Have just begun my cello study at age 67. Less than 4 months actually. I am finding things difficult and clumsy. From how to hold the cello to how to hold the bow and even just reaching 4th finger position. I am/was a dressage rider, so, grit I have! Through no fault of my own I will be getting a new instructor next week. Anxiety rises again. Will there ever be a day when my cello andI will be able to communicate clearly? Not perfectly, but clearly with each other. Your video lessons have helped a lot to put my mind on the right track. Now, like riding, it will be hours of doing. I wish to enjoy this journey. So, thank you for doing what you do so well. Encouragement. Bringing cello to everyone. I must allow myself to be a beginner again. I must try, think, try again, think, listen, and visualize. Right now, just getting all my fingers on the same string is a challenge. Thank you!
Thanks again for creating this content. Tonight I applied reflective pausing to my practice and made enormous progress. As a beginner, I've been struggling to "find my bow hold". As well as to achieve nice intonation while bowing. Tonight with the help of reflective pausing I was able to solve my bow hold problem and pinpoint certain motions/technique that helps me produce a great sound. This is only the beginning of my journey, and it feels so good to have overcome the first hurdle. Thank you Johnathan :)
I just graduated from university and don't have a job yet and this video doesn't even mention the possibility of a donation but I just made a small one. You make qquality content, I don't understand why you have so few views/ likes. I just digged-up an old journal which will serve me for my deep practice. I struggle often with my instruments and am unhappy when it doesn't go well. But you said it right there - if the practice weren't challenging I'd be doing something wrong. Thank you and please keep up the good work! Your students are lucky.
I am lucky to have the chance to share this knowledge with you, ditto303. I used to be so extrinsically motivated, but for a while now (especially since moving to France) the chance to positively change lives is more motivating that ever before. As for my views and likes, it is a small channel, growing just slowly. But that is not the purpose, for I would rather have less views and likes if those viewers are earnestly learning and benefitting from the content. I know what is shared on the channel works, for it has been proven IRL for 20 years and in the case of deep practice, 10 years. And I know what it takes for a person to teach themself, learn on their own how to read music. But for all the things I know - objectively and in my heart of hearts - work for cello students, I need not be that guy who says "look at me, I'm right, now sub and like!" Nah, that is not me. True students of cello will know exactly what the channel is: a genuine ecosystem of scores (MuseScore), lessons, covers and karaokes (UA-cam), and personal instruction (Skype), from a cellist who knows what a UA-camr wants, what science is behind learning, and how to answer your questions in the shortest period of time possible. This channel is a supplement to your relationship with your cello, luthier, teacher and ensemble.
Thanks so much Jonathan! I started cello at the age of 55 and almost 10 years later I’ve been frustrated by my lack of progress. I wanted to practice but no matter how good my teacher was, I didn’t know the mechanics of how. I can’t wait to start applying these principles to my time with my cello. Playing the cello well is on my bucket list and now I believe it will happen!!!
I wish you complete success. I have just started on the cello, I'm 42, we can do this, and this wonderful teacher will place many tools at our disposal. Hes the best I've seen on UA-cam.
@@r.m.s5917 im in my second year and it’s tough! THIS comment helps me feel like if I push through, it will start to click. There is so much new stuff right now my brain and body are having a harder time processing it all. 😊
I just happened to find you totally by accident while looking for cello instructional videos and I am totally so glad I found you. You make total sense! I can't wait to see more!
Excellent, as ever. "Deep Practice", I love it. I used to teach karate (Shoto-Kan Kan) and it'd drive me crazy seeing students practice kicks/hits/blocks they already did well. It's so much easier to repeat what we do well, and avoid what is difficult! "Stop - Recognize - Repeat." I love that too. And the Ted Talk segment, ç'est si vrai!
Sorry for the late reply. I too was a marital artist and the discipline ties in perfectly to cello. I learned from my master at Tae Kwon Do and cello professor the same fact : we train to find errors, otherwise we are not training at all.
