Going away for a vacation is rejuvenating, but being without my cello for a couple of weeks means working my way back up to speed on all the pieces I am working on. I wondered if I would lose the memory on my Bach pieces, but I was able to play them through yesterday without too many lapses. Whew!
My fingers are a bit sore today; I think I probably lost some of the calluses on my fingertips (my thumb was fine). My cello is sounding okay; I think it likes the higher humidity and the warmer temperatures now that spring has come to town. But, it still will take a few days to sound played in. It likes being played regularly!
I did take my music with me and played the pieces on a piano a few times to keep the music in my head. I have the most awful time trying to play tenor clef music on the piano. I have no trouble with bass and treble clefs (which of course if you play the piano you can read easily), but although I can play tenor clef on the cello with no problem, it’s a struggle on the piano. I also spend some time diagraming the timing in the middle section of the Faure Elegy. There are measures of 8th, 16th, and triplets that are very hard to play accurately. I ended up writing 1xxx, 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx on the music so I could see clearly where the beats fell, and how long the rests were in the very fast sections. I think it helped, as I was able to play it more easily yesterday. Now I just have to memorize it!!! And play it up to tempo!
We did get to a concert with a cello. It was all newly composed music (much of it was completely lacking melody and attractiveness), but the cellist was quite good. I’m not a fan of much modern music, but I do keep trying to have an open mind about it and do keep listening.
Cello With Love 