40 min
Started with a Breval run through to warm up. Intonation is a little more difficult on the Prakticello, as the frame doesn't have much resonance. Also noticing that the action is quite high. I may take it in to have the bridge cut down a little bit when I get home.

After those first 5 minutes I got down to work on a particularly gnarly section of Shosty 5 mvmt 1, from reh 32-36. The note mvmt isn't too fast but it's like a big fingering puzzle. Had to reset the alarm in the middle to take a phone call, then ran over at the end, as I was determined to figure out a good fingering for the whole section, and reh 34 was not cooperating. Very pleased with the final result, though .

Last tricky spot, the Largamente at reh 36, awaits another day. Time to hit the beach.

Went for chair-as-stand setup today. Isn't Prakticello cute?

30 min
Assembled my Prakticello and practiced on the deck of our hotel room, overlooking the beach on the western shore of Hawai'i. I really hope I couldn't be heard down below, as I worked on the 'black sections' of Shosty 5 mvmt 1. I got up to reh 32, which is where I will resume tomorrow. Now, I think a nap would be nice.

This week's practice room.

12 min
Spent most of the morning out and most of the afternoon asleep. I think it was a combination of antihistamine, 2 allergy shots, and H1N1 shot.

Had a few minutes to practice while preparing dinner before everyone arrived to eat it. A really good 12 minutes it was, working on the Handel, 2nd mvmt. I got into a rhythm on the runs, double minting shifts as needed. It was really quite pleasant. Nice what happens when I don't feel under pressure.

I read about a local cello teacher whose on-going resolution is to touch the cello every day. He's missed only 4 days in 12 years. Maybe I can't do 30 min of "practice" every day, but I could probably touch the cello, which I would interpret as meaning take it off the stand, tune, and at least play a lick of something. Maybe I'll start that instead of trying for 21 days of practice after vacation.

30 min
Shosty 5, 4th mvmt. More repetitions are needed. It goes by so fast, I just have to know it. Still working on intonation at 119, especially the last 6 measures. Didn't get to p12.

30 min
Shosty 5, 3d mvmt. Mostly refresher, a few fingering changes, and the last few minutes on that gnarly cello soli near the end. Oh, and learning new cello tutti on the second page. Intonation of these partially chromatic runs is a bear. Worked with the tuner and piano.

And a large latté and biscotti.

30 min
No, I didn't practice this weekend, but I did play in church on Sunday morning. Partly, I realized I can't do 21 days in a row until after vacation, and partly I spent most of Saturday on chores and errands and most of Sunday attending the birth of Duchess's kittens.

Today I also didn't practice before Internet, as there were a couple of email things I needed to take care of early. So I figure I am doing well having done this 30 min before noon.

Started with D MAJ, linked half notes then slurred quarter notes. Double stops with open strings in lower octaves. Remember to keep hand relaxed on "outer hand" notes, and not hold extensions. Finger curves in upper 2 octaves, and a little less bow hair while keeping bow close to the frog. I'm writing all these things down because I had decent tone and intonation in the upper octaves today (for a change!). Then a few minutes on my scale trill exercise.

Spent the rest of the time on Breval, with a brief break at the 20 min mark to take a phone call and switch the laundry over. Played with different articulations for the different characters, worked on smoothing the transitions between phrases, some focused attention on the broken chord bowings. And of course, a nice starting gesture on the chords. Pulled out the accompaniment so that I can be hearing the underlying eighth notes to keep the timing honest.

It's coming along. I should make another recording before I take my vacation break.

Nope. What did I tell you? No practice, but I got a lot of chores done. No kittens yet, either.

30 min
Day 5. A busy day, and I didn't have time to practice before I left the house. Then in the afternoon I needed a nap more than I had a desire to practice. So it got left to the last thing, and I wouldn't exactly call it practice, but I did play for a half hour, and i did work on a couple of things.

I was going to jump right in to Bach, but Pi was sitting on my music stack, so instead I began with a D MAJ scale, then a d min scale. Played the first section of Prelude #2, but not from my marked part. Frustratingly bad since I last played it months and months ago, so played Prelude #3 instead. I can get through it now, but it's certainly not something I would want anyone else to hear.

