Lesson 75 - There's nothing physical about cello playing

A full-time job allows you less time than desired to practice playing the cello or even just simply stroking it from time to time and much less time when you are self-employed. Juggling side projects that are vital for your own creative sanity whilst leaving spare time for impromptu but largely relevant and exciting undertakings also lessens any focused commitments you have left for the instrument.

I am, however, still very determined to keep up with progress albeit slower than before now but you know what they say about the tortoise and the hare!

My intentions for playing the cello probably differs from yours - self growth more than anything else and maybe duets in intimate settings are nice but not a necessity. I have no grandiose vision of playing to a crowd unless coerced into. It has always been like this even in my previous life playing the electric bass in several bands. It's probably the reason why I never did practise or paid any attention or time to learning the bass guitar at all - I didn't want it to become a chore or something worth considering. Besides, I was only playing it because I came in late to the jamming room and everyone else had already picked their preferred instrument. Not to say I don't enjoy playing the bass but the enjoyment was more of an unexpected bonus that it was cooperating.

Which brings me back to the cello. The only instrument I have ever genuinely wanted to play and be good at. Not to mention, it has taught me amongst many other things that strings are tuned to a specific note and patterns are everywhere. I was only made aware of bass string notes after playing the cello and even then, I try not to learn too much about it lest it gets too serious because well, I just want to devote what few spaces I have left in this old noggin to the cello!

Anyway, we did a few rounds of Bunting warm ups and vibrato-focused exercises before heading straight into Bach's Allemande. I realised here that we haven't spent any time at all on vibratos. Suffice to say, I've been winging it and that's not good. I suppose we've just whizzed past more things than we thought we did; it's hard to keep track when you're learning and re-learning so many things all at once which seems to be the case with cello playing. The bit I struggle with the most involves vibrato of the fourth finger; it feels most awkward to do this on any position and I believe it's due to the length of the finger when compared to the overly long second finger where the height of the fourth is less than half of the second!

Another thing Deryn noticed was when doing the vibratos, I tend to "rotate" inwards and towards the fingerboard at an acute angle as oppose to a right angle in relation to the fingerboard and the tips of my fingers were not "on" and above the fingerboard, the combination of these resulted in a rather awkward and uncomfortable position that prevented me from doing the vibratos properly.

It was here that I brought up the mental workout I faced during practise sessions and how it determined the degree of physical pain I would endure after it. I found that if I paid less attention to what my fingers and bow were doing, the more I depended on my body to react naturally to cello playing and this was a bad thing. It also meant that I wasn't learning as much and I was just filling up the practise quota for the day. So I came to the conclusion that it was a trade-of between crazy mental workout or physical torture, I guess I prefer the former.