Anyways, day one has been great. I arrived rather late (got lost on my way up here multiple times), however I did manage to catch a few really great tricks and learned a few things that I never had thought of doing. I walked in on a master class which was being mentored by Sera Smolen was talking to the student about a more natural way to start music, especially those that feel like it thrown you into it for the beginning. Mrs. Smolen recommended the student to do two things: Imagine the sound that you want to hear and do the "Circle, Set, Pull!". In this case, the student was playing the first movement of the Saint Sean's Cello Concerto #1 (for those of you who have no idea what I'm referring to, give this a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx6UDgi9TEA). Mrs. Smolen said for the student to start by imagining the note that would start the piece off with as one way to prep and even out starting inconsistencies. The other is a trick that I have seen a few times before but never looked into the reasoning, which I am a little mad that I hadn't. Mrs. Smolen said to use the "Circle, Set, Pull!". Basically, it means to Circle the bow from wherever is comfortable for you to the frog, Set the bow so that you get a good grip with the string, and Pull the bow so that the momentum does not settle and you have to move from start. The way I thought about it was in the case of looking at a drag strip (or any kind of car racing you can clearly think of); If the car simply floors the gas while it's stopped then it usually starts by spinning out and takes time to get a good motion forward. However, if a car starts out going close to the speed that the driver wishes to achieve and then floors it, then it will not spin the tires.
The second student I saw was playing the prelude to Bach's Cello Suite 3 (Again, in case you need a listen to what I'm referring to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0dWyGsroNI). The main point I got out of this was in order to play chords on cello or to play anything involving shifting across all strings, the bow speed and pressure must vary and not remain static. So, the speed at which one should play the C and G strings should be slower and heavier than the speed and pressure used on the D and A strings. To most people, I believe this is a major *facepalm* moment on my behalf, but being taught in the public school system tends to have a lot of disadvantages, and small technique stuff like this is one of those things that I was never taught. Once I sat there and thought about it I had one of those major "A HA" moments; it is a very good point to make sure bowed string students should know. So in the case of all of the chords in the Bach, one would play a slower and slightly heavier bow for the lower chords and then speed and lighten the bow up once it gets to the higher strings. This is one of those things that must be practiced in the practice room, and has to be overdone and then some in order to actually master if you haven't already done so.
The next event that I took notes in was the Group Scale workshop. The majority of the notes I took were on bowing studies, however there were a few major things that caught my attention. The first thing was the statement that students can get more work done out of reworking a simple song versus learning a concerto. That was another one of those "A HA" moments that really grabbed my attention and said, "I need to start teaching this sort of stuff to my students back home!" Bow control is one of the big things that either make or break an orchestral musician (and to a certain extent an orchestra). It not only largely controls the quality of tone that comes out of our instruments (If you don't believe me, go try this one out with a camera at your local music shop), but is a major attribution to stylistic development in a piece. So for a stringed musician to continually grow, said musician should be able to have complete control of their bow. I'm going to go into an episode of the practice series to continue debating this point and to dig into deeper details of ways to help strengthen your control of the bow.
The main help with this was an exercise that was called the "Add 'Em Up". The general idea is to get from point A to point B (in the case of the class, a 3 octave C Major scale) in one bow. One would start with the tonic note and would achieve this by playing it in a detached style (think of it as a staccato but with a little more body) while starting at the frog. Then you would jump to the tip and play the tonic plus the next note in the same detached style. Following that, one would go back to the frog and play the first 3 notes and etc. until the musician has successfully played whatever the musician was trying to achieve. I will post a demonstration of this if anyone would like a visual explanation. The other major trick that I think should be explained is called "Finger Permutations". The basics of the exercise is to play the exercise at a slower rhythm (for example 8th notes at 80 BPM), then double the number of notes but half the value. Now, the reason it's called "Finger Permutations" is to start playing the following fingerings on any string. Start with a 1 2 3 4, then go 1 2 4 3, followed by 1 3 2 4, 1 3 4 2, 1 4 2 3, and finally 1 4 3 2. Then one can switch to starting on different fingers and keep changing the pattern. Some will be easy and some will be hard but mastering all of them is the only way to loosen up the muscles in your fingers.
There is one last thing that was covered in today's lesson and that was all about improvisation. I will come back to this topic on my next practice episode, however a lot of the info covered was really great for not only improving ones views on creating music, but it also was covered great ways to bond with people in your band or whatever ensemble you are in. Along with that, I would like to congratulate Mr. Wesley Baldwin, Mr. Carter Enyeart and the UT Orchestra on a great performance of the David Ott Double Cello Concerto!
There is one last thing that was covered in today's lesson and that was all about improvisation. I will come back to this topic on my next practice episode, however a lot of the info covered was really great for not only improving ones views on creating music, but it also was covered great ways to bond with people in your band or whatever ensemble you are in. Along with that, I would like to congratulate Mr. Wesley Baldwin, Mr. Carter Enyeart and the UT Orchestra on a great performance of the David Ott Double Cello Concerto!
I hope you enjoyed this special 50th episode of the Adam Sullivan Music Theory Blog! If you want more, or have something you would like to suggest then find my Facebook Fanpage, Twitter, or message me on here! Thanks for reading and hope to see you back for Day 2!
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