Switched to current work, played Breval C followed by Squire Tarantella from memory. Worked a few minutes on the bow distribution of the opening phrases of the Squire with mm dq=84. Discovered that out, tip, in works for the first couple of phrases, then balance point for the next section. My previous tendency was to keep everything mid bow. We'll see if that flies next time it gets evaluated.

Last minutes spent on the opening thumb position in Handel. I really could use some tone production work in thumb position. I wish I knew what to do, as it all "looks OK," but just sounds bad.

So blah, but at least I played. I expect the next 2 days to be problematic as well, as I have stuff booked in the mornings. We'll see what happens.

30 min
Day 4. Offenbach Adagio. Worked with a tuner and piano at intonation, shifts, intervals. Don't have time to write more now.

BTW, every time I look at that passage, it seems like it should be easy. The highest note is F# below the mid-string A harmonic, easily played in 3d or 4th position. The problem is the accidentals. Playing across to the A string and back resulted in at least 2 awkward shifts across strings, precarious and line-destroying. Try it yourself. And if you find a better solution than mine, *please* tell me!

30 min
Day 3. Earliest practice yet, with morning coffee. May be premature, but I am about to declare the practice before Internet tactic a success. Today I spent the entire half hour on that 6 (not 4) measure lick at the end of Shosty 5 3d mvmt. Conductor gave the cello section a pass on it last night, intimating that it will receive (very) close attention next time.



I started warming up with no tempo, one note per bow. When it rapidly became apparent that intonation was a primary issue (I knew that) I set a drone. First G, the starting note, then D, a better choice as much of the shifting occurs around D. As the intonation became better, I added the slurs and increased the tempo.

You can see (though it's a bit fuzzy) that I chose to play this phrase the first line sul D, which meant a good shifting workout over the mid string D harmonic. (I find the finger spacing particularly difficult there, plus the smooth changes in hand shape required to play without excess tension.) A particularly useful exercise was to play the D as a harmonic every time I passed it. While doing that I also discovered that shifting from D to C# on whatever finger I needed led to much better intonation than the uniform shifts to 1, usually on a whole step.

I spent my orchestra rehearsal time last week on fingerings. Unfortunately, it takes me longer than a week to actually remember what the fingerings mean at rehearsal! This week I will be trying to improve my intermediate-term memory with repetition and really focusing on the phrases.

30 min
OK, I slightly underestimated the time needed to finish fingering Shosty 5 mvmt 3. That last 4 measure lick looked deceptively simple, and took me 15 minutes instead of 5. I ended up going into thumb position on the D string to make it sound right. Fortunately, the treble clef section fell into place after the inter-session incubation, so I was able to finish that part in under 10 minutes and have a few minutes for page repetitions before the bell rang.

30 min
Day 2. A bit late in the morning, but another successful "no Internet until after practice" morning. Today's project is Shosty 5, mvmt 3. I didn't quite get the whole movement fingered in the first 30 minutes. Here is the part where I am currently stalled, thinking about optimal shifts in the treble clef section. And no, I didn't make all of those red pencil marks on the part. I don't know who thought that would be helpful.



I figure another 10-15 minutes on this section, and maybe 5 minutes on one short chromatic section near the end of the movement.

So why did I stop after 30 minutes instead of forging ahead? It's been a long time since I had a daily practice schedule. Surprisingly, after only a week of daily 30 minute sessions I am feeling some twinges in both elbows. It's prudent to limit the length of sessions until I am more battle hardened.

42 min
Did get to p.10, after Chuck, while DH has a conference call, and fueled by a lovely glass of Kistler. Switched to pure pizz after about 20 min; seemed to speed discovery of optimal fingering. Now I'm confident I have good fingerings and it's just a matter of working it up to speed. Tomorrow: 3d mvmt.

30 min
Day 1. Today I am trying a new tactic - practice before Internet. With my morning coffee I studied the cello score while listening to a recording of the 3d and 4th movements of Shostakovich 5. Then I spent my "mandatory" practice time on the 4th mvmt. Page 10 is going to be a bear. I just stumbled through it, knowing I will need another session to go back through to decide on fingerings. Most of the time I spent on finding the optimal fingering for the open chords at reh 119 on p 11.