This video is going to change my life. I'm 18 and began self-relearning how to play the cello in February after stopping for more than a decade. I noticed that I go through my practices quickly and never take the time to reflect and be honest with myself after practicing a certain piece/song. Because of that, I felt I was stuck in this continuous loop of just playing notes without genuinely practicing and gradually progressing. These past couple of weeks have gone better as I've become more mindful of my mistakes and how to properly correct them, but I was also a bit impatient with myself and the cello and still felt as if I wasn't truly practicing efficiently. This video just guided me into a whole new world. I literally cannot wait to apply these techniques and mindset into my cello practices for the rest of my life. I'm excited and inspired to achieve permanence, not perfection. Me, my cello, and my brain are so grateful for your wisdom and amazing tips. Thank you once again!!
Definitely a huge upgrade in how music is taught and I cant praise you enough. I love the concept of grit aswell and how it is universal, relevant to life in general. You are pretty amazing in how you teach the cello and the deep practise you advocate. I also love the permanence over perfection idea. Its absolutely true and your insights are very impressive. I'm just starting out on cello and I'm going to watch all the videos you have on UA-cam. You are an inspirational teacher and you speak with great conviction and I can tell you have great belief in what you say and how it has the power to change lives.
I am reading her book on Grit right now! I love this. And your ideas for deep practice ring so true. Thanks for sharing. finding permanence...this is key
Would you share the book please? I would like to read more on her research. Coyle's "The Talent Code" amzn.to/2C1ifRZ is part of where I got this pedagogy from. The other part, like those neurons you see, yeah, that's my wife! We'll make a video in the future on the neurology of learning. Everyday I am fascinated by her world, and how much of it applies to everything all living things do. Anyways, sorry for the digression . . . Thanks, sawnflower!
I've watched your videos for quite a long time. I've agreed and disagrees with various things along the way and I play with a VERY different setup, but I always seem to get something out of your videos. Love it
Jonathan, there is but one instrument in the human kingdom, the heart-mind. You've introduced many to the deep aspects of study, learning, mastery and enjoying life. Good work, keep teaching along these lines. Thanks much.
Your approach is excellent!!!!! Something that I also tell students.....and, myself, is that speed come with confidence and boredom! ( injecting a little truth and humor into the mix!)
Thanks so much for these videos. I played violin in high school and i am just picking up the cello at 32. Have a nice foundation to start on can make some nice sounds, but man i keep wanting to use my ring finger where my pinky should be lol. Trying to break that bad habit. The fingerboard feels so huuuuuuuuge. So daunting but i am excited and love this instrument
Hello Jonathan. I really enjoy your channel, as someone who finally as an adult decided he wanted to start the cello. Been playing for about 1 year now with regular lessons. In parallel to my teacher, I picked up a couple of really helpful hints, cues and techniques from many of your videos. I’d like to ask you though: the more usual situation is that a tune doesn’t end 5 times on the smile side, but more than once on the “bad” one. How do you break down the tune to its difficult parts? What notes should be included in repeated practicing, what ones not? How important is speed reduction? How important the pitch - should a tuner be used to practice hitting the correct tone? What if the bow stroke seems to be the problem, how to practice this? What about syncopes as a means of practice? Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts! Best Chris
OK there’s a lot to unpack here, Julius 1582. Every time you need to slow down and think more about the passage in music, it’s an opportunity to take practice. Think of it as brain bandwidth: more you give to one task the less can be given to other ones. Whether it is reducing the screen slowly building up working on your syncopations working on your tone, timbre, touch, Intonation, articulation, etc. etc., it is you who will find challenges in doing these different tasks. When you have precisely identified what is within that task that requires more of your “brain bandwidth”, then you isolate and repeat it five times perfectly and then build out on that. Epigenetic‘s of learning is always effective when addressing novel stimuli. As cello players this translates into that feeling of unfamiliarity with a certain skill and/or portion of music. With deep practice, every facet of a piece will become familiar.
