26 min
Dvorak #9 Scherzo
Fingerings and practiced awkward bowings.
Timing of burbling triplets at the end is still problematic.

20 min
Started with false harmonics ala Iberia.

Feuillard #33 gooey detache at a variety of speeds. This really is a pretty good warm up.

Bach Air is not good to get the fingers moving, but is great afterward as a whole body warmup. Worked the phrases, playing with the balance from the feet. I think I need to change a few of T4-'s recommended bowings. But the little thumb position section is coming along well.

Playing Emma today - Petra is still packed from orch last night, and I decided to just leave it to take to church tonight. G and C really dead - need to replace these old Helicores.

56 min
WU with Feuillard #33, trying for that gooey detache. Working with bow hold, trying to reproduce what we came up with at lesson last night: 1 on top, 2 hooked under, 3 in curve of frog pushing down on ferrule, 4 curved into frog where it meets the stick. "Allowing" arm weight.

New feet placement, making sure I am not internally rotated at the hips, using feet to push against floor to give more support. Rt foot pushes on downbow.

Bach Air.
Working on the new shifts. Lots of old finger shifts. New bowings, too. Appreciate T4- taking the time to work out recommendations. Supination to hook the string, start long notes with a phhhht instead of a kkkkkk. Spent about 45 min.

Finish with another 5 min of Feuillard, Emily's martele 4 and 8 to a bow. That was fun!

Index finger feels good today. Must be aware and not damage it again on Wed night.

11 min
Haydn C
Played through 1.5 pages. (Waiting for recommended beginning bowings & fingerings from T4-, so I'm not wanting to do much cementing in muscle memory yet.) Went back to the prep exercises for 8 min. Then back to the piece to ID trouble spots. Worst is the detache scale up to A - because of the fast shifts.

11 min
Tarantella
Memory checks. Played through a couple of times. Still need work on the scales.

Oh, and the chords.

12 min
Scale ~6 min. D Maj mm=60 w/u linked qu notes. Then Galamian slurred qr and ei notes, martele qu notes and ei note triplets.

Feuillard #34 and #33 about 3 mineach. Focus on gooey elbow.

Got up at 5:45am to play in church. Finished at 11:15. Realized where my index finger pain is coming from - pressing too hard while being the rhythm section in the rock music. Lots of III-A and IV-D's. Payed attention to pressing lightly while playing loudly this morning, and at least didn't aggravate the pain further. But didn't feel like practicing after 4 hours of work in the morning.

16 min
Tarantella
Mostly checking memory "at tempo," though I'm not exactly sure what performance tempos will be yet. Does it count extra that I can remember it after a nice glass of chateauneuf du pape?

16 min
Left fingertip is *still* sore, but I'm doing a little practice just to keep my mental facilities in the game for next week. Warmed up on and ran through Dvorak New World Symphony 4th mvmt fingering issues. Why do I recall some nonexistant passage work in this movement?

Tried to work on Debussy Iberia 2nd mvmt, but it's like it's written in code. It didn't seem that obtuse at rehearsal on Tuesday.

Left fingertip still sore. Decided to take the day off to hopefully nip things in the bud.

22 min
Bach Air
Changed a bunch of fingerings. It's like a puzzle. I don't think these are final yet, but we'll see how they do at rehearsal tonight. Having a little neuropathic pain in my left fingertip, so will take a short break here.

6 min
d in linked halfs
Feuillard #34 floppy elbow
Feuillard #33 Bach chord pattern

Now that the Feuillard notes are memorized I am spending less time on them, focusing on one or two things. Excellent warmups.

Busy day, with 3 new kittens that needed vetted and tucked in. Didn't practice before church rehearsal, which went an hour longer than expected. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was eat dinner and watch Top Chef. I did do some floppy elbow focus while rehearsing. Better than nothing.

33 min
Haydn C
Alternated back and forth between prep ex (Perpetual Motion with thumb on mid harmonic II-III or 3d pos'n I-II, and chord prep for m40). P1 focus was on keeping the bow near the balance point. P2 focus was hand patterns for scales in various thumb positions. Keep 4th finger relaxed while playing thumb + 3.

Must stop now so my fingers won't be too raw for rehearsal tonight.

30 min
Orchestra prep
Spent 10 minutes with excerpts from Dvorak 9 in Rose, then dug out CDs of sheet music for Dvorak 9 and Debussy Iberia. (Symphony is a piece of cake compared to Iberia!) The third piece on the next Civic program is a mandolin concerto by Griffith, which I'm sure I don't have music for.

After printing, 20 more min going through Dvorak 1st mvmt marking in key fingerings.