I was thinking this morning before I practiced that I would try a little mental trick to make learning this symphony more manageable. Instead of thinking of all the parts in each movement that need work, I'll think of it a page at a time. Then there is really only one or two tricky parts to address at each sitting, albeit sometimes the tricky bit is the whole page, like page 10!

Eh. Bolo. Some days just don't have enough hours in them. I did play in church this morning, but practice count has to start back at 1 tomorrow.

30 min
Day 9. I came sooooo close to going to bed without practicing tonight. Busy cat morning, giving shots and meds. Ate lunch late (Baker's Square) after skipping breakfast, then crashed until almost 5. Groggy all evening.

But en route to bed I decided to sit down at the cello anyway. Good on me. Spent the first few minutes with a quick Cossmann finger warm-up. Spent a little over 10 minutes on each movement of the Handel, revising fingerings in the Allegro (much better) and the last 5 min on the opening statement of the Offenbach. Seeing those videos has provided both motivation and inspiration for how to handle the awkward fingering.

And I don't have to start my 21 day count over again. Yay.

Good night!

30 min
Day 8. Started the session by warming up with something irrelevant: Duport #1. Another quartet member showed us a bit of what he was working on last night - quite nice. Double stops are the primary technical problem, and it's quite melodic. Today I spent 20 minutes on learning the first phrase. Actually, before I started I took a look on YouTube and couldn't find a recording. It always seems to lake longer when I don't have an auditory idea to start with. It was a good warm up, though, so I'm thinking of continuing a phrase at a time, rather than continuously reviewing what I have worked on each session. I figure I'm using it as a warm up, and if at the end of a couple of months I can actually play it, that will be a bonus!

Spent the last 10 minutes on Handel D suite Adagio. I should have been prepared to play this at rehearsal last night, but it had just slipped my mind. Fortunately, I had fingered it last month, so the reading wasn't awful. Well enough, in fact, that it's been added to our repertoire list. Today I reviewed my fingering choices, which were basically good, marked in a few more shifts, and just played it for familiarity.

Offenbach video.
One of my quartet members kindly shared a link to another quartet playing the Offenbach we are working on, the quartet in A, A. 147.

Here is the Adagio, our current project:


And here is the Scherzo, which we worked on last year. We finished quite under tempo, I'm afraid, which means we will need to have another go at it later:

30 min
Day 7. Warmed up with run throughs of both Tarantella and Breval, slightly under tempo. ~10 min

Short focus on chords, then new scale trill exercise, much better after review at lesson. Did a few trills in context, where they don't seem to work as well. The timing is killing me. ~10 min

Spent the last 10 minutes on Offenbach, freshening up for rehearsal tonight. I'm remembering it more and more, so less screwing up over the fingerings, but the phrasing is still kinda wonky with the awkward shifts.

30 min
Day 6. Late practice tonight. I was beginning to think about not practicing today, but fortunately DH went on to play Bejeweled after our late dinner, so since I wasn't interrupting his sleep I figured I should practice.

Started with Popper Easy #7 to warm up. Alas, I have lost a lot of it in the few weeks since I last played it. Went on to Breval, a play through followed by starting at each numbered part from the end, to the end. I know I have some stuff to work on, but tonight is not a working night, thanks to the late hour and the Waterstone with dinner. So I just focused on one thing I know I need to work on after my spot check: starting each note cleanly. Those 6 partial repetitions took over 20 min, so with 5 min left I pulled out Shosty 5 and worked on the first scale passage in the 1st mvmt. I have a lot of work to do on this piece, so every 5 min counts.

It feels good to have not given into the temptation to skip practice. It would be better if I could figure out how to fit a daily practice time into my routine, though.

1:15 (over about 3 hours)
Day 5. Spent all my practice time today working on orchestra music, specifically, the first two movements of Shostakovitch Symphony #5. I started (before the timer went on) by listening to a recording, cello part in hand. The practice time was spent deciphering the fingerings. Slow going, especially the first movement. I have a hard time sitting in the chair to attack stuff like this, so the timer is a great boon.

