceeded to forward stretches of Chapter 21. I am to revise through all the exercises for next week.