2 things: I listened to my mind, and I futzed with my left fingers’ approach. The left hand thing has been going on for about a week-and-a-half. I got some advice from a colleague about a different way of thinking about coming at the string. It started me compartmentalizing the stages of a note – from the first instant, through the body of it, at its concluding moments, and on into the next one. I hadn’t ever really done that. It’s not as though I hadn’t heard it discussed. I just somehow couldn’t focus on that sort of minutia until more recently. So this was fun for awhile, playing with these stages. There are many ways of commencing a note – with a ping, with a plop, with a lean, with a tickle. And the choice you make here affects the continuation of it – the pingier the attack, the more likely there is you will have a lighter body, from a releasing action. But you can train yourself to start gently and continue gently. I’m more on that notion now. But the key thing which seems to be particularly relevant is that the character of the bow and the music can be reflected in these nuances of the left hand, if you are aware of them (finally). So, thing #1, my mind. Last night I listened to it a bit more objectively than usual. If that is feasible. I didn’t appreciate its tone. Really very judgmental. Why is that? No wonder it is such a relief to blog/journal. Getting my nasty brain onto paper instead of stuck in my suffering skull. But my second thought (not quite my first) gave me hope for my mental health: I bet a lot of people are dealing with these crappy thought tendencies. And some learn how to manage nonetheless. So, that means a couple of things: I am not a freak, and therefore not an impossible case study, and there must be some effective means of overcoming it. Hopelessness has never been particularly useful.

originally published on 12/14/09

Tonight I had a chance to try out my left hand finagling. It did not work too well. But I think I had a breakthrough. Why do 99% of those happen as a result of a failure, and only the 1% within a success? Oh, well.

It’s hard to go into too much detail about the cello in this blog, I find, so I didn’t explain all of my dominoing ideas yesterday. One of the subsequent notions I had was that everything is derived from a sense of balance. I can think of my left fingers as balancing on the strings like a tightrope walker, although with much less risk of plummeting to their deaths. That springy, light-footed image helps re-envision what their actions entail. It almost gets you into the miniature perspective of them dancing and swimming along the strings. I was also playing with the manifestations of ballet throughout the cello-playing body – in the bow hand and arm, in the spine, through the legs, up into the head.

So tonight I focused too one-sidedly on the left hand, and I suspect that this has very limited usefulness in the long run (or even in a 10 minute performance). The left hand needs the right hand, which needs the torso, which needs the lungs, etc. It’s a complex system which must function as such. And as I practiced later on, I realized how open I have to be to every little discovery I have ever broached. Everything is relevant. I think Casals spoke of the incredible amount of awareness and aliveness and concentration needed to even play something quite simple. I don’t know why I like to think things cancel eachother out or override one another. Maybe I am afraid. Afraid of the grandness of what might happen if I don’t dismiss or disregard. If I make room for many seemingly unrelated or contrary sides of an issue.

originally published on 12/15/09