Ylss 2 - Final Session

I was anticipating today's orchestral session as it mentioned in the schedule that the first hour was focused on technical sections. This meant all string instruments are seperated into their own kind and practise amongst themselves in a provided room with a designated tutor.

Besides being very excited about being in a room with fellow cellists and double bassists, we had George Kennaway coaching us through the reportoire. Deryn speaks highly of him; infact he was the reason I was encouraged to join the orchestra in the first place. I was just very curious about his teaching methods as I know him to be a student of Christopher Bunting.

So without any disappointment, we started warmups with something similar to the Bowing Regime; mostly to get a good contact and tone on the string.

One could easily pick out the stronger cellists from the group from this exercise and soon I found myself gravitating towards their intonation and tempo as a guide although at times, I do find that it is rather difficult to hear them over my own resonance. I do wonder if others hear me as loud as I hear myself?

Today's varying degrees of difficulty and challenges can be found in the Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky, Op.35a by Anton Arensky.



A link to the score can be found - here.

I've not heard of this piece before so was very precarious in its approach. I was really hoping that we were going to play the same piece from last week as I had downloaded and practised the parts diligently but I suppose it is at the conductor's discretion since it is a different conductor from last week. From the cello parts on its own, I soon realise what a beautiful piece it is. George stressed on dynamics and using whole, confident bows; as he puts it, "I want to hear the notes!" irregardless of intonation issues.

At times, I don't want to be too bold and play over my colleagues but at the same time, I feel I should lead if there are uncertainties. I wonder if this is a natural thing to be confused about.

There is always a short break in between so attendees can load up on a hot beverage and cake that is always brought in for sale each week by a fellow cellist. If I got my way, I would just stay back in the hall to practise my parts although that would mean missing out on the cakes! Here I got talking to a new cellist friend about themselves. I find that most have musical backgrounds as children and all had joined school orchestras when they were younger and now found themselves compelled to pick up the same instrument they did then; only one started out as a flutist and now a violinist and myself previously, the piano.

The topic of the ABRSM examination board came up when I asked her about a tutor's teaching methods. Out of the several musicians I spoke to, a couple are now in the process of their Grade 4 and 5 completion. I spoke of how none of the certification guarantees your level of aptitude for that particular instrument at all; again myself an example of this ~ plonk me in front of the piano and I can barely tinkle a tune from memory or sight read at the level I was years ago. She agreed and said she didn't feel like a Grade 4 cellist having only practised the graded pieces and little else. Although we both agreed that it was still something to aim for; an objective, if you will, when you start on such endeavours.

When the rest of the orchestra came in and we played the variations together, the music suddenly emerged as a much greater whole than I could ever imagine. How do these composers weave all those instruments together to sound like this? Genius!

Again, I had to sight read and clamber all over my cello like a spider climbing up a wet wall - unsuccessfully - as the pieces we were playing were all different from the ones we were practising in the first half of the session. I should probably bring this up later as I feel it not productive at all to my learning the instrument. Or maybe throwing oneself into the deep end like this is good practise and all part of the evil masterplan?

In any case, aside from the mild frustration of repeated sight reading of unfamiliar music, there are moments of genuine challenges reached at new heights (thumb positions, anyone?!) and I also had the opportunity to chat with George Kennaway about his time as a student with Christopher Bunting.