Lesson 90 - Baby steps & Jon Paul

Before you know it, another fortnight has passed and there never seems to be quite enough time to practise. I'm sure this is the same plight musicians face all the time.

I needed to do more scales, especially the minor ones. Lately it's been a struggle to remember what they sound like - my notes tend to veer on the flat side as opposed to the sharper side in the past. I mix the harmonic and melodic up too often and then get confused when I play the descending scales midway.

So today we played through a few minor scales to reacquaint my ears. Deryn reminds me that for melodic minors, the "odd" bits were just the scale becoming major instead so that's given me something to latch on to when my ears get confused. The other suggestion was to say the notes our loud when I play them and know which positions to go to next so I'm armed with a different kind of muscle memory even when the ears fail.

Of course, this gets better over time if done slowly at first - another one of those things to increase familiarity with the geography of the fingerboard. And as usual, great patience is needed for this; patience and indeed, focus!

We went through the Swan for the better half of the lesson and it was clear that there has been some improvements, all thanks to the thumb exercises that I have been enjoying recently and also, in part, due to the challenging nature of the Tarantella. It's really wonderful how symbiotic the learning process is - no exercise or piece is an island; depending on the specifics, they complement each other if you know what you're aiming for.

During one of the playthroughs, Deryn stopped me midway and asked how I could improve on the passage. I mentioned the usual things - intonation, phrasing and dynamics. She paused for a second and said, "You're going to hate me for this but I think you're outgrown your bow!" before reaching over and passing me one of her personal bows, a Jon Paul Bravo. "Now try playing again."

And so I did.

With each stroke, the Jon Paul felt drawn to the strings as if they were magnetised to each other. The bow was as light as my current bow, an LG Chen, but it somehow felt more stable and well balanced so in a way, felt heavier at the same time! I can't seem to explain it without being contradictory so I'll spare going any further. In any case, my strokes felt less skittish and more confident - I wanted to play into the strings as opposed to away from it.

Deryn is letting me have Jon Paul for the next 2 weeks to see if it suits me and then we'll have a proper look at getting 6-7 bows to try out from one of those online shops; Stringzone I believe.

The thing is, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference if this happened maybe months ago as was the case if you handed me Gracie and Nameless during the first few months of learning the cello - I'd have probably shrugged the difference off like it didn't matter. To my untrained ears, they both sounded the same except one is a tonne more cheaper!