Took a break to look up Iberia on line. I'm not going to invest in a recording until I know for sure I'll be playing this concert, but I'm getting a feel for the piece by listening to 104 mp3 excerpts on Amazon. :-)

10 min
Mini warm-up with open strings, D tonalization and arpeggio, Cossmann on G without bow. Focus on left hand loose and gooey. My fingertips are a little sore today.

Feuillard #33
Back and forth between detache and legato 8/bow. Trying to maintain the same suppleness of left hand with both bowings, easier with slurs. A few passes with left hand only. Would be interesting to video without sound to look at left hand. Memory is good - didn't need to pull out the music today.

Feuillard #34
Just worked the Bach chord bowing (uddu).

17 min
Tarantella
Alas, I don't have a recording of the accompaniment. I wonder if there is one on the Suzuki CD?

Ran the piece several times, evaluating memorization level. 80%, maybe, rather remarkable since that has not been a focus.

Need to discuss:
Tempos (choices)
Bow distribution in m40-47 and similar spots
Best way to practice to bring the entire piece reliably up to tempo
Any other ideas for that desc. scale from Bb

Questions for lesson.
One benefit of this practice blog format? It's easy to look back through the week's work and organize a list of questions to cover at today's lesson. I considered keeping an open post and adding to it through the week, but it's just as easy, and probably more beneficial, to review my week's work just before my lesson.

Two ways to review: list by week from the archives, or click through by pieces using the tags. I'm using the latter method, with a "New Post" box in one window and a second copy of the blog in another.

Feuillard
small hand circles on fast detache?
focus for next week?

Bach Air from Orch Suite #3
optimum fingerings - have I chosen well?

Popper Op 76 I No 7
ways to practice awkward string crossings in m19-22

Squire
Tempos (choices)
Bow distribution in m40-47 and similar spots
Best way to practice to bring the entire piece reliably up to tempo
Any other ideas for that desc. scale from Bb

Haydn C
Suzuki prep exercises-what to focus on?
Fingering m37 vs m38

Beethoven Symph #5 excerpts
fingering?

20 min
Popper #7 focus on m17-40

Changed [F] m17-27 so shift to C nat/A is always 2/4. Marked in shift locations - usually I just mark F on shifts, but there were so many extra [F] marked in this Barenreiter ed. that I noted the shifts by arrows underneath the note so that I can see them more quickly when I am reading.

Tried the slow workup method, starting mm 1/8=96. Stopped at 112 to work on a couple of gestures.

m33 originally changed the [F] to 1-3, but then worked out timing on m32. Usually I keep 4 down on G to reduce poppage going to open A, but the timing seemed smoother at tempo to release 4 while simultaneously extending 1 backward for D# while playing the open A.

String crossings in m19-22 are still problematic.

You'll notice that my practice segments have longer stretches of time in between them today, during which I am doing laundry and assorted chores, eating lunch, and working on other projects. Is this better, worse, or about the same as doing all my practice in a block and being done with it for the day?

21 min
Haydn C
Started by looking at the prep exercises in Suzuki Book 9. I should take these to my lesson to discuss practice goals.

Worked on opening up to thumb G in m40.
Tone, bow distribution, ornaments as gestures, awkward fast scale fingering in m34. Omitted chords for now. Need to ask about fingering of m37 vs m38.

18 min
Progr subd on ds D-G. Feeling the small hand circles on the 1/16 notes.
C tonalization
Cossmann x1 down C string

Feuillard #34
Continue wu with 1st 4 bowings, progr faster on 4, more hand circles.

Feuillard #33
Memory is pretty secure with detache.
Played "start anywhere" game. Six measures, number 1-6. First note is C for 1st 5m-mid, high, high, low, mid (here, "high" is middle C, I2, "mid" is III4 and "low" is IVo). m6 starts with F on I. Didn't have a die handy, so randomly picked measure number to start on, or did patterns like 246135.
Found mm with fastest secure, regular 1/16 notes=68 (up from 1/8=96).

23 min
Tarantella. Started by working the presto in gestures, one m at a time. (1 fast down, 5 legato up.) Bow has to be in the string at the start of the up bow.

More time on that descending scale from Bb. Gestures again. For the shifts, focused on 3-Bb 4-F 3-C. Then did lower half (1st pos'n u-d-u). Getting better.

Brief review of other scales in A sections.

B section - started playing from memory. Realize for some reason I have neglected that.

I wonder if I have a recording of the accompaniment to try this with tomorrow?

24 min
Bach Air (fr. Orch Suite No. 3)
This piece was stuck in my head between services today, so I had to practice it early to hopefully eradicate the ear worm. Ran it several times, evaluating fingerings. m2 and m16 are the biggest challenges. The 9 count up bow F# at the beginning is a killer, too. I think I am ready to lock in on these and do some measure-by-measuring shifting practice. Perhaps I'll run it by T4- if there is time tomorrow night.