Dear Jonathan, It is true that perseverance is key to success for the average person however, there is absolutely no doubt that genius exists. For example there are children with an aptitude for music or maths that the average person does not even understand what it is that they don't understand compared to the naturally gifted. It's obvious we are all on a bell curve with most of us close to the mean. Secondly, it is absolutely true that the way a child learns is not conditioned in the way MOST adults are, in other words kids don't fear failure because they are not familiar with fear of failure however an adult can keep this trait. Lastly and most importantly, absolutely nothing in life is permanent, change is the primary condition for life to exist. Even the atoms that you were composed of as a child are no longer in your body. Certainly the synaptic connections are long lasting but nowhere near permanent
Agree to disagree to then partially agree ;-) In my life, I have know, played with and met many "child prodigies", whom were seemingly brilliant at a young age but since maturing have lost their lustre. Even more so, I myself been able to teach one such child prodigy how to deep practice, for her strategy from years past failed to be effective after turning 50yo. This is where science deconstructs the romance of "genius", for now she can learn economically and efficiently into her twilight years.
There have been some who have criticised your own playing. For me the few imperfections in your playing and they are few indeed make you even better as a teacher in my opinion because it's not like students who watch your videos are intimidated by a near perfection you achieve. It's like you are still a student yourself in some ways and that's makes beginners like me relate to you and more of a rapor can happen. I smiled when I read that pablo casals in his old age remarked that he believed he was making some improvements which was why he would continually practise each day, even in his final years. He was very inspirational too.
I decided to subscribe ! This video convinced me. As in everything in life ...this is a core value! I wish I could get myself restarted practicing my cello. I started 9 years ago following lessons ones a week , practicing every day.3 years ago I made a decision in my private life which had a negative impact on my cello practicing amongst other things. I have been struggling to be happy the last 3 years which makes me conclude that a made a wrong decision. Anyway ...still watching my cello waiting for me everyday...
Try not to overthink it. I did this for years, and it took way too much courage to play my cello again after a long period of complete life change. I became disabled and thought that my cello journey was over. I couldn’t bear to get rid of my cello, and he just sat in various corners of my broken life, watching me. I knew that I would never sit and practice for an hour again, even half an hour. It broke my heart, on top of everything else that had changed for me. After a long, long time feeling low and despairing of the loss of music, action and my social life, one day I had a “f**k it” moment. I got my bow from a dusty corner nearby and, slowly and cautiously, my cello from his corner. Carefully I tuned him, tightened the bow, found my rosin on a shelf and applied it. Even just the long strokes of the rosin on the horsehair were soothing. Like a mantra. Yes. Yes. I will play again. My cello was so dusty. I gently dusted him down with my sleeve and apologised out loud, a crazy person in a room silent too long. The shape of him was so familiar, like hugging an old, old friend. The first note was a wave of emotion through me, the deep C vibrating through me, the room, my brain, my heart. Then the G, the D, the A...a little tinny, an adjustment of the bowing angle, so much better, a richer sound. Your cello will forgive you. Mine forgave me for years of silence and tears and bitterness, and then helped me to heal. First just a couple of minutes, callouses lost, shoulders weak, spine screaming in my head. Then five minutes, then ten, and some days even fifteen. I cannot play for long each time. But little and often can apply to anything in life, and so it is with music. Someone once had said to me in those dark days, “but it”d be better than nothing?” and the words had sounded bitter and empty. A sticking plaster on a bloody scar. I could not bear the little time - could not imagine it. And yet, ‘better than nothing’ is exactly that. ‘Nothing’ is too much to bear. Something is always better than nothing. It turned out that listening to music just wasn’t enough for me. I needed to make it again, to feel it physically again. Just hold your cello again against your chest in position ready to play and see if it feels good or not. Have your bow ready next to you but don’t hold it. Does holding your cello make you want to pick up your bow and make it speak? If it does, pick up the bow, breathe and play a note. Even better, play stops...C and G, G and D, D and A... Let your cello speak to you in those perfect fifths. Listen to it. Do you still have a connection between you? Can you hear it’s voice in your head again, making music? Sorry for the story of my journey, but yours spoke to me. Sometimes these changes come about because of a decision or just by chance, sometimes of our own making, sometimes beyond our control. None of that matters. What matters is between you and your cello. Does holding it and speaking with it make you feel something between you again? This is no ordinary instrument. Cellos have a soul and use it in their sound, given a chance. I do not play that well, cannot have lessons (cello teachers do not come to houses, let alone for half an hour) and have lost almost a decade of life to a dark place of pain, but my five or ten or fifteen minutes help so much. I play simple things, snatches of more difficult things, phrases that I enjoy the feel of. It is enough. I hope you play again.