However, I've had enough. I'm not up to speed with some of those tricky accidental-filled scale and broken chord passages, but at least I don't think I'll get lost tonight. Now I'll go listen again while I am preparing to consume some yummy polenta I cooked while practicing this afternoon.

30 min + recording
Day 4. Did a few scale trills to warm up, then a Breval run through from memory, slightly under tempo. Afterward, I dug through the games and found a die. I marked 6 starting points, as follows:
6. pu to m 3, 1st A stmt
5. m 23, 1st C stmt
4. m 40, double bar, inv B stmt
3. pu to m 52, a minor section (also B)
2. m 76, B stmt in recap
1. m 93, beginning of final triplet sections
The rest of the half hour passed quickly, rolling the die and starting at the indicated starting point. Initially I wanted to memorize the points first, but it became apparent that learning would be faster if I rolled the die, tried to remember, and if I didn't remember, looked where I needed to start. By the end I could remember the numbers of all the starting points.

You will notice that I numbered the starting points backwards, from the end instead of the beginning. That was a suggestion from T4-. The idea is that once you remember the number of the starting point you can count down as you play, and reliably know where the end is.

After my practice I decided to record a spot check. Fascinating how much adrenaline simply starting a camera can bring on. I had one big memory slip and a few small ones that I noticed while playing. I'll do the formal spot check as part of my practice tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to watch and tell me everything I did wrong in the comments.



BTW, that's Emma I am playing today.

30 min
Day 3. Long day in church this morning. Up at 5:45 for a 6:58 call (though Chadwick actually woke me up at 5:00. Silly cat didn't want me to oversleep the alarm, I guess.) Two services, so finished around 11:10. I am surprised I managed to get myself off the couch for a "real" practice, but I had an hour between the end of the Arizona vs Green Bay game and the beginning of Chuck, 3d season premiere. So, woo hoo, I did it!

After warming up with some semblance of my trill on scale exercise, I jumped right in to Breval. Worked the trill timing a bit, then played phrases. After awhile I realized that one of the reasons I am having trouble with the timing of the trills and triplets is that I am rushing, though subtly, I hope. So out came metronome. I did 3 play throughs, at qu=92,96,100. OK, maybe my rushing isn't so subtle, because the triplets really seem slow at those markings. I'm looking forward to feedback on how musical things sound from another perspective at my lesson tomorrow. Maybe I should record a spot check, so I can judge for myself. Also, I still need to do some "start at random spots" so I can make sure my memory isn't a simple train of physical gestures. Always something for tomorrow...

30 min
Day 2. Didn't feel like it, but practiced anyway. Spent the first 10 min on a variety of warmups, including a trouble spot in the Offenbach Adagio, then ran Tarantella. After running Breval, started working.

Spent the last 20 min again on phrase-by-phrase repetition, culminating in a run through. I am still not getting the timing on the trills quite right, and am afraid I am going to have to address those again next lesson. I think I may record a video for a spot check before that lesson on Monday.

30 min
Day 1. Back in the saddle. I was such a wuss yesterday. However, I couldn't face another half hour of Breval quite yet, so I spent today's "mandatory" practice time on the Offenbach Adagio for cello quartet. It was a mimicking exercise, trying to match a recording to get the timing of the turns "right," or at least better. I also did some more experimenting with fingerings, toward smoothing the phrases, and practiced some of the difficult leaping intervals. It was productive work that I had been meaning to get around to.

20 more consecutive days to go.

Ain't gonna happen. I spent the day dealing with a furnace that stopped furnacing, and just ran out of gas, so to speak. I shall have to resume my count tomorrow.

30 min
Day 6. Breval alone. I am not sure what is more exhausting about working this way - the mental or the physical effort.

Before starting practice today I sang through Breval in the shower. I suppose where I sang may not seem important, but there is something about the shower that is especially conducive to concentration and truth - if I don't know something, it becomes clear that I don't. I was not surprised to find that I can't sing those widely spaced alternating chords in the A section (need to sit down and work those out vocally), but I was rather surprised that there is a detour near the end, somewhere in or around those last set of triplet, and I couldn't end the piece.

