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