16 min
Both Feuillard #34 and #33 are sticking pretty well in memory, especially considering I didn't look at them yesterday.

#33 Spent a few minutes reviewing the chords using bowings 9, 3, then 4 at accelerating speeds.

#34 got the notes down at tempo I was practicing earlier, mm 1/8=96. Not completely stable at faster speed. Had fun trying out different bowing variations - not so hard looking at the notes, but the uneven ones really screw with the note memory.

The good news is that it was all congregational music this morning. The bad news is that second hour was a rock service, and my ears are still ringing. Having the road map change during the songs is kinda fun - keeps us string players on our toes.

After 1.5 hours of rehearsal and 2 hours of playing, I'm all warmed up. Exhausted, but warmed up, so I'm jumping right into a little practice.

Today was an adoption event, and though I decided not to take the Brightons because of their bleary eyes and snotty noses, I went. I didn't get home until after 4pm, hungry and tired after missing lunch. Sushi and a nice glass of Kistler for what turned out to be dinner, then I fell asleep on the floor with Chauncey purring on my chest. I took a look at the church web site and couldn't figure out what we are playing tomorrow beginning at 6:57am, so took a nice bath, ate dessert, and am now heading to bed. Without practicing. I think this falls in the general catchall of "too tired."

12 min
Tarantella.
Played through approaching performance tempi. Pretty scrambly. Worst spot is descending scale from high Bb to chords. Worked that in a variety of ways. Old finger shifts both up and down, slowly using accessory notes. Each group under the slurs as a gesture. Still needs more work.

17 min
Popper 7
Var tempi. Most time on 1st 3 lines, focusing on string crossings. Scale section at m53, focusing on detache. Still not sure of the bow angle. Need to work string Xings bottom of p1 next time.

18 min
Feuillard #33
Memorizing. mm 1/8=96. Started from the end backward, 1/2 meas at a time. Repeat 3x in a row. Did the two lines separately then together, entire ex 3x in a row. Shakiest spot is beginning of m 3. Short detache. Start bowings tomorrow.

13 min
wu: open string subdiv to 1/16 on D. Felt the outer hand kick in and the 1/16 notes felt like small circles today. I think that is improving.
C Maj tonalization
Cossmann down D string

Feuillard #34
Have chords pretty well memorized, but not automatic yet.
var 1-9, 34 d/u. The last felt like chicken wings.

Second day of twitter logging.
I deleted the time stamps because they are "x hour ago," not very useful.

My cello is sounding good this week. Is it because I'm practicing more, recent tech changes are starting to work, or just the weather?

40 min: Fingering Vc1 part to Bach Air from 3d Orch Suite. First line "too hard" so started bkwd from the end. Good trick. #cellopractice

27 min: selected and prepared piece to play Vc1 on at cello quartet tonight: Palestrina's Ave Regina Coelorum (arr. Finckel) #cellopractice

Oops, that was 17 min on Feuillard 33. Timer is counting down, not up. Math challenged today.

21 min: Feuillard 33, 10 tries to get 3x in a row 3m mem yesterday (good!) then repeated process for 2nd line 3 meas. Put together tomorrow.

11 min: wu progr detache, C tonalization; Feuillard 34. Chord mem 80%, most time on var34 start up, elbow circles for Bach +/-

Twitter log for 9/16.
The downside of the blog format is that you have t read from the bottom up.

According to tweets, 65 min over 1.5 hours. Turned timer off for 2 phone calls and quick bfast. No cheating! #cellopractice
12:26 PM Sep 16th from TweetDeck

8 min: fun part of the hour. Play through Bach Prelude #3. Bow hand is working really well today. #cellopractice
12:24 PM Sep 16th from TweetDeck

32 min: Bach Prelude#3 m44-60 chords in in ds u2/d2 for intonation, doubleminting the shifts. Fing m56-8. Freq stretches. #cellopractice
12:23 PM Sep 16th from TweetDeck

13 min: Feuillard #33. Mem 1st line (3m). mm 1/8=96. Build each fragment or meas until 3x right, until all 3m. Short detache. #cellopractice
11:31 AM Sep 16th from TweetDeck

12 min: wu w/progr subdiv open strings, C MAJ tonalization. Feuillard #34 mem chords, bow patterns 1,2,3,4,9,13. More 4 later #cellopractice

What am I thinking? It's practice time. Tweeting morning practice for @catepolacek, Stay tuned. #cellopractice
10:54 AM Sep 16th from TweetDeck