Presence on Stage (Part 1 – Introduction) – by Ruth Phillips
Introduction Many people ask me on Breathing Bow retreats if stage presence is something we can practice, if it is possible to find a way to be exactly where we are - in a concert hall with an audience right here and right now, about to share what we love? I believe that the answer is yes. Musicians’ preparation on a concert day can range from taking beta blockers to eating bananas. However, as soon as we are on stage we feel fear. Fear of losing control or mental focus, and above all fear of judgement. Our muscles contract, our heart rate speeds up, we go blank, our bow shakes, we sweat….the list of symptoms for ‘stage fright’ is endless and for many of us, coping with them simply isn’t [...]
Emanuel Feuermann and the Art of Phrasing — by Brinton Averil Smith
There has been a long-running debate in the string-playing world regarding the 'Golden Age' of string playing, generally considered to span the 1920s to the 1960s. While many today are happy to listen to and model their playing on more contemporary players, there has been a persistent argument made that the players of that era—Heifetz, Feuermann, Kreisler, Oistrach, Casals, and numerous others—played in a different way than more recent players. It is easy to dismiss this argument as the eternal 'nothing is as good as it used to be' meme and, when painted with too broad a brush, such generalizations quickly fall apart. The string players of that era were, after all, a group of vividly different players with different approaches—as are today's players. Yet when one begins to examine [...]
Vowels and Sound Production on the Cello — by Gregory Beaver
Originally published on gregorybeaver.com. For many of my student years as a cellist, I struggled to achieve a fully resonant sound on the cello. The ever-elusive goal would seem within grasp, and then I would start trying and tension would squelch the sound. Or I would finally achieve relaxation, and look down to see my bow gently dusting the edge of the fingerboard with rosin. Rarely was I able to fully engage the core of the string while releasing energy through my body. As a teacher, I found producing a great sound to be a particularly interesting mission. I learned early on that telling students to play close to the bridge simply doesn’t work. If a student doesn’t naturally play close to the bridge, the bow will hover near [...]
Turning on Your Musicality — by Gregory Beaver
“You can teach how to play the cello, but you can’t teach musicality!” I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this old chestnut espoused, both by teachers and by students. For many years, I believed it. But is it really true? Let’s start by asking the unasked question: what is musicality? Can we even agree on which performances are musical as opposed to “technical?” After years of performing, teaching, and carefully observing both my own playing and that of others, I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon: everybody sucks at answering this question. Many times I have been upset at myself for playing a wooden performance, and then upon hearing a recording of that performance, was moved by what I heard. Many more times, the opposite was true. Very [...]
Practicing, Some Practice Advice (Part 1) — by Michael Haber
I've written this brief essay for purely selfish reasons: I like to see my students improve. When they do, I feel happy, they feel happy, I go home for dinner a happy man. What follows is intended to help you organize your practicing, and your thinking about your practicing, in an effective way. Your progress, mine too, depends on the quality and quantity of this work. It's also intended to encourage you to practice, period. Not all of my students are always inclined to work as well and as much as they should. I should confess from the beginning that I have always loved practicing. It is the royal road to instrumental mastery and the incomparable satisfaction of playing music as well as it deserves to be played. I have [...]
Conquering Coordination Through Broken-Rhythm Patterns — by Grigory Kalinovsky
Reposted from Strings Magazine. One of the most common problems encountered by string players in virtuoso pieces is the coordination between the bow strokes and the left-hand fingers in fast running-note passages (passages consisting of mostly the same note values), especially when the majority of notes are played with separate bows or with a few small slurs thrown in. Examples of these types of passages abound—they include sections from the Finale movement of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto in D minor, several episodes and the entire coda section of Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso by Saint-Saens, the majority of the Allegro movement from Kreisler’s Preludium and Allegro, and many, many other pieces. Without proper coordination training, playing these passages can create a feeling of the two hands “chasing each other”—and getting tangled up [...]
The Most Erogenous Region of the Cello — by Stefanie Buller
Search for resistance—enjoy the friction! I have been considering the topic “sounding point” (contact point, in German) for a long time now. Where bow hair and string meet is where everything we have to offer—regarding material, technique, power and ease—is channeled. This is the origin of the sound! This is where the action is! Isn't the sounding point therefore the most erogenous region of the cello? But at first a little anecdote: After the Christmas mass the priest stood at the exit, shaking the hands of the parishioners and wishing them a Merry Christmas. What a nice gesture! So I took his hand in return. But it felt like a rubber glove filled with jelly. By intuition I tried to get a grip. (“There must be bones somewhere in this [...]
How Music and Cello Changed My Life — by Nathan Chan
Hey CelloBello readers! My name is Nathan Chan and I’ve been playing the cello for over 17 years. Throughout this time period, my relationship with the cello has been an ongoing evolution in the way I see music as an incredibly powerful tool of expression and creativity. What started as a hobby in the beginning of my musical learning initially evolved into a battle for technical mastery and now has begun to blossom as a freeing medium for spontaneity and exploration. As a child born and raised in the 90s, my parents were very supportive of me. My father, a Hong-Kong born cardiologist who emigrated to the states for college, represented the discipline and detail-oriented leader in my early life. My mother, a Chinese-Canadian who is a Juilliard-educated pianist, was [...]
Announcing CelloStream Master Classes 2016 – 2017
Streamed live from Pierce Hall at New England Conservatory in Boston COMING 2016 - 2017: YO-YO MA Monday, October 24th 2016 2:00 - 4:30 pm ET LAURENCE LESSER Sunday, November 13th 2016 7:00 - 9:30 pm ET ANDRÉS DIAZ Tuesday, December 6th 2016 7:00 - 9:30 pm ET PAUL KATZ Sunday, February 19th 2017 7:00 - 9:30 pm ET JOEL KROSNICK Friday, March 31st 2017 1:30 - 3:30 pm ET To tune in for a live-viewing of a CelloStream Artist Master Class, please navigate to the CelloStream page at the appropriate time. To read bios of previous CelloStream master class artists, please see below. PREVIOUS MASTER CLASSES JOEL KROSNICK TRIBUTE Mar 23rd 2016 7:30 pm EDT Joel Krosnick has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician around the world. As a member of the Juilliard String [...]
Yo-Yo Ma on Intonation, Practice, and the Role of Music in Our Lives
Reprinted from Strings Magazine, September 17 2015 By Martin Steinberg: "A cellist walks on a beach and picks up a bottle. A genie pops out and says, “I give you two wishes.” The cellist says: “Wow, I’d like to have world peace.” The genie thinks for a second and says, “That’s too hard! What’s your second wish?” The cellist says, “Well, I’m turning 60 and I want to play in tune.” The genie thinks for a second and says, “What was your first wish again?” Musicians, take heart. That joke was told by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma during an interview ahead of his 60th birthday on Oct. 7. After 55 years of playing, yes, even Yo-Yo Ma needs to practice. “What all string players have in common is that if [...]