Lesson 49 - Extra long finger

We started today's class with reports of last week's practise and overall progress. This was when I told Deryn that unfortunately, I will no longer be attending the YLSS anymore. It has taken a few days of careful consideration before I decided with the conclusion and I think it is the right move for me personally.

At first, I felt like a quitter and that I couldn't have possibly given it all the chance it deserves after only two sessions but the more I weighed the pros and cons factoring in the reality of the situation, it was obvious that I had to give it a miss. Which is a damn shame, really but at least now my curiosity has been satiated.

Deryn still believes that playing regularly with a group will do me good so she will round something up for me in the coming weeks or so.

In any case, this lesson we dug deeper into the vibrato technique. Something I have been noticing faltering with each practise session mostly due to not having a solid foundation and understanding in its approach.

For this, we referred good ol' Bunting and his left hand technique book 2, page 53. First and foremost, a good balance - always good balance irregardless of the unique individual and their variety of playing styles, body shape, lengths of fingers and so forth. Ever so sporadically, Deryn would ask me to lift my right or left leg in varying degrees away from the cello just check if I was balanced; something I could try on my own at home.

We started with finger percussion where it feels as if the very moment the finger strikes the string, it was already in the midst of a vibrato thus landing towards the direction of the bridge. Just doing this alone not only strengthened the joints of my left hand progressively but it allowed Deryn to assess my left hand technique. When asked if I was feeling any tension at all, I explained that I was indeed experiencing increasing pain and tension in the lower regions of my upper arm. Deryn explains that this could be an effect of a joint being locked somewhere else so she had me do further finger percussion to investigate.

Very soon it was clear that my long second finger was the culprit of all this hullabaloo and my left shoulder was making slight adjustments for each time the second finger makes her debut even when adjustments were not needed. At least that was what I found out after I had Deryn watch over me like a hawk during the assessment. It turns out, the whole adjustment thing was just my body responding to what it thought was an impairment as a form of compensation. With Deryn holding the fortress down along with my left arm and shoulders, I was able to use the second finger just fine; I just need to remember to do it consciously and then subconsciously. Suffice to say, this is just an alternative prescription. Time will only tell if this method works!

We then proceeded with the rest of the exercise but this time with my extra long second finger as the focus - stretches and using a 1-2-3 fingering instead of 1-3-4. Deryn says this could work to my advantage as there are now more alternative fingerings I could use.

Before I left, Deryn suggests that I read up different schools of thought about the vibratos so as to broaden my concept and approach to the technique. I have been reading up specifically on the vibratos but mostly via other bloggers, books by William Pleeth and Bunting and learning these particular videos by David Finckel.





I'm still looking for more books to read on technique approach; I particularly enjoyed William Pleeth's Cello and the way he phrases his thoughts.