So on to the cello work. I started by playing through, not from memory, but exploring some of the heavy-light. Spent a short focus on the end, so now I "know how it goes". Then I didn't work especially systematically, but phrase by phrase really tried to hear how I wanted it to be shaped and what I needed to do with the bow to get that shape. Sometimes it was a bow distribution issue, sometimes speed, especially variable speed, sometimes articulation, sometimes weight, but usually more in the form as a sort of leaning on the note rather than pressure.

Performed the piece from memory in the last 3 minutes, incorporating as much of the day's work as I could, and realizing how many more repetitions on small parts of each phrase I will need to do to get *this* into muscle memory. It's not just learning the notes.

I'm exhausted.

30 min
Day 5. Not my best effort, as I was getting short of time before orchestra rehearsal, and still needed to feed kitties and humans. Plus I was interrupted with phone calls. I ignore those when I am practicing earlier in the day, but at that time need to take them. However, I was using my 30 minute countdown timer, and stopped it for calls. This 30 minutes didn't take more than 50 to complete, I bet.

Anyway, started again with Tarantella. Better memory than yesterday, but I still need to do some detail work on the scales and INTONATION.

Started working on the 1st phrase of the Breval, doing some phrase shaping, when I remembered I hadn't worked on the timing of the trills, so I switched to the scale exercise with turns/trills. Drat. I can't remember exactly what that is supposed to sound like, and the timing of the shift vs. bow change is not working at all. Getting a bit of the hand roll, though.

Back to Breval. Worked the trills by going back and forth between notes without trill, and with trill added. Also, playing much more slowly than usual so I can work in the shakes without tension.

Since I'm on a slow roll, played the whole thing slowly and in a more romantic mode to try to feel where the natural heavy and light notes might be. I think that was somewhat successful. I'll play around more with the timing tomorrow. Maybe I'll set a slow metronome and play it musically from memory at a slow tempo, alternating with air playing the phrase. That should be a good memory workout.

30 min
Day 4. Started with a quick run through Tarantella from memory. Oops, memory #fail. I need to spend 10 or 15 minutes this week patching some places, then get back into the routine of daily running it for awhile.

Turning to Breval C, I also started by running it from memory. Still some hesitations, but no major snafus. Tried numbering in the phrases from the end as we discussed at last lesson, but I think my first pass was too granular. Will try again with bigger chunks, maybe 6 or 8 total. Worked backward again, and started noting the potential detour spots, which for some reason didn't seem as obvious just reading the music.

30 min
Day 3. Again focused only on Breval C. Began by playing through by memory as well as I could, before looking at the music. A few lapses, but no major detours. Did have some confusion at the first variant at the end of the 1st phrase in the B section, so reviewed that. Then started at the mid point and worked phrase by phrase backward through the A section, then forward through the B section. With 3 minutes left I ran the whole piece again. Only a few minor lapses, and usually had to do with where to start a run of triplets: on D or G. Will review that first thing tomorrow.

Other than running through it, I suspect the next useful exercise will be to mark starting points and play them randomly by throwing dice or picking numbers from a bowl.

30 min
Day 2. So far so good. I'm thinking I need to aim for 21 days in a row at my 30 min limit before trying to lengthen it.

Today I set the timer for a 30 minute countdown and started at the end of Breval C. Working backward phrase-by-phrase, and playing several reps through to the end with each new phrase, I had just arrived at the midpoint double bar when time was up. This should make the end much more secure. I found that as I approached the end of the time I was able to focus more on the moment to moment kinesthetics and less on the auditory memory of where I should be going next. That is very good.

Tomorrow I will review the second half from the midpoint, then do a backward phrase-by-phrase through the first half.

Topic for next lesson: review all the trills.

30 min
OK, I missed practicing yesterday, but today is a whole new year. I think for the sake of improved consistency I need to make the resolution that I will practice daily for at least 30 minutes, and see where I go from there.

Today I just worked on Breval C, memorization while playing. My auditory work has laid a good foundation. I worked from the beginning, phrase by phrase, reading once or twice and repeating 3 times from memory. Then I tried the whole thing, and did pretty darn well. The ending is still a little rough, so I will start at the end and work backward next time. Hopefully, tomorrow.