Lesson 68 & 69 - 7th position and thumbs

Looks like I missed last fortnight's supposedly blog entry so before I go any further, I should probably jot down the notes for the previous lesson with Deryn.



I had more time for practise between then and today's class so I felt better knowing that I was better prepared. I always feel like I've betrayed Deryn, myself and the cello when I don't put in the practise time beforehand.

The last couple of weeks were spent focusing on getting comfortable with the new positions specifically the 5th to 7th. 6th came much easier but I felt incredible discomfort with 7th. I brought this up with Deryn and she remedied that it was probably due to me not using thumb positions for the 7th. Some of her students have larger finger spans so faced no problems with leaving their thumbs behind when it came to the higher registers. This was not at all the case for me so we spent a considerable amount of time getting comfortable with utilising the left thumb in this new position.

We started with a more familiar place (second finger, fourth position, thumb behind) and slowly move up the neck to the 7th position with exaggerated efforts on lifting the thumb on to the fingerboard, positioning it across both A and D strings and making sure the distance between the thumb and second finger is closer rather than larger as it shifts forward. We did this many times before starting again at 4th position but with the thumb now placed on the fingerboard over the 2 strings, shifting forward to the 7th position and making sure the distance between the thumb and finger is never too far apart (it actually gets closer in the higher positions).

Deryn observed that I tend to let my hand and wrist roll over and collapse as we go closer to the bridge. This happens when I place more weight towards the less reliable part of my left hand; the superfluous 4th finger whose only job is getting in the way it seems. It certainly did not help when both shoulders also started creeping up to compensate all the discomfort so Deryn had me reach for the 7th position and stay stationary as she positioned my limbs around the cello until it looked right. I wiggled about until my left arm, hand and fingers were finally on top of the strings; arms wide and taut with enough resistance that nothing pushing it from below would move it up, wrist higher so that the hand is letting the fingers fall naturally on to the strings, shoulders remain low but flexible at the socket and finally, fingers coming down comfortably when I play each note with the entire arm's weight driving it.

This took a while and hopefully my muscle memory remembers the feeling so I can apply it during practise hours away from class.

We ended the lesson with a playthrough of the entire second movement of the Cello Sonata by Marcello. Duets with Deryn always makes those long practise hours worth every second :}