Miranda Wilson - Cello Practice, Cello Performance

Cello Practice, Cello Performance

Cello Practice, Cello Performance

Miranda Wilson

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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Copyright 2015 by Miranda Wilson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Miranda.

Cello practice, cello performance / Miranda Wilson.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4422-4676-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-4677-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4422-4678-2 (ebook)

1. CelloInstruction and study. I. Title.

MT300.W55 2015

787.4193dc23 2014049732

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Gillian Bibby

Contents

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without my teachers: Judith Hyatt, Rolf Gjelsten and the other members of the New Zealand String Quartet, Natalia Pavlutskaya, the late Alexander Ivashkin, Phyllis Young, Andrs Fejr and the other members of the Takcs Quartet, and Judith Glyde taught me what it meant to be a cellist and inspired me with their artistry.

Neither would it have been possible without my students, who have been a pleasure to teach and who have all had something to teach me: Jordan Asker, Kezia Bauer, Elizabeth Becker, Joshua Bonn, Daniel Ferguson, Chyenne Fisher, Michael Green, Shannon Hall, Stefan Jarocki, Ryan Messling, Micah Millheim, Annabel Ryu, Melissa Searle, Kathryn Smith, Pierce Trey, Kalindi True, and Marilyn Von Seggern tried out dozens of ideas, offered candid feedback, and taught me ideas of their own.

I am grateful to the faculty and staff at the University of Idahos Lionel Hampton School of Music and Preparatory Division for their practical and collegial support. Special thanks go to the faculty and staff of the University of Idaho Library for their help in tracking down hard-to-find materials.

I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my former colleagues in the Tasman String Quartet, Anna van der Zee, Jennifer Banks, and Christiaan van der Zee, who taught me how to think deeply about sound, intonation, vibrato, theory, and analysis. During the years we worked together, they were my most critical and unrelenting teachers, and I cant thank them enough for the lessons they taught me.

My cello sisters, Rachel Johnston and Rebecca Turnerbrilliant cellists and intuitive teachershelped me brainstorm many of the ideas in this book.

My family helped me immeasurably during the preparation of this book. Gillian Bibby, Roger Wilson, and Charles Wilson proofread countless drafts, suggesting corrections and clarifications. Corby Butterfield and Mitch Butterfield took care of my household so I had time to write.

Finally, my most heartfelt thanks go to my husband, Sean Butterfield, and our darling daughter, Eliana, for their untiring support, love, and encouragement.

Introduction

The crowded, intensely competitive field of cello playing rates the ability of its performers by a ruthless measure: how they sound on the day of a concert, audition, contest, or exam. It doesnt matter how many hours theyve practiced if they cant perform well under pressure. This book demonstrates that effective cello performance, far from being a mysterious gift bestowed upon the lucky few, is a learnable skill that any advanced cellist can acquire through efficient practice.

I wrote Cello Practice, Cello Performance because no existing book for advanced cello students and professionals had discussed creative strategies for playing the cello effectively and efficiently at the same time. Many motivational books on effective performing dont account for fundamental problems in instrumental technique that must be fixed before the player can sound good. By the same token, most books on cello playing teach the efficient execution of difficult techniques but seldom discuss how these methods can be the means to an end, that is, an effective performance. This book takes the whole cellist into account, bringing together intellectual and physical aspects of playing the cello from the practice room to the concert hall.

Another problem with existing books on cello playing is that they tend to be divided into sections on left-hand and right-hand techniques, almost as if each hand had little to do with the other. Other artificial distinctionstechnique vs. emotion, music theory vs. musical expressiveness, tudes vs. concert repertoire, solo playing vs. ensemble playing, even practice-room playing vs. performance playingcan result in inefficient practice habits that lead to ineffective performances.

I propose that the movements of the left and right handsfingering and bowingare mutually interdependent, supporting and reinforcing each other in performance. More broadly, whole-body cello playing is a holistic theory of efficient musicianship, where musical expression dictates the choice of fingerings and bowings, not the other way around.

This is not a book on cello techniques in the traditional sense. Many authors have already provided exhaustive, and excellent, prescriptions for executing different types of bowstrokes and other techniques. Diran Alexanians treatise on the subject covered these comprehensively nearly a century ago, and Gerhard Mantel documented the physics and physiology of cello playing in the 1970s. Instead, I assume that the reader has already had the benefit of advanced training in cello fundamentals and repertoire but seeks new ways to improve practice and performance.

Cello Practice, Cello Performance includes dozens of original exercises in whole-body cello playing, demonstrating how efficient intellectual and physical approaches to making music on the cello can rapidly improve the effectiveness of performance. Some of these exercises are unprecedented in the cello literature: one section on efficient breathing while playing the cello adopts techniques from singing, brass pedagogy, and even yoga to eliminate muscular tension and performance anxiety; a detailed discussion of intonation goes through examples from the solo cello and chamber repertoire in all twenty-four major and minor keys to show how different contexts and combinations of instruments call for different approaches to tuning chords.

Other sections address efficient self-teaching methods in the practice room, the creative use of music theory in forming interpretations, the practical applications of scales, the fundamental principles of string-chamber musicianship, and original tudes that teach how to work on troublesome sections of the major cello repertoire. Cello Practice, Cello Performance draws upon the work of practitioners in other fields, from psychology to applied and educational kinesiology, demonstrating techniques to alleviate performance nerves, improve mindfulness and concentration in the practice room and concert hall, and prevent the interrelated physical and emotional traumas of performance anxiety and repetitive stress injuries.

The art of playing the cello well in performance is an achievable goal. This book provides structured explanations of how to get there through mindful listening, movement, and repetition. Based on principles formed during my performing and teaching career, Cello Practice, Cello Performance teaches advanced players how to become their own best teachers.