Showing posts with label Practice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Practice. Show all posts
Baby Step #2.
[This is the 2nd of a post series on Baby Steps.]Baby Step #2 - Adding a step & teaching ourselves to fall again: The next thing Glenda and I worked on together on Monday was adding a new note, F#, to the previous note, A. Notes are a simple and tangible way to keep track of baby steps, however even taking one step on the sidewalk has more than one movement in our body. We have to learn how to figuratively "transfer our weight" from one foot to another, muscle by muscle.
Teaching ourselves to learn is a really difficult (but not impossible) thing to do after the age of 4. I've seen through teaching beginning adult students, that learning to learn is a skill that most adults haven't done since early grade school. If you think about it, everything beyond that in school is built upon a previous education. When you pick up the cello (or any instrument) for the first having never touched anything like it before, you're starting from square one. Most of my adult students weren't expecting to encounter that difficulty when they chose the cello, however it seems that the challenge is addicting.
So back to practicing... an important thing to realize here is that we had to take the larger step from A to F# several times before we recognized that doing large step was actually two or three or four baby steps. We added a new baby step by feeling out and hearing out the combination of the current and next notes. ( A, F# (caught the lower string.) A, F# (tone lacked). A, F#(caught the G string). Etc.) By hearing ourselves make a mistake over and over again with forgiving grace and positive reinforcement, we are able to narrow down the source of that speed-bump.
Think about this: a baby doesn't take long, gazelle-like, deep strides directly after crawling. There's the cute pulling-up-onto-the-coffee-table stage, the shimmying-around-the-coffee-table stage, the falling-onto-the-nearest-furniture-from-the-coffee-table stage, and eventually, standing and then slow, small steps. But of course, there's lots of falling-on-diaper-cushioned-baby-bottoms. We have to do the same things when we add a new note, including the falling down.
Using the tangible next ladder rung, a note, we are able to feel out that a note (in this case, the F#) just may be too big a step to take next. This allows us to get to the bottom of the next appropriate step for practice, for the right hand in this case, string crossing. But not JUST cross strings. We magnified our "looking lens" to see that we actually need to cross down a string while at the tip of our bow. Therefore, the next step of practice was to simply rock our bows from A to D at the tip of our bow without making a sound but merely feeling and watching the contact point of our bow touch first the A-string, then the D-string.
All in all, adding a step in practice is a series of fallings. Getting back up, & slowly teaching yourself what the true next step of practice is after falling on the ground. Kinda like life, huh? Interesting... ;-)
Baby Step #1.
[This is the first of a blog series on Baby Steps.]Today I gave a 3-note lesson. It was great! Not as boring as some of you may think, not in the least bit! Glenda and I were talking about baby steps. and 3 notes are the perfect tangible amount of baby steps to take in 30 minutes.
After years and years of driving her own children to music lessons, and now witnessing her grandchildren go to their music lessons, Glenda has taken the grand leap to give herself the time to take the music lessons she's always wanted! She played her first recital in December and played her "Twinkles" with a great twinkle in her eye! Way to go Glenda! Glenda has acknowledged that as an adult beginner she's got a long way to go before she gets to where she wants to be as a cellist.
But! Today she made the exclamation "I want to practice 2 hours a day." (Glenda, I will hold you to this desire, believe you me!) I admire her acknowledgement of exactly how badly she wants to be a better cellist and make the sound she hears from the stereo and inside her heart everyday. Acknowledging the desire is a great part of taking the steps to acquiring the skills.
So this morning Glenda and I sat down to our lesson and we began to talk about how we practice.
- What does it mean to take baby steps in practice?
- How can we divide up the songs we work on?
- Rather than just narrow in on three notes and play them over and over (and over and over and...), how do we provide ourselves with the ladder rungs to play sounds that we long to hear from our cellos?
- Is there a science, a set of rules to the deductive reasoning we use while practicing?
Baby Step #1 - Recycling your checklist: Playing a note on the A-string, the A in this case, does not just mean play A. Playing the first note of Lightly Row means thinking about all types of posture, bow hold, arm swing, prepping the 3rd finger (and 1st and 2nd fingers), flat wrist, curved fingers, sinking & weighty arms, and more! We start at the very beginning of the first cello lesson we ever had and press "play."
