One Musician's Back-to-School Blues - Tag

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It's the end of summer which means the start of orchestra and audition season. For many classical musicians September presents some of the same cringe-making, performance-related anxieties not entirely unknown to huge numbers of young students heading back to school. For some of us our summers can be just as musically rich, rewarding, and challenging as the regular concert season/academic year. Yet for those of us without benefit of summer music festivals, workshops, clinics, lessons, and rehearsals the summer invariably devolves into a sort of musical desert. Of course, it goes without saying that the best, most disciplined musicians can come out of a musically wanting summer with their technique still in tact. For the rest of us who instinctively balk at the prospect of dripping onto our instruments in hours-long practise sessions during the height of summer heat, the season leaves us (myself included) feeling just a tad rusty.

For me, daily practise is again the routine, but I find myself now devoting whole weekends in between orchestra rehearsals to incredibly intense, focused practise - the sort of practise I have skillfully and artfully avoided since my not-so-far off student days. So... in my quest to resurrect what modest talent I seem vaguely to recall possessing in past I've drawn up a list of musical short and mid-term goals for myself. I invite my fellow musicians, especially string players, to do the same...

My Cello Playing Wishlist
1) Well, talent. Duh.
2) New C and G strings. (This instrument's bass needs all the help it can get.)
3) Faster, cleaner, more accurate octave shifts.4) A more secure bow hold and tidier bow economy.5) Less hiding out in 4th position.6) Scale back the vibrato. (Mine is akin to a bad cook overusing sauce to hide his mistakes!)7) Finally make peace with playing closer to the bridge. (This advice came from no less than Lynn Harrell!)
8) Where, oh where has my thumb callous gone....?9) Return to etudes. (The Popper preparatory book seems a safe starting point. And don't you dare laugh!)10) Above all, a more nuanced dynamic range and consistency of tone. I know, very basic stuff!
Wow! That was cathartic. Now back to work!

2 years ago