Tue 2:33 (1042-1315)

The Thing for this week is all about shifting. Mostly about shifting. And about playing tennis on the fingerboard. Here are my pointers:
* When starting a note from nothing, think of hitting the ball and releasing it. There should be dynamic motion, not a start from a stop.
* Prepare the shift by unweighting the arm as you begin the note before the shift. The tennis analogy is still very apt. It's a bit like watching the ball bounce, curve up and down, and bounce again.
* The hand must be relaxed, and the fingers curved. Periodically monitor for my finger collapsing tendency.

T4 suggested that, in addition to working on shifts in scale runs as in Haydn, I add a piece which requires slower shifting. So this morning I dug out an edition of Faure's Apres un Reve - I have a Music Minus One volume called 10 Concert Pieces for Cello - and I spent the first 50 minutes on that. First I read through it roughly, then listened to the recording. Then another pass through at no tempo doing shifts and finger patterns. Finally worked on memorizing the first two phrases, with special attention to the bowings, as I kept getting out of sync. I would have kept going but I have a few other things to do today.

One more tip remembered from last week:
* In thumb position, the elbow weight goes down as the finger number goes up, to shift the weight over the playing finger. Fight my tendency to raise the elbow instead. (This makes such a big difference!)

Next 40 minutes: Haydn C, a little more than half on the exposition, and the remainder on the chord section. Slow, relaxed shifting practice, with special focus on unweighting the note before the shift. I'm not having much luck with getting the chords to ring yet, so today ended up focusing on the hand patterns with a variety of (separate, inegal) bowings.

Spent the last half hour or so revisiting Capriccio Italienne. Back to orchestra tonight, and my assignment is 2nd chair. Oh, terror, under Maestro's eye, or worse, ear. We also got word that the planned Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orch was scrapped for budgetary reasons (too expensive to rent) so we will be going with Bernstein's Overture to Candide from the last concert (which I didn't play) and possibly the Tchaikovsky from 2 concerts ago, which I did play but not entirely successfully. Plus I'm playing a different part - inside instead of outside. Enough said. Another great piece for shifting practice and hopefully eventually fast scales.