Mon 0:18 (1805-1823)

Just a quick warm up before lesson. E MAJ and a Breval run through. Had 3 days off for travel involving lots of driving, and I'm exhausted. Feeling unmotivated, uninspired, and inadequate. I'm glad I had three good days of practice before the trip, and hope we can come up with something useful to do at my lesson.

Ouch. I missed three whole days of practice.

On Day 1 I spent my practice time getting an MRI of my ankle. I seem to have bunged up (medical term) my posterior tibial tendon. Fortunately, it's not ruptured, so I was able to continue on to...

Day 2, which I (we) dedicated entirely to getting my (our) taxes done enough to be delivered to the tax preparer guy. Yes, all day, but I think that's a record, and we didn't even kill each other. And then...

Day 3 was a travel day, on my way to see what the lovely @EmilyCello can teach this dunderhead. And yes, I suppose I could have practiced in the evening, but I had a party to go to. Rats.

No I did not practice this weekend, but I "touched my cello" both days.

On Saturday we had the (only) rehearsal with choir for a memorial service to be played on Sunday. It's a rather nice idea, a choral concert in memory of the chorus members who have died in the past number of years. My orchestra rehearses at the church, and in return for free use of the space during the year we contribute to the church music needs a couple of times a year.

The two pieces: Lux Aeterna, by Morten Lauridsen, a modern requiem in the traditional format, and O Light of Life! by Mac Wilberg. I believe it's the second mvmt of the Lauridsen that has a beautiful cello solo in treble clef, up to violin position, as I call it. I was glad I didn't have to play it, but our fill-in principal did a beautiful job.

Sunday morning I played one service in church, just congregational accompaniment, and then the memorial service in the afternoon.

Today I spent 2 hours analyzing the first mvmt of Haydn C. I resorted to brute force, making an extra copy then dissecting it with a pair of scissors. That forced me to identify the motifs in order to categorize each appropriately. As I tweeted earlier, here are my results:

By section
Theme 1 x3; Theme 2A x2, 2B x2, 2C x5, 2D x3, 2E x4; double stop Interlude x3; passage work A, B, A+B x1@

In order
1,2A,2B,2C,2D,ds,2C,2E,2C,1,2A,pwA,pwB,2D,ds,2E,1,2B,2C,pwA+B,2E,2C,2D,ds,2E,cad

It was a good day's work, but with the extra driving to take Magoo to and from the vet for his cryptorchidectomy I ran out of time to actually practice. I had church orchestra rehearsal in the evening though, so an hour of "touched my cello" time.

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.

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

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.

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.

Spent the afternoon at the kitty ICU - Chauncey is very sick with unexplained renal failure. No practice today.

Chauncey died in his sleep (or altered mental status) about 11pm. I was very glad I had sacrificed a day of practice to be there earlier.

I did think about practicing, but rejected the idea as impossible. Spent the whole afternoon running a kitten adoptathon at my house, with a short break to run up and seal the deal on my new car. Hardly had time to enjoy that when Chester and Charlie were adopted and I was thrust into depression. Didn't have time to work out, either. I know it was a good day, but it will take me a while to get over it.

No, I didn't practice all weekend. Saturday I spent 5 hours at the shelter being a foster interface. Took DH to get fitted for running shoes in the afternoon. Got to see the end of the PSU vs UMN football game (We are... Penn State...). I guess I don't have an excuse (that I remember) for Saturday night. No, wait. I had to go feed D-'s kittens.

Sunday I played one church service, so I did get some cello time in. Fed D-'s kittens again, had a gut-blasting breakfast at TJ's (raspberry french toast fritters - yum) which required a 2 hour nap afterward. Took out screens and put in storm doors, then because the weather was so nice (and they really needed it) washed all the outside windows. Cooked salmon cakes from my new Japanese cookbook (another yum) then went off to S-'s house to give shots to kittens. Came home and gave shot and meds to little Arnie while we were at it, since he was due.

And then I was out of weekend.

Ooh. I just looked and saw I haven't practiced since Wed. Good thing I had some good practices early in the week.

25 min
Do not feel like practicing. It's been raining all day and my cello is a big wolfy, buzzing mess.

Nevertheless, I started wit Feuillard warmup, first detache #33 the a couple of chord variaitions on #34. About 4 min.

Jumped into Bach prelude. The chord section seemed too much to deal with today, so I focused on the first phrase. Used my new bow hold and pedal assistance to try to make a C MAJ scale as clean as possible. Not easy tonight.

A few forays through the rest of the piece which were not very productive, and intermittant detache cleanups on Feuillard.

At least I did something, I suppose.

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.

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

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.

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."