Lesson 60 - Modes and moving on

I wasn't really up for class this morning; almost to the point of cancelling the whole month as I had not touch the cello at all since the last lesson. I'm still mourning, it seems, despite my very damnest not to. Tigger had, somehow, attach himself to the whole concept of cello playing for me. He always manage to run towards the booming cello sound, plonk himself on the bed next to my practise setup and fall asleep; if I played right. I figured maybe the sound of my squawking on the cello was close to his own voice so perhaps he saw the cello as a big old cat that spoke to him every now and then. Who knows what went on in his little mind :)

I woke up 3 hours earlier than expected, hoping to squeeze in a couple of hours practise before lesson. The cello still felt familiar; my muscle memory had not faltered. Still, it is not enough to make up for lost practise time and I can tell that my progress has definitely hit a plateau. It is a little upsetting but only because I have no desire to progress at the moment and truthfully, I do hope this is temporary.

I was reading, "Beekeeper's Apprentice" and came across the phrase, "Guilt is a poor foundation for a life, without other motivations beside it." from none other than Sherlock Holmes no doubt, but it struck a chord. Small but struck, it did. Perhaps there is still hope after all.

Most of the class was focused on the technical side of things; arpeggios, major & minor scales using common fingerings. All of which I need to spend a considerable amount of time on as my understanding of music theory is largely based on memories of learning it when I was 12; ie. rather poor. We did go into much detail about the circle of fifths, enharmonic equivalents, relative major and minor keys (always a minor third apart with the minor key always coming before the major), pentatonic - diatonic scales, even modes of early music and how their unique sounds distinguish themselves from the rest. It was all highly entertaining, very informative and very much pattern-based. Music has so much in common with programming, it's no wonder most of the musicians I know are programmers!

Anyway, we ended on La Cumparsita where I probably played all the correct notes with the worst intonation issues ever performed on my cello. Deryn tells me I've done very well considering the lack of practise but my stubbornness continue to deny me the consolation. Later, she went into more details of my interpretation of the piece, showing me alternatives and how to achieve it.

From this, I came to the conclusion that my interpretation lacked the depth and understanding of Tango music, the dynamic notations that were present in the score should have been enough to guide my approach to the piece but as usual, I have decided to acknowledge them last (Disclosure: I usually try to get all the notes, intonation, bowing and dynamics figured out, in that order.) and so the piece has suffered greatly from missing those clues. So much so that when Deryn went through the whole piece again with me, I wondered if we were playing the same piece at all! Yikes, where is my mind?


For Tigger.