Hello Jonathan, Thank you for your lessons and your teachings. It helps me very much. I am 54 y/o and have been playing for 1 year. I am having trouble with pain in my thumb joints, is there something I can do to help me with this pain?
You are still a talented adult, but you need to have more persistence and discipline. The TED talk calls it "grit". In Mexico, they say "ganas" and here in France on dit "serrer les dents". Talent can just get you so far, then it's all work!
Like a practice journal, yes and no. I write notes on scores but honestly, have never truly maintained a practice journal. Hmmm, a very good future video!
@@CelloCoach Yes. That learning only for learning's sake is dry and fruitless without having a musical intention and ultimately joy. I think that is missing in your videos.
Basically reiterating the science behind practice that's described in this TED talk: ua-cam.com/video/f2O6mQkFiiw/v-deo.html Good positive reinforcement along with patience does wonders while learning the cello!
I like the general conception of this video, and the passage of 16th-notes was ok, but not a single time you played the last chord with the appropriate length which is a 1/4 note. Otherwise, thanks for the video! =)
Have just begun my cello study at age 67. Less than 4 months actually. I am finding things difficult and clumsy. From how to hold the cello to how to hold the bow and even just reaching 4th finger position. I am/was a dressage rider, so, grit I have! Through no fault of my own I will be getting a new instructor next week. Anxiety rises again. Will there ever be a day when my cello andI will be able to communicate clearly? Not perfectly, but clearly with each other. Your video lessons have helped a lot to put my mind on the right track. Now, like riding, it will be hours of doing. I wish to enjoy this journey. So, thank you for doing what you do so well. Encouragement. Bringing cello to everyone. I must allow myself to be a beginner again. I must try, think, try again, think, listen, and visualize. Right now, just getting all my fingers on the same string is a challenge. Thank you!
Thanks again for creating this content. Tonight I applied reflective pausing to my practice and made enormous progress. As a beginner, I've been struggling to "find my bow hold". As well as to achieve nice intonation while bowing. Tonight with the help of reflective pausing I was able to solve my bow hold problem and pinpoint certain motions/technique that helps me produce a great sound. This is only the beginning of my journey, and it feels so good to have overcome the first hurdle. Thank you Johnathan :)
I just graduated from university and don't have a job yet and this video doesn't even mention the possibility of a donation but I just made a small one. You make qquality content, I don't understand why you have so few views/ likes. I just digged-up an old journal which will serve me for my deep practice.
I struggle often with my instruments and am unhappy when it doesn't go well. But you said it right there - if the practice weren't challenging I'd be doing something wrong. Thank you and please keep up the good work! Your students are lucky.
I am lucky to have the chance to share this knowledge with you, ditto303. I used to be so extrinsically motivated, but for a while now (especially since moving to France) the chance to positively change lives is more motivating that ever before.
As for my views and likes, it is a small channel, growing just slowly. But that is not the purpose, for I would rather have less views and likes if those viewers are earnestly learning and benefitting from the content.
