Wow, it’s been awhile since I put a post up. I’ve been mostly busy with cello.
I’ve got a string trio & quartet together now, and we practice usually every other week. We’re working on some of the early Mozart Quartets (K.155-160), some great Corelli rep including the Christmas Concerto and Church Sonatas Op.1 No 1,3,7,11, and lots of other fun stuff. We also work on Bach Chorales a lot for warmups.
I’ve also joined the Melrose Symphony (on cello) and am really excited for the fall program, which includes the Shostakovich 9th Symphony, and the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2.
The other reason I haven’t posted anything is I don’t currently have any camera or webcam setup such that I could record or add video, and I’ve always preferred to have posts come with audio examples. Last Sunday for example, we were going to look at the 6th movement chorale from Cantata BWV 2, Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, which was the cantata played on WGBH the Sunday before, love that melody. So, I played through that on my bass a bit, playing the bottom and top lines and trying to sing a middle part.
It was great fun, and I thought about doing a post on that, but then realized I don’t have the camera or the energy to keep posting stuff that doesn’t seem of much interest.
So, I think that’s my official ‘adiue’ to my blog, but I’m still thinking about that a bit.
I took the Thoughts on Tone Production workshop with Gabriel Bolkosky at the MA Suzuki Fest at New England Conservatory a few weeks back. What a great musician. I would definitely like to study with him sometime.
There were two things in his presentation that really stuck with me.
One was a metaphor that he used:
“You can’t cram on the farm.”
He went on to make the analogy that like a farmer can’t rush a crop out at the last minute, we can’t rush things into a ready state in our musical preparation either.
When my church asked me to play some solo music for the Maundy Thursday service I was really excited. “I’ll play some solo cello rep.” But, as I got closer to the date, I realized, “geez, I’m not too comfortable with any of that rep right now”. Truthfully, I haven’t been working on any of it. I’ve been working hard on trio and quartet rep, and there’s only so much you can do.
So, rather than try to rush anything out, I thought, “well, I’ve been playing tons of gamba rep”, so rather than stress the gig, I called up my consort-mate Tom and we’re going to play some simple Lassus duets, and a Bach chorale that I know very well.
Another thing that he mentioned is taking full responsibility for the sounds you produce. Constantly monitoring your tone, intonation, bowing, etc, and taking full responsibility at all times for producing the best sound you possibly can. I think that’s just great.
I’m currently playing on an amazing cello, a Jay Haide, which has amazing tone, but when I’m playing my upright bass (which is plywood), I’m too often not taking responsibility for producing better tone. I’ll just say in my head, “well, this bass just has no good tone in it, so that’s that”. In fact, the analogy I often use is that my bass is like eating a cardboard pizza box when you were expecting pizza. But, that approach really doesn’t move me along as a player. My bass can sound better, I can always produce better tone on it. (Although on the other hand, the experience of renting the Jay Haide has made me consider renting a decent bass at Rutman’s, because the Haide just responds and has so much tone potential, it’s really exciting right now. )
It really made me think about my own practice routines, and it seems, being New Year’s, a great time to be thinking about tightening that up and getting a bit more focused. In the book, he talks a lot about practice routines where people practice things outside of their actual activity. Football players weight training and running, for example. When I consider that, I realize that I don’t do so much of that stuff musically. I used to practice scales, arpeggios, and string crossing exercises and the like when I was younger, but as I got more experienced, I felt that was a waste of time. Sort of along the line of Yngwie’s famous quote, “why play scales when there’s such great music to play?”.
While I still agree with that, I have to make sure that my practice time is filled up with things that are difficult for me, and not merely playing what is not a challenge. Maybe the difference between running and jogging to make a running analogy.
I play usually about 2 hours in the morning before going to work, and that’s usually a mix of playing, listening, transcribing, gig prep, repertoire review and activities like that.
This book has really inspired me to take a look at my practice regimen and see where I could improve. Maybe that will be something compelling to blog about in 2009.
There’s a great chapter in The Listening Book called “Finding a Teacher” that I’ve always really enjoyed.
This summer I met my cello teacher, before I was even playing cello again. She was the conductor of the big band at the World Fellowship Early Music Week. I knew from our first rehearsal that she was a musician I wanted to study music with. We were playing a beautiful Lully piece and she was halfway between conducting and bouncing up and down, exuding this tangible sense of joy.
On Wednesday afternoon it was such a beautiful afternoon that she canceled rehearsal and declared a group swim. Fantastic! I went for a swim in this beautiful lake, and this part you got to visualize a bit. (I wanted to draw a picture, but I can’t draw.)
