November 9th – 21st, 2024
Audition Preparation Workshop 2024
CelloBello’s Audition Preparation Workshop is a virtual seminar designed to help
prospective undergraduate and graduate students prepare for their school auditions,
including the prescreening process.
This two-week intensive features masterclasses, private lessons, and panel discussions,
all centered around empowering students with the tools to succeed in their auditions.
prospective undergraduate and graduate students prepare for their school auditions,
including the prescreening process.
This two-week intensive features masterclasses, private lessons, and panel discussions,
all centered around empowering students with the tools to succeed in their auditions.
Friday, October 18th 2024 at 3:00 pm ET
Live from Boston, MA
CelloChat: Mike Block
Join the conversation!
Faculty at New England Conservatory, Silk Road Ensemble, Biribá Union. Mike Block Trio
Play for the Vote
cellosophy
Listening awareness is primary in the zone of creative transcendence.
As a teacher, my first task is to teach students how to practice. Once they understand this, they begin to make progress.
The fingers have no brains, and they have no ears!
Vibrato is like lipstick – too much is ugly – the right amount and color is beautiful.
Variety, variety – no two snowflakes are alike, no two notes are alike.
Living in question is the most creative and stimulating state of being. Doors are always opening in the mind, one is motivated to explore, to observe and to take note.
I’ll stop teaching when I stop learning.
I was born with an ability, with music in me, that is all. No special credit was due me. The only credit we can claim is for the use we make of the talent we are given.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.
Teaching moves through generations. If you believe in the principles that represent the truth in the masterpieces, then you try to preserve those principals. They can be preserved only through teaching.
Cello playing begins in the back, before the sound.
Thinking is the biggest mistake a dancer can make. You have to feel, to “become”.
If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying.
Creative talent has an irrepressible hunger, and for the musician, music is the food it cannot live without.
My goal is to convey a true masterpiece in whatever I play.
Improper body use is like a pebble in your shoe. A nagging discomfort, it can cause severe damage over time.
Intelligence is everywhere in the body, nature and the universe.
Even the smallest motion involves your entire body. Your body functions as a unified whole rather than as a collection of isolated parts. Those who focus too much on small motor movements can easily lose this vital connection with the rest of the body.
Practice like it means everything in the world to you. Perform like you don’t give a damn.
Everyone knows what they can’t do – our weaknesses scream at us every day. To perform, you must know what you can do and bring the attention of your audience to those strengths.
Teaching should support, inspire, motivate, impart high ideals, and help each to discover and trust their unique talent and strengths.
I still have not found anything more permanent or more beautiful than music.
Music is one of the essentials in human existence, almost identical with eating, sleeping, making love, the basic functions that keep a human being alive. Music simply, is one of the blessings and joys of civilized human existence.
Many people are too small to be teachers, but no one is too big.
Creativity takes courage.
Criticism does not disturb me, for I am my own severest critic. Always in my playing I strive to surpass myself, and it is this constant struggle that makes music fascinating to me.
Listening is the conduit through which all physical actions creating expressive results are filtered.
The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one.
Play the fear out and then tone it down.
The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
Compassionate people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security, and joy of humanity than the discoverers of knowledge.
There is a performance nirvana, a miraculous interaction of ears, hands, and emotions. Listening awareness is primary in this zone of creative transcendence.
Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.
On artistic conception: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”.
Just a little progress every day makes big progress over time.
There is no top – there are always further heights to reach.
Music is powered by ideas. If you don’t have clarity of ideas, you’re just communicating sheer sound.
Real art is one of the most powerful forces in the rise of mankind, and he who renders it accessible is a benefactor of humanity.
Like love, performance is not about me, it’s about the other person – giving to the audience.
My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there’s a place for culture.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.
Tension is our biggest enemy. We must spend our life undoing it.
With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Art is an activity in which one human heart communicates with another human heart.
Don’t perform – just be yourself.
Practicing is the art of making your ears happy.
Through discipline comes freedom.
Cello playing is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration.
When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling… our actions and lives are always the richer for it.
Progress is impossible without change.
Artistry is in the details.
Our bodies continually provide us with information, yet we too often ignore or do not understand their messages. Awareness is the first step.
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