Lesson 34 - Vibratos, George and the luthier

Today's lesson was all about the vibrato. For the whole of last week, I have experimented rather clumsily with vibrato, mostly trying to come to grips with performing it as natural and 'loosely' as possible and without tension. All with the aid of the preparatory exercises from the "Viva Vibrato" book and also from a few youtube videos of performing cellists and teachers explaining the method from their perspectives. There are many interpretations, all different yet similar at the same time. I mostly keep an open mind and not fully choose one method over another; rather getting a gist of the concept and then applying to what feels comfortable on the cello. I sort of have a rough grasp of what should be achieved but I do foresee this being another ongoing process as the body is still opposed to what feels natural on the cello.

With Deryn going through the exercises with me, I feel more confident that I am heading in the right direction albeit very, very slowly at first; my wrist being the bane of the process, trying its darndest to lead when it should not. I am also to practise the exercises even when away from the cello to condition my body. The exercises are all exaggerations of the method so that when you apply them to the cello, it feels like much less effort is needed to achieve a vibrato and hopefully by then, a lot easier.

Before we went any further, Deryn entrusts George, her Andreas Zeller cello to me. My yet unnamed cello needs to spend some time at the luthier's for some really needed adjustments; bridge needs to be lowered and adjusted as it has come off the cello a tad and the fingerboard may or may not need shooting. I was finding it increasingly difficult to put weight on the strings especially on the 4th position and thought I was just being very weak overall. Deryn took a look and mentioned that the action on the strings were too high; 'action' being the clearance (distant) of the strings above the fingerboard. So now, I get to play with George! What a bright and loud fellow he is! I never thought cellos could differ so much from each other. It also feels much more comfortable with a lower action as I am able to get a good sound without putting too much weight on the strings. Deryn says mine will be lower so that's something to look forward to!

I am to play through and read Bunting's Book 2 on vibrato, from pages 47 to 52 along with these simplified exercises.

We went through all four strings, on the first position and 4 ticks per bow and twice per finger just to get the momentum and most importantly, to condition the whole arm into playing the vibrato and not just the wrist; which sadly, seems to be the case with me repeatedly. I try to emulate Deryn's arm and fingers but mine just end up like the awkward claw that it's notorious for, thanks to the rather long second finger :} From all the exercises we've gone through so far, I think my most problematic area has got to be doing the vibrato from the whole arm as a unit; my subconscious fighting the urge to just use the wrist instead as at the moment, the movement feels very unnatural.

However, all is not forlorn as we ended the class with some wonderful sight reading! I do love sight reading as it feels both as a challenge and an assertion of all the practical effort I have put into my learning up to this point. It is also a lot of fun when you get to play a mysterious new piece with your teacher as a duet.

Today, we played Hornpipe from Water Music by George Frideric Handel from The Best Cello Duet Book Ever! by Emma Coulthard.




What a wonderful piece! Deryn says we can play it again in the coming weeks as a new piece to learn which means I have a new piece to learn and on a new cello too! Well, technically George is a 20 year old Romanian so he is barely a teenager in cello years :}