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May 25th, 2012
February 4th, 2012
November 27th, 2011
September 10th, 2011
May 29th, 2011
April 20th, 2011
anarchodandyist
 | 05:42 pm - Unmarked Bach suites
Hi everyone! I'm curious if there's somewhere I can find a completely unmarked edition of the Bach suites (no fingerings *or* bowings). I have a number of editions and I'd like to compile the bowings and fingerings I like from each of them, but the closest I've been able to find is one that has the AM bowings marked in. If there's a blank edition out there (ideally online, especially if it's free) I'd be delighted if somebody could point me in the right direction. Thanks!
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April 13th, 2011
April 11th, 2011
February 9th, 2011
elevenoclockish
 | 10:01 pm - Conquering Performance Anxiety.
Hi everyone, I'm learning the cello as an adult and I'm just posting here to see if anybody has any hints on conquering performance anxiety, specifically in a lesson scenario. Crazy, I know, to be getting performance anxiety in a lesson but I'm reaching the end of my tether.
Here's what's currently happening: I've been working on a piece for what feels like forever. I'm playing it fine in the privacy of my own home. This is not just my imagination; I have actually recorded myself playing and it sounds, even to my own very self-critical ear, fine. No intonation problems, dynamics all in place, tempo appropriate, etc. It's not perfect, and it won't be at my level, but I'm happy with it all the same. Then I go to the lesson, my teacher and I go through the usual series of scales, exercises, etc with varying degrees of success and then we get to the piece. Only a few bars in, we get to the "difficult" shift (I'm expecting to fail because I've failed so often with this piece in lessons lately) and -- bam -- it all falls apart. Intonation disappears, I start to speed up, I even start forgetting the music! My teacher, patient and lovely man that he is, usually lets me stop at this point in the train wreck. We work on the difficult shift for what feels like the millionth time (and I'm wondering why we're bothering as I know that as soon as I get home, that shift is going to be fine again) and after we keep working on other aspects of the piece for 15-20 more minutes, he tells me that it's almost there and we should be able to move on from it next week -- which, inevitably, doesn't happen because the next week I get struck with the horrible performance anxiety again and the whole cycle repeats itself.
What's even weirder, though, is that this doesn't happen for every piece I work on. This is only the second piece that has "defeated" me in a performance anxiety way. The other piece, co-incidentally, was also an 18th century piece. Whenever we work on something romantic or 20th century all of the anxiety goes away. For example, when I played the previous piece I was working on for him (a romantic piece) I was able to just shut my eyes, focus on the tone I was drawing, try to get across the emotion of the piece, and what do you know? No performance anxiety. No forgotten music. No train wreck. Teacher was happy.
Does anybody have any advice? I told my teacher last week that it sounds fine at home and I'm not sure why it falls apart in lessons. He said that he can tell I'm tense when I play it and I need to stop "panicking", but I think we're both at a bit of a loss with a real solution to the problem. I'm half tempted to take a recording with me to my next lesson just to prove to him that I'm telling the truth and hope that he'll let me off the hook! Of course, I know that's a cop out and I'd honestly much rather just conquer the anxiety so that I don't have to even think like that.
Anyway, if anybody has any advice, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
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January 19th, 2011
anarchodandyist
| 08:19 pm - Suite 3 Prelude bowings
Hello all. I'm curious what bowings you folks have used for the accursed bariolage in the Suite 3 Prelude. I've been working on the third suite for a few months, and it seems that no matter how often and how meticulously I practice the bariolage it's still not good, and I'm wondering if changing up the bowing might help a bit. I've been using the bowing of slurring 4 notes, changing the direction of the bow each time it hits the A string. Seems to be the most popular bowing, but I'm wondering if anyone has found something that works better for them. And, of course, any tips on the bariolage generally are much appreciated. Thanks!
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cellists