Start Visualize
So, I’m swimming in this beautiful lake with a mountain view. My cello teacher is about 10 yards ahead of me. Next thing I know, I look up and she’s standing up in the middle of the lake. Turns out there’s a big rock in the lake that you can stand on, just at the water’s surface, and she knew just where it was. End Visualize
To me, that’s sort of what your teacher can do with music. Show you what’s possible! And, you should make sure that you feel that way about your teacher’s playing and coaching. When I was much younger I wasn’t so proactive about these things. For example, my studio placements at NEC I left entirely up to the school. And, that wasn’t a good idea. You have to be proactive about that. I would do undergrad at music school SO DIFFERENTLY now. Alas.
Anyway, so I’ve had two private lessons with her and it’s been really helpful to my re acclimation process on cello.
I don’t think she’d mind if I shared one anecdote from our second lesson when we took a look the Suite 1 prelude. And, this does (finally) relate a bit to electric bass. I’ve been playing this piece on electric bass since I got one when I was twelve. As such, I had really lost track of the phrasing and articulation and the composition’s structure. So, back on cello, I’m playing that first phrase with the first three notes in a down bow, and she has a really good coaching for me: “Think of those first three notes like the ringing of church bells in a cathedral. Really big on those three notes in your down bow. The rest of the notes, lighter, as if they are the reverb sounding from those three big notes. Call and response.”
Isn’t that fantastic? Here’s a video clip where I repeat all that, and then try to bring that coaching into the beginning of the phrase on my EAB. Really hard, but worth trying.
That’s what a great teacher does! I’ve been playing that piece for years, but I’ve got an entirely new way to look at it now. Fantastic!
Let me end by saying that studying is such a great part of the musical process, and no matter what level you’re at, participate in that dynamic. Take some lessons, help support the players you admire, and coach those that admire your playing. It’s really a core, special part of the process, and what connects and binds us all together. That and the Force of course!
I’m re-reading the first Artist Way book right now and really enjoying it. It’s always relevant and practical. There was a discussion of creative u-turns that you take in a life and how to work through those and process them productively.
That made me think a lot about cello actually. When I started getting really into bass I really stopped playing cello much. I was about 14 at that point. I remember having quite a meltdown with my cello teacher at that time. She could tell I was losing focus on cello and wasn’t practicing. I’ve thought about that over the years, and figured that she thought I had potential on the instrument. I’m honored that she thought that. But, what if she knew that I was taking a creative u-turn?
I think of all my work on bass over the intervening years, so much of it focused on playing my bass like a cello. Tuning in 5ths for years, trying to fit in with a string quartet. I was enticed by the challenge on the instrument. And the greatest bass players, like RGF and Edg@r M3yer can do it. But, that’s been a frustrating path for me, I just can’t make a bass sound like a cello.
I started thinking about this a bit because I think I’ve got at least two violinists at work that may want to work on some Corelli concerto grossi. So, as I thought about how I would cover the cello part I thought about gamba, and it would be a lot of fun to try on that, but I don’t quite have the low range, so I’m thinking “well, maybe I can use the 7-string if that’s available” (that would give me the low A string), or “I’ll bring my bass and play on that”. So, I’m going through all these machinations to make it work. Finally, it just occurs to me, “just get a cello!”.
About this time last year, I bought a VERY cheap cello, or I should say “violin shaped object” (VSO), so I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. That instrument ($50) was just too junky though, it had no tone to pull out of it. To make a food analogy, it was like eating a cardboard box when expecting pizza.
So, this time, I will get a decent instrument. I went on Johnson Strings website and looked up a 3-month rental of a “master” instrument, and I bet those are pretty nice. I’ll go down in a few weeks and play one, and maybe go for it if I don’t end up with the 7-string gamba this fall.
Anyway, that’s a long way of saying how productive I find the Artist Way book. Creative u-turns happen, but it’s important to deal with them productively. Rather than worry about not playing cello for the last 20 years, I just focus on maybe getting a decent instrument and seeing where it takes me.
And, I’ll have to look up my old cello teacher sometime. She’s had a really successful career, moved to Montreal and is very active on the thriving early music scene up there from what I hear.
I really enjoyed Barry Green’s second book The Mastery of Music Ten Pathways to Musical Mastery.
Each chapter focuses on an instrument family and characteristics typically embodied by those musicians. It’s a lot of fun to read, and points out some real fundamental truths that are quite funny to consider. Like, has anyone ever heard of an oboist being late to a rehearsal? That’s just a laughable thought. Of course they’re never late, who would anyone tune to? But, back up and think about what it means to be an oboist, and what can you learn from someone like that is a really cool thing to consider. I also really dug the viola chapter.
