Week 5: Movitation Needed

I’m finding myself at a point where I need more motivation to keep me on track with my cello. We have been away from home for half of the month and when I’m not practicing I have a hard time sticking with it. 

Our February roadtrip back from Phoenix, Arizona!

32 hours in a motorhome over 2 days? Sounds like a great time to listen to the podcast I found while searching for online resources last week.

PODCAST: Cellomoji Chats with Liz Lee

Episode 2: 10 Most Commonly Asked Questions About Cello

For someone who thought they knew a great deal about the cello, I still managed to learn a lot from this which was great! Here are the 10 questions Liz touched on:

1. Am I too old to learn the cello? Never 🙂
2. What are the names of the strings on the cello? Are they the same for all stringed instruments? I did know the string names (C, G, D, A) and I did know that they were different from the violin, but I did not know that the viola has the same strings… just one octave (8 notes) higher!
3. What is the shaky thing everyone is doing with their left hand? I did know that this is called vibrato… but I have never been able to do it myself. This could be a good goal to work toward.
4. Do I have to move around while I play the cello to be more expressive? What I thought was interesting here is that Liz said she gets this question more since the rise of social media because performers are posting more music videos of themselves playing the cello.
5. Are the bow grips the same for all stringed instruments? NO THEY ARE NOT. Good thing I heard this because I had been exploring bow grips from websites that are geared more toward violinists. Liz says that the pinkie should NOT be on the end of the bow, which is how I’ve been holding it. She also says here that she has a free bow hold course that I think I’ll need to explore to figure out my bow hold. This is probably why I’ve always had wrist pain while playing…
6. Do I need a teacher to learn to play the cello? Liz says that you should have a teacher while you are learning the foundations… luckily, I did!
7. What clef does the cello play in? The cello plays in 3 clefs due to it’s large range… treble, tenor, and bass.
8. Does piano knowledge help when learning the cello? As someone who has played piano my entire life, I was relieved to hear that it does. Just like a reader needs to have their words down before working on comprehension, a musician needs to learn notes before playing more fluently.
9. Where do I buy a cello? NOT Amazon. I got mine from a music store, so I’ll be okay here!
10. Where can I get music to learn? This question inspired me to check out my account on sheetmusicdirect.com… and thanks to the U of R, I can get a student pass for half price!

Episode 11: Back to Practice

This episode was about coming back to regular cello practice after a break which was very relevant to me after being away for much of this past month. In this episode, Liz talks about 7 steps to getting back into the swing of things:

1. Gather your tools in one place: I have slowly been migrating my cello stuff upstairs since that’s where I spend the majority of my time. I find this makes it easier to pick things up and practice.
2. Check your Instrument: More on this in episode 12 just below!
3. Track Practice Time: Liz talks about the importance of tracking your progress while practicing. Although I try to do this with the blog, it also inspired me to buy a beautiful new notebook to keep with everything else to keep track of my practice.
4. Music Wishlists: Liz suggests having some music that you are striving to learn. This motivated me to get some fun songs from SheetMusicDirect to stay inspired.
5. Set up a Lesson Schedule: This was geared toward booking lessons with instructors. Since I’m learning online, I figure it would help me to continue to explore online tools on Wednesdays following Tuesday’s classes.
6. Maintain Practice Momentum: Here Liz suggests creating a beautiful practice space with everything you need for a successful practice. I totally agree with this… having everything in one place close to me helps keep me motivated to practice!
7. Ease In: It takes time to get better! I can’t expect to jump back in and practice for long amounts of time… my wrists, arms, and shoulders will take time to get back into the swing of things.

I left this episode with new ideas and excitement about practicing my cello… success!

Episode 12: Check Your Instrument

This episode was very fitting for me considering my tuning pegs were way out a couple of weeks ago. Again, there was so much for me to take from this episode!

Tuning Pegs: My tuning pegs have fallen way out a few times now. In this episode, Liz mentions that you can purchase large tuning pegs that are more like screws to make using them less daunting – so cool!

She explains some stuff about the bow as well. If you are finding that the screw used to tighten the bow is getting too difficult to use, then it’s time to get it re-haired… the horse hair on the bow gets stretched out and does need replacing. She also discusses the horse hair breaking off of the bow, which I have noticed. If I can stick with the cello this time around, I’ll have to take my bow in for a re-hair in the city.

Wolf eliminator -the wolf tones are unnatural sounds that happen on F sharp – I had no idea that this was a thing! It’s good to make sure the wolf eliminator is nice and tight. My cello doesn’t have a wolf eliminator… so I guess I’ll just blame any poor tone quality on that.

Next up was storing the cello correctly. Liz explains that leaving your cello in direct sunlight is like slowly applying an iron to it. She also tells listeners not to leave their instrument in the car (I have learned this the hard way). It’s also important to keep the cello at a certain level of humidity… we are lucky enough to have this controlled in our house so that should also be okay.

Overall, I did learn a lot from this episode. It’s a good reminder to regularly check on my cello to make sure it’s in good shape… as someone who grew up playing the piano, I think I took the lack of maintenance for granted.

Next week, it’s time to get back in practice mode.

Thanks for reading!