Using the bass guitar to help with cello...

So, tonight I was faced with a rather interesting dilemma ...

It was 11:00 or so at night, and I wanted to practice, but didn't want to disturb others in the dorm & didn't want to walk over to the music building just to discover it was locked up (nor did I want to walk over to our other music/arts building, b/c I was quite tired...)

So, I decided to play some bass guitar ... usually on bass I just mess around and don't do anything productive ... however, I noticed that the strings were really digging into my left hand's fingers ... so it occured to me that I could use it to help me build up some callouses, since I didn't get to do much raw technique exercise today (I worked on the 2nd movement of the Elgar concerto in my lesson, and so all the practicing I did was oriented around that & trying to fix my bow grip ... so, unfortunately, I didn't quite get to scales and arpeggios)

Anyway, from there I decided to play the bass with the same conviction I use when playing the cello ... with the conviction of focusing on every note & playing every note well & I started coming up with exercises & patterns the way I do on cello, and it occurred to me that I could apply any of my cello method to bass & that it would help both ... quite exciting...

So I did that for a bit, was more productive than I ever am on bass, and now my LH is just slightly more calloused ...

My lesson today was pretty much spent on talking about Spiccato & then fingering the 2nd movement of the Elgar ... it was definitely within reach, although this spiccato thing is going to take a ton of work to develop ... I'm already getting closer with it ... have some bowing things that needed correcting though ... basic principles:

1. Start with free bouncing bow, let it drift towards bridge ... as it gets closer, try to control the bounces
2. The fingers must be relaxed for this (I later discovered the way to achiever this for me seems to be to practice the proper finger motions as a separate exercise & then remember to initiate the bow motions with larger muscle groups when actually playing...)
3. Fingers straighten for down bow (2nd knuckle "dissappears") & curl for upbow ... thumb does the same
4. at faster speeds (we started *very* slow), the thumb is the engine of the locomotive & the fingers follow
5. Contact point must remain consistent
6. Wrist should be pronated

I meant to record the lesson, but I completely forgot to bring my laptop :( This would have been a tremendously helpful lesson to record too... I've decided I need to become a better student & ask as many questions as possible. I also need to not be satisfied with the way I perform things, because there are always so many more levels that I could achieve with them ... I wish my teacher pushed me more, but it's just not his nature, so I'm going to push him more, which will in turn push me more...

I noticed, when watching the vid. of Jacqueline DuPre playing the Elgar, that she uses a very slanted left hand & that along with extremely smooth bows, it creates the intensity & sound that she gets ... it was exciting to discover something about the technique of music making that someone uses ... I think there's a different technique for every piece of music ... or at least for every composer & I'm glad to have learned part of one of them ... I feel like I need to learn more of these to move beyond where I am now & to improve my musicality ... I'm going to watch as many videos of great cellists as I can whenever I have the chance, and really try to dissect what's going on as effectively and as in-depth as I can ... for now I'm going to focus on Jackie & her Elgar.

By the way, I'm usually not that into listening to new classical cellists (Ironic I know, considering my career choice), but check this guy out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qwz0foa7sQ ... he captures the soul of Bach in a way that almost everybody misses!

I've been trying to get in touch with the teacher at Purchase, but no luck just yet ... just trying to get in touch with her at all though has made me think of how slowly I'm moving through things & how much more I could be doing, so here's to doing more & constantly pushing myself & developing greater self-discipline in my life!

I recorded a video the other day from a practice session, check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR_LV9XZfLM

Also, I discovered a way to improve my "ladder" method ... I've discovered that working backwards from the very top of the upper register is incredibly more helpful & muscle-developing & I'm going to use it to plow through my weaker areas on the cello (between that & the Elgar, I'm gonna have such a better map of the cello in my brain, not to mention a better concept of what I can do musically!)

Guess that's all for now... I should go to sleep soon, since I've got class in about 7 hours...

Good to be back!

So over the weekend, I played cello for the Easter Masses... it was a tremendous amount of fun & I don't know if it's because it made me feel physically better from being sick, or if it's because of something deeper inside, but there were some truly beautiful music-making moments & there was this accompanying joy & sense of pride with what I was doing... it's great to feel that again.

To follow that up, I practiced for somewhere around 3 hours today ... I got some really great stuff accomplished, and I used my laptop to record & video for the first time ... so helpful. It makes a tremendous difference to pause & reflect verbally after each exercise ... and also to set goals makes a tremendous difference...