They are definitely ten characteristics that are really valuable to think about, and I highly recommend reading this book.
A few of the reasons that I love my electric acoustic bass so much came together for me in quick succession between yesterday and today.
First, having an acoustic is so great for an event like yesterdays. The Boston Classical Guitar Society has these performance parties that are the closest thing to the “Classical Music Open Mike” thing I’m always looking for (and have thought to start). Anyway, it’s so great to be able to show up at one of those and just play, without bringing an amp, which really just wouldn’t fit the vibe and spirit of things. I had a great time yesterday and played the Prelude from Cello Suite No 1 in G and I also played the Bourree from the Lute Suites.
Second, this morning I was getting set to practice some repertoire for my fall recital, but my EAB was downstairs from an evening practice session. I took my electric 6 off the wall for the first time in probably 3 months or so, and practiced (un-amplified as I always do). I couldn’t believe how easy it was to play. I was gliding through the pieces, it was so easy on my hands! The frets were so forgiving. It was literally like the difference between skating and walking, going from the EAB to my electric. I realized that I have to “touch base” with my electrics a bit more regularly, as much as I love my EAB. And, for performance on the harder pieces, even stuff like the Bourree, I need to use my electric. But, the hard work of playing the EAB really sets that up, and I’ll continue to do play it as my primary bass.
Third, like a classical guitar, the EAB puts you in full control of generating all your sound. A few players yesterday grabbed my instrument and pulled more sound out of it than I’ve ever heard coming out of, just from being used to that as musicians. Looking not to any amps or electronics, just find the sound you’re hearing, and pull it out any which way you can.
Unrelated to this post really, but here’s a practice clip of Cello Suite 6 Prelude that I recorded a few months back. I haven’t tried this on electric in a long time, but I bet it would flow a lot better thanks to this (pretty rough) practice.
I haven’t posted much bass stuff of late, mostly because I’ve been working on gamba and upright this summer. But, I’m always relating things I’m working on back to electric bass eventually.
Here’s a practice snippet of the Allegro from gamba Sonata No. 2 in D Major. I’m playing along with the definitive recording by J0rdi S@vall and T0n K00pman (A=415).
Throughout this piece one thing that really helps is to think about extensions within a position, spanning 5 or 6 frets within a position. For instance, in the first few bars I’m playing a position that spans 5 frets. And, in the 3rd measure, I’m barring the 14th fret with my first finger, that really helps too. Later when I hit that high A, I’m just stretching for it, but really remaining in position. Going for stretches and extensions within a position, rather than thinking about shifting too much.
Not a very good take, but take a listen anyway, and below there’s a start of a quick transcription to show my approach to the fingerings.
If you’re looking for an edition, I would highly recommend the Dover ISBN 0-486-25641-3, which includes the cello suites. www.doverpublications.com.
I had such an awesome time up at the Early Music & Country Dance Week last week in NH. An entire week of great coaching from awesome staff, great fellow student musicians, beautiful nature scenery, incredibly beautiful music. It was fantastic, I could have stayed another month!
I brought my bass gamba and focused on that for the week. I feel like I’m gaining some ground in “reversing” my bowing and getting comfortable with the bowing, which for me has been the hardest part of the gamba ramp up. (if you don’t know what I mean, in gamba bowing the up bow is the emphasis stroke that you start most phrases with, not the down bow, but you call it a “push” bow, “pull” is toward you.)
The staff and fellow students were also really encouraging about the electric bass stuff I do, and I played the Bach Cello Suite 1 Prelude at Friday’s night’s fun night concert on my EAB. Not the best version I’ve done, but it was fun to play and people dug it.
I can’t wait for next year, and hope I’m really comfortable on gamba by then!
A few weeks ago I was driving to a rehearsal, and I wasn’t particularly prepared on the rep for our spring concert. I was listening to WHRB’s Afternoon Concert. Ah, Elgar’s Cello Concerto, not sure of the performer. Man, I hadn’t heard that in awhile.
That night I found myself, although I should have been working on the rep for the concert, trying a few of my favorite snippets on the EAB. I had a lot of fun with that, I’ll have to try that with a Music Minus One type CD, what a great piece!
Here’s a few snippets from a practice session on that. Far from a polished thing (and I expect a lot of negative comments on YouTube about these videos), but I hope it inspires someone to take on the whole piece on EAB, I think that would sound great.