I know what is shared on the channel works, for it has been proven IRL for 20 years and in the case of deep practice, 10 years. And I know what it takes for a person to teach themself, learn on their own how to read music. But for all the things I know - objectively and in my heart of hearts - work for cello students, I need not be that guy who says "look at me, I'm right, now sub and like!" Nah, that is not me.
True students of cello will know exactly what the channel is: a genuine ecosystem of scores (MuseScore), lessons, covers and karaokes (UA-cam), and personal instruction (Skype), from a cellist who knows what a UA-camr wants, what science is behind learning, and how to answer your questions in the shortest period of time possible. This channel is a supplement to your relationship with your cello, luthier, teacher and ensemble.
Thanks so much Jonathan! I started cello at the age of 55 and almost 10 years later I’ve been frustrated by my lack of progress. I wanted to practice but no matter how good my teacher was, I didn’t know the mechanics of how. I can’t wait to start applying these principles to my time with my cello. Playing the cello well is on my bucket list and now I believe it will happen!!!
You are welcome, Ellen! It will happen, with patience and dedication.
good for you Ellen, I started playing when I was 53 y/o. I have been playing for 1 year now. How often do you practice?
I wish you complete success. I have just started on the cello, I'm 42, we can do this, and this wonderful teacher will place many tools at our disposal. Hes the best I've seen on UA-cam.
@@r.m.s5917 im in my second year and it’s tough! THIS comment helps me feel like if I push through, it will start to click. There is so much new stuff right now my brain and body are having a harder time processing it all. 😊
I just happened to find you totally by accident while looking for cello instructional videos and I am totally so glad I found you. You make total sense! I can't wait to see more!
Excellent, as ever. "Deep Practice", I love it. I used to teach karate (Shoto-Kan Kan) and it'd drive me crazy seeing students practice kicks/hits/blocks they already did well. It's so much easier to repeat what we do well, and avoid what is difficult! "Stop - Recognize - Repeat." I love that too. And the Ted Talk segment, ç'est si vrai!
Sorry for the late reply. I too was a marital artist and the discipline ties in perfectly to cello. I learned from my master at Tae Kwon Do and cello professor the same fact : we train to find errors, otherwise we are not training at all.
This video is going to change my life. I'm 18 and began self-relearning how to play the cello in February after stopping for more than a decade. I noticed that I go through my practices quickly and never take the time to reflect and be honest with myself after practicing a certain piece/song. Because of that, I felt I was stuck in this continuous loop of just playing notes without genuinely practicing and gradually progressing. These past couple of weeks have gone better as I've become more mindful of my mistakes and how to properly correct them, but I was also a bit impatient with myself and the cello and still felt as if I wasn't truly practicing efficiently. This video just guided me into a whole new world. I literally cannot wait to apply these techniques and mindset into my cello practices for the rest of my life. I'm excited and inspired to achieve permanence, not perfection. Me, my cello, and my brain are so grateful for your wisdom and amazing tips. Thank you once again!!
Glad to be of service, Chrissy.
تبارك الله عليك الله اعطيك الصحة👍👍👍👍👍😍😍😍😍😍
i like this guy
I like you! We are all friends in cello ;-)
Me too. 💖💞🎻🎻🎻🌹🌹🌹
Definitely a huge upgrade in how music is taught and I cant praise you enough. I love the concept of grit aswell and how it is universal, relevant to life in general. You are pretty amazing in how you teach the cello and the deep practise you advocate. I also love the permanence over perfection idea. Its absolutely true and your insights are very impressive. I'm just starting out on cello and I'm going to watch all the videos you have on UA-cam. You are an inspirational teacher and you speak with great conviction and I can tell you have great belief in what you say and how it has the power to change lives.
Had to watch this again. One day I will get back to Cello.