My bow technique is bothering the crap out of me after that conversation with Ostrofsky, though I love the way my left hand is coming along... truth be told, my bow hand isn't that bad... but it could be so much further... I'm going to really try to focus on it as much as possible... it's sort of like focusing on your left hand when practicing piano...

One thing that helps tremendously is if I think about the bow motion coming from the upper arm muscles, and think of the elbow as a hinge (I really need to just work/study with Ostrofsky ... all of his ideas & concepts 3 years later still work great for me... I love my teacher, there's just certain limits he has in his concepts of technique & his idea of playing & I'm not saying that I know better than him or that I know more, because I don't ... I'm just saying that there's other things that I need ... other ways to do and learn... still, I could write a whole post on the good things about my teacher... maybe I should do that sometime...)


Speaking of other teachers... I'm absolutely calling Julia Lichten tomorrow ... making myself do it... been putting it off way too long...

Also speaking of other teachers, Richard Slade conducted our chorus rehearsal tonight instead of our usual conductor (he's listed on the links to the right as Richard the Tenor) ... what a tremendous difference! We got so much more done, not to mention the general morale was a lot higher & I felt like I actually learned a ton in the class, because the teacher actually talked about musical and technical issues, instead of just taking a brute force approach to things... sort of another example ... our usual teacher is not a bad teacher, but there's just so much more that could be done...

Anyway, point is, some good music stuff has been going on lately & I'm gonna keep it up! So thrilled to be back in my inner performing world... I realize I still never responded to peoples' comments... I think I'm gonna have to let those ones go at this point... thanks for the support from anyone who did comment though...

How bout me enjoying the moment for once?

Hung out with my good friend Danny Gray last night ... also visited my old high school the other day (I'll be playing at the Palisades Mall with them tomorrow which means I need to wake up waaaay too early!)

It was great to chill with Danny, cuz it's been way too long. We got to talk about a bunch of music stuff and I ended up burning all the Nightwish cds I had for him ... it was so cool watching vids/listening to music w/ him ... him and Andrew really get into this stuff in a way that other people don't & I was so excited to be around that again... also, it's crazy how much he can just pick up the chords and structure of something just from listening to it... truly inspiring (I stayed up all night playing along w/ Dream Theater... about time!)

Danny also just got accepted to an *amazing* film scoring program that accepts 20 people a year: http://web.mac.com/smptv/iWeb/SMPTVUSC/THE%20PROGRAM.html

So the downside to that is that in a few months, he'll be moving out to California...

In other news, I bought a Macbook Pro recently & it's truly amazing... I don't have any of the really cool/extraordinary software like Pro Tools or reason, but I do have Audacity & Garage Band, and for right now, that's sufficient ... it's great for songwriting & jamming ... and I can record vids. w/ it too .. it's so nice to be able to record myself again.

Also... I finally started playing cello again. With both cello & keys (keyboards), it's amazing how much more relaxed I am now, and how much more focused my mind is. I'm finally starting to push myself out of my comfort zone w/ the keys and move into other key areas that I don't normally play in. I've realized from listening to Dream Theater that what my songwriting is lacking at the moment is mood/direction ... I can come up w/ melodies/harmonies/lyrics, but everything needs to have a feel to it. One of the ways they do that is through key changes (you can of course also do this stuff with patch changes and other tonal things) ... so it's stuff to think about...

It's been great being home... and its phenomenal to finally reconnect with my musical roots (cuz when it comes down to it, Nightwish is my heart & Dream Theater is my mind, and I learn so much that way...)

Speaking of which, I've decided to move past my resentment with classical music and all that stuff... music is just music... what matters is that I enjoy it & do creative things with it... I'm not going to box myself into being a type of musician... my music is my music and it incorporates all elements .. amazing musicianship and composition can be found in basically any genre, classical included. (I swear it all goes back to Bach ... every time I'm really at odds with this stuff, I just go back to him & Beethoven, but Bach especially b/c he's so personal, and everything just makes sense again).

I've also decided to take an extra semester at school & to quit my retail job so I can focus on music (about time!) ... Also, I'm playing on a few people's Sr. Recitals (quite exciting) & next week is Easter (that means money!!)

Now I just need to line up a summer job & maybe find another student... I think a goal to accomplish within a year from now is to setup some kind of teaching studio or at least to not have to drive around to lessons as much... it's very time-consuming/draining.

That's all I'm gonna write for now ... glad to be practicing again .. and glad to be practicing for its own sake ... self-indulgence can be so fulfilling sometimes...

(PS - Thanks for all of you who left comments on the last couple of entries - I know I haven't necessarily responded to everything, but thank you! I'll try and respond to anything I've left untouched soon...)