Cello-ing

My cello teacher can see gold in a mud puddle. As I struggle trying to reach the E above the C on the top string, she’s saying, “That’s it. You’ve got the idea!”

After a year of classes or lessons, I should be ready to audition for a local orchestra, right? But before one can play orchestra music, I’ve learned, one has to know all the notes, where they are, and how to play them with other people. You have to have good finger position, good posture, and you can’t make those dreadful faces when you’re having a hard time keeping up. But most important, when you pull or push that bow across the strings, you have to evoke music! Like my teacher does.

From Suzuki to Mendelssohn

The last few weeks she’s been giving me a lot of drill pieces so I can become more familiar with the notes and more adept at reaching them when they appear in the music. But this week she pulled out a real musical piece, “On Wings of Song” by Mendelssohn. A beautiful tune in 6/8 rhythm, which can be so graceful and musical.

First two measures, easy. Then there’s an “A” note that is usually played on the top string, an open string. Just play the bow and you’ve got a perfect “A.” Except this one has a notation of “1″ next to the note. That means play it with the first finger. And that means jumping back to the second string and finding “A” there so I can play it with my “first” finger. Not hard to find, but how many times do I have to repeat that so it is smooth? More times then I have done so far.

Once in the piece I am asked to play, for one-eighth of a beat, the “E” note above the C note on the first string. That’s one measurement out of limits. In other words, if I want other words, I’m in the second position. So I gracefully skip a  finger, come down a note on my second finger, then play the next note my first finger and slide down the string to the next one.

The whole piece is only 37 measures long, and I will repeat those crossings over and over, I will. By Monday afternoon I’ll have that little piece tucked away. Tuesday just before my lesson I’ll bring out the cello for one last review before I astound my teacher with my mastery.

Grand finale

Then I get to my lesson. A little chit-chat, and it’s time. Two false starts before I get going and two or three stumbles reaching those second position notes. Twice it’s a dead stop, and I start up again from there and go on. Who knows what the quality of the bowing was? Then it’s over. I start breathing again.

My teacher says, “That’s wonderful!”

She probably means, “I didn’t think you’d make it to the last note!”

I’ll work on Mendelssohn another week. My 69-year-old brain and body is going to try once more to get it smooth and melodious.

I’d recommend it to anyone who needs to be challenged. The cello. It’s eloquent. It’s hearty. It’s horribly difficult. But it’s fun.

Joyce Griffith

 

 

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Tags: cello, cello for older people, cello lessons, cello student in her late 60s, cello teacher, learning cello