Coordination Exercises In Part 1 of this blog on “Flexibility and Coordination” I discussed the flexibility of the fingers and wrist, and gave some left hand warm-ups such as finger-pushups and some bow arm exercises such as the “box” exercise. Today we will discuss some warm-ups that are useful to improve coordination. […]
Today’s blog will deal with the twin issues of flexibility and coordination, which are closely related for string players. Flexibility is the range of motion of your joints and the ability to move freely. Flexibility can be improved by stretching, which we discussed in an earlier blog. Coordination refers to the relationship between different parts of the body during movement. […]
As I mentioned in Part One of this blog on “Mentalization and Mimes”, I have found that in learning or relearning a physical task it is often very helpful to do it away from the cello. There are several ways that we can retrain our bodies, including through visualization, biofeedback, using a “phantom cello”, and with mimes. I discussed the benefits of visualization, or what I call Mentalization. Here is a practical example of how to do this: […]
Although I am in China this week and next, I would like to share these two blogs on mental practice – it’s “mind over matter”. Playing the cello is very much a physical activity. Our ability to play is in many ways governed by how we hold the instrument and the bow. As soon as we take the cello out of the case and sit down our body automatically does what it is used to doing – […]
Part Two of Open String Warm-Ups will continue with exercises for sautille, bow changes, string crossings, dynamics, etc. Bouncy Bow Exercise: This exercise is a great way to work on sautille, building it up from spiccato to the fast, uncontrolled sautille stroke. […]
On most days I like to warm up with open strings. I love the sound of the open strings, and the feeling of the natural vibrations against my chest. I like to listen to the fundamental pitch, and then try to hear some of the overtones that make the tone color – a pure sound which connects me back to the earliest sounds of music, the aural “ur-sound” of the first stringed instrument played by a human being. […]
In Part 1 of this blog on finding balances, we discussed the large body balances which are useful in playing the cello. As Elizabeth Morrow wrote in a 2007 article in the American String Teacher journal: “Balance is a necessary component to arriving at maximum energy efficiency with minimal effort, a sensation we interpret as relaxation”. Next, we will explore some of the balances involved in using the bow. I prefer to use the term “bow balance” rather than “bow hold” or “bow grip”, because “holding”or “gripping” implies using muscles. Just as we prefer to use the term “arm weight” rather than “pressure” in describing the way to produce sound, the words we use influence the way we think about what we are doing. In our “bow balance”, the thumb [...]
"It's All About Balance" If you can walk or run then you know something about balance, and you do it every day without thinking about it. We figure out how to balance when we are small children, and then we go through life taking it for granted… …until something goes wrong. Then our body has to re-learn how to balance. Recently I broke my ankle, and when it had healed well enough the doctor had me stand on one foot, trying to find my balance—first with my eyes open and then closed. It was harder than you would think. He said that I had to retrain my proprioception, the awareness of the position and orientation of my body involving balance. This sensory feedback system also helps us understand [...]
Stretches – Part Two In Stretches – Part One last week, I discussed some large body warm-ups and stretches. Here are some more warm-up exercises specifically for the wrist and fingers. First, here is the international greeting for Cellists: Hello Cello! […]
I think that most people understand the importance of stretching before (and after) playing an instrument. I like to say that we are athletes: we are “small muscle” athletes involving the fingers, wrists, and arms. But actually playing the cello really involves the entire body. Whether it is a matter of producing sound from the lower back, or being physically expressive with our movements, we need to make sure that we are using our bodies in the best possible ways. Just as with any athletic use of the body, we need to make sure that our muscles are warmed up well before we start playing – and that we “cool-down” afterwards. Warming-up helps by increasing blood flow and oxygen to the muscles, reducing the possibility of soft-tissue injury, and [...]
What is the very first thing that you do before you actually start playing the cello on any given day? Do you have certain habits or “ceremonies” when you take the cello out of its case – do you dust it off, or look for cracks, or check the bridge? Do you always take the bow out of the case first by habit, or do you remove the cello first? Do you do any stretching to warm up your body? Then when you actually start playing, do you plunge into the piece you are working on, or do you first do some scales and arpeggios? Or perhaps do you have some little exercises to help you warm up, focus and get started? Maybe you haven’t consciously thought about what you [...]
If scales and arpeggios are the building-blocks of our musical universe, then exercises work at the atomic level. They focus on just one small part of our technique. Isolated from the musical context of a piece of music, they enable us to concentrate on […]