The recycling of thought on all your technique is crucial. It's crucial for a number of reasons. We don't want to train our minds to play something incorrectly. The more we practice an idea as simple as sitting at a 90-degree angle, the more innate it will feel as we move on to further baby steps. Eventually you realize that you don't have to go to that check point as often. But as you'll soon read in later posts, you do need to go back to them eventually, if only for brief moments.
I liken this step to "checking in on someone." Call them up. Ask how things are going. Listen. If they're doing well, smile. If they're doing poorly, listen. Empathize. Help.
I'm trying to do this with more friends and even with myself more often these days. I find myself saying in my life, what a lot of my students say in their lessons... "What?! How and why on earth am I sitting sideways?" "Woah. Why are my shoulders so tense?" Sometimes my physical body demands that I check in on myself. "What!? Where did this cold sore come from? What am I so stressed out about? Why am I craving so much sweet stuff?" or "Okay, I'm getting a migraine. What emotionally traumatic moment did I re-live 3 hours ago?"
Because Thought-Recycling is so crucial, this is where it's great to have a teacher. A great teacher, in my opinion, should always check in on their student regularly. "Oh, you still haven't memorized, 7 + 5, let's go back a little then. Before we attempt to swallow algebra." :-) I realize that I might sound like a broken record to some of my students. But! It's for your own precious good. You'll thank me later, I promise. To this day, I can still hear my first cello teacher, Myrna Trent, talk about curved fingers and bow distribution. (Thank you Myrna!)
Okay, back to Glenda's lesson. Playing the first note of Lightly Row has a TON of checklist items to go through. Glenda and I once wrote out a list of ~100 things she thinks about while playing the cello. No joke. Play that first note several times to allow your brain to go through each one. After you've gone through your checklist items and your senses are satisfied then go on to the next baby step...
Linda's Rigadoon! Love it!
One of my lovely student's, Linda, had the assignment of writing out the song she's currently learning. Because she's a kinesthetic learner (learns best by "doing") I needed her to use her hands and body to get to know the song better.We both noted that Rigadoon is a Sandwich song-form. Her favorite sandwich? Peanut Butter & Nutella. A+ Linda!
A Lesson with Stephen Balderston
I've been at Marrowstone this past week. I'm sharing the role of Student Life Coordinator with my good friend and bassist, Scott Teske. Aside from getting to chew out a few rebellious curfew-breakers, one of my favorite highlights has been taking a cello lesson with Stephen Balderston.The hour with him was mine to use how I wanted (which is always great.) We talked "teacher-talk" for awhile. I wanted to bring up a few issues I've noticed with my students, things like bow holds, pronation, supenation, left hand fluidity, vibrato, tone, etc.
He suggested reading a few books, which I've already ordered from the interwebs. The first, which he mentioned in a masterclass that I missed (due to a camper's trip to the ER), The Talent Code. This one seems to align perfectly with my own philosophy of talent: "Talent is not born, it's grown." I can't wait to read how the author brings other disciplines like soccer, academics, writing, social skills, etc. together to prove this point.
Mr. Balderston also suggested using ideas from the book Playing the String Game, which has tons of games with secret motives for teachers to use in classes and private lessons. I'm always looking for more ways to convey teaching points and cello technique.
Aside from talking teacher-stuff, we got to work on my own personal technique. I'm so glad that he was as picky as he was - the things he brought up are the very things I've secretly wanted to improve for awhile now.
I tend to speed up my bow ever so slightly on the down-bow changes, causing the tiniest of separation between bows. This is a problem that no audience would be able to pick up on, but once fixed makes for a much easier listen. Remedy? Move my wrist less. It's not as simple of a fix as you'd think. Just takes slow, long bows and a very attentive ear.
I've got to get back to playing games with the brilliant students who are here. Marrowstone hosts some of the most talented children and young adults! I'm honored to witness each of them grow in talent through these two weeks. I can't believe it's almost over!
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