In it you’ll find the following major stages:

1. The Peak of Inflated Expectations
2. The Trough of Disillusionment
3. The Slope of Enlightenment
4. The Plateau of Productivity

Some things are just universal, I guess.

The best parallel between music and sports I ever ran into was this:

“Every goalie has a system, and Plante perfected Parent’s, both physically and mentally: Stay square to the shooter. Cut off the angles. Visualize yourself making saves in every situation — two-on-ones, power plays, penalty shots.”

Mental practice. It works in sports as well as in music — never let yourself be surprised. Continue to play even when you aren’t anywhere near your equipment.

Of course, in sports, half of the people out there are trying to kill you, so it’s not quite the same as music. In music, only the audience is your enemy.

1. For self-fulfillment & To keep myself sane/happy
2. Because of all the amazing bands and players who have come before me & deeply changed/affected my life with their music.
3. The knowledge that even if I never heard about it, I will deeply affect other peoples’ lives with my music
4. Because every time somebody tells me that “I really made their day”, or that what I’m playing is really beautiful, I know I’ve put a little bit of good into the world.
5. Because playing is when I feel most alive.

Anything about bowing would be very helpful. Bow transitionson the same string, going from one string to another, from one chord to another . . . . Releasing arm weight into the bow. Suggestions for generating better tone. How not to suck at bowing.

I love the thought, too, of recording play-along pieces at different tempos. I would use the crap out of that.

Here’s something crazy and perhaps even impossible. What about creating a dvd or cd or downloads of mp3s, etc, of stuff that adult students can do, sans cello, when they’re traveling, to keep their practice moving. I hate it when my job forces me to “fall behind” with cello. and often when i I travel for work, I have time to dedicate to cello (but of course no cello to play with). I think this would be great for begintermediate adult students.

I love the idea of multiple cameras/angles. You can author a DVD in such a way that multiple camera angles can be controlled by the user- so if you want to provide a ‘player’ angle, a ‘crowd’ view, and a ‘musician’s view’, you can. I think Steve Vai did a DVD in the ’90s called ‘Alien Love Secrets’ that presented a crowd, tech, and lesson angle for the viewer to choose from. I also remember a companion cd that had backing tracks of the tunes involved so the viewer/student could jam. Transcripts were available too, so it was a complete package.

I had a great idea that you could use some more modern music to present techniques or what have you- but then the thought of royalty and licensing payments scared me back to reality.

Ah well. I wish I had something better to offer.

In addition to Abigail McHugh’s videos I’ve made some use of the 100 Cello Talks by David Finckel (http://vimeo.com/channels/davidfinckelcellotalks). Some of those are way past me, but others are great.

What I’d love to have would be a consistently produced set of Suzuki standards. Maybe not every piece in every volume, although that would be fantastic, but videos of the “big” pieces along the way. Even better still would be two videos for each piece. On played through as a performance and one interspersed with thoughts about how to approach the piece.

The Suzuki recordings are too fast. My wife, who teaches piano, as several CDs that have a practice tempo and a performance tempo recording of the pieces in her method books. Having a 50% speed performance, either video or audio, would be very nice.

Everyone has their own physicality when it comes to playing. Taller, shorter, longer arms, more flexible, stiffer, et cetera. If you were going to employ multiple players, having people who were different physically than you would be helpful.

I have and use AMCM and am looking forward to supporting and having your DVDs/CDs/future books.

– Mark

The videos I make the most use of are Abigail McHugh’s on youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/abigailmchugh127 as a reminder / supplement to lessons. I guess, to answer your questions, the kinds of material I’d want would pretty much be the same as in Abigail’s channel, just you playing.

As a DVD, I’d probably look for increased production quality; different camera angles and shots, (close-ups on fingers / bow), better quality video and sound. Oh and some arty shots too – Emily gazing into the distance in soft focus…

Play along tracks would be OK, but maybe these wouldn’t make best use of the visual side? Maybe a CD or mp3 downloads would be the way go? Dunno.

Demos of some of the material from your book, in maybe a technique section would be good too.

Hope this is of use

Les

Some things just don’t show up in the number columns. It doesn’t mean they don’t have great worth.

Relax into your triple steps = relax into the strings
Release tension and have a nice relaxed “coat hanger” posture = same goes for cello-ing
Follow through with momentum – wait until you get to the end of the “leash” = can that be applied to bowing? Not sure yet, as my bowing is still iffy!

Anyway, awesome blog!

Emily just said this have-a-goal stuff in my lesson yesterday. Maybe this time I’ll only need to hear it twice (instead of a million times) before I really get it and start doing it.

I’m thoroughly enjoying my foray into cello making, and for those of your readers in the UK (or who don’t mind travelling to my lovely home town of Cambridge) there’s a great place to learn violin/viola/cello/bow making at http://www.makeviolins.com/

In that same spirit, the group of enthusiasts (including yours truly) have actually started a blog called “All Things If”, which is devoted to the ideals of the poem. The blog is a literary journal, with short fiction, editorials, sections for “Poems like ‘If’” and “Books like ‘If’”, and, in the next two months, you’ll find interviews with notable people under the heading “Kipling’s Hall of Fame”. Any help that you can offer to improve our blog would be greatly appreciated – articles, stories, suggestions, ideas, comments, editing, etc. I hope you will not find my request too outlandish, but it would also be great if you posted a link to “All Things If” under the text of “If” on your site. This way after reading “If” on your page, your visitors could find readings and even music that expand the poem’s message at “All Things If”.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Michael

Hard as it also is for me to keep finding that same old Christmas spirit year after year (even though I live almost next door to S.Claus), I do wish you a happy (rest of) Christmas and hope that your coming year brings you success, fortune and happiness (and not in that order). One good thing for me is an end to the annual innundation of mostly-crappy Christmas music that usually kicks off for us orchestra musicians the day after our last Halloween concert.

Regards
Guanaco

Life has a lot of improvisation to it.