I am reading her book on Grit right now! I love this. And your ideas for deep practice ring so true. Thanks for sharing. finding permanence...this is key
Would you share the book please? I would like to read more on her research. Coyle's "The Talent Code" amzn.to/2C1ifRZ is part of where I got this pedagogy from. The other part, like those neurons you see, yeah, that's my wife! We'll make a video in the future on the neurology of learning. Everyday I am fascinated by her world, and how much of it applies to everything all living things do. Anyways, sorry for the digression . . . Thanks, sawnflower!
This is one of the best and insightful video on how to improve. 👌
I've watched your videos for quite a long time. I've agreed and disagrees with various things along the way and I play with a VERY different setup, but I always seem to get something out of your videos. Love it
Thank you for giving lesson that works. Thanks.
Thanks, Jonathan. I recognize the smiley face. Your lessons are always very practical and meaningful.
Jonathan, there is but one instrument in the human kingdom, the heart-mind. You've introduced many to the deep aspects of study, learning, mastery and enjoying life. Good work, keep teaching along these lines. Thanks much.
Beautiful words, which I will have to quote one day on in a Cello Coach talk. Thank you!
Your approach is excellent!!!!! Something that I also tell students.....and, myself, is that speed come with confidence and boredom! ( injecting a little truth and humor into the mix!)
There is so much richness and thought put into your videos. Very Thankful. Regards.
I appreciate your sincere observation and kind commentary, Teddy. Thank you.
I needed this video today..thanks man! cello is hard....but dam it feels so good when we succeed:)
you just blew my mind right now 🤯🥳
Great video, thank you.
Thanks so much for these videos. I played violin in high school and i am just picking up the cello at 32. Have a nice foundation to start on can make some nice sounds, but man i keep wanting to use my ring finger where my pinky should be lol. Trying to break that bad habit. The fingerboard feels so huuuuuuuuge. So daunting but i am excited and love this instrument
This is great , thank you!
This game is cool! Definitely going to try that in my next practice session. Thanks! :)
Thank you a lot
Hello Jonathan. I really enjoy your channel, as someone who finally as an adult decided he wanted to start the cello. Been playing for about 1 year now with regular lessons. In parallel to my teacher, I picked up a couple of really helpful hints, cues and techniques from many of your videos.
I’d like to ask you though: the more usual situation is that a tune doesn’t end 5 times on the smile side, but more than once on the “bad” one. How do you break down the tune to its difficult parts? What notes should be included in repeated practicing, what ones not? How important is speed reduction? How important the pitch - should a tuner be used to practice hitting the correct tone? What if the bow stroke seems to be the problem, how to practice this?
What about syncopes as a means of practice?
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!
Best
Chris
OK there’s a lot to unpack here, Julius 1582. Every time you need to slow down and think more about the passage in music, it’s an opportunity to take practice. Think of it as brain bandwidth: more you give to one task the less can be given to other ones. Whether it is reducing the screen slowly building up working on your syncopations working on your tone, timbre, touch, Intonation, articulation, etc. etc., it is you who will find challenges in doing these different tasks. When you have precisely identified what is within that task that requires more of your “brain bandwidth”, then you isolate and repeat it five times perfectly and then build out on that. Epigenetic‘s of learning is always effective when addressing novel stimuli. As cello players this translates into that feeling of unfamiliarity with a certain skill and/or portion of music. With deep practice, every facet of a piece will become familiar.
this is one of the greatest video in: science/psychology/motivation/education .... And music ;)
Thanks again, Nada! Please consider subscribing!
@@CelloCoach yes I am a subscriber of this great channel :)
Dear Jonathan, It is true that perseverance is key to success for the average person however, there is absolutely no doubt that genius exists. For example there are children with an aptitude for music or maths that the average person does not even understand what it is that they don't understand compared to the naturally gifted. It's obvious we are all on a bell curve with most of us close to the mean. Secondly, it is absolutely true that the way a child learns is not conditioned in the way MOST adults are, in other words kids don't fear failure because they are not familiar with fear of failure however an adult can keep this trait. Lastly and most importantly, absolutely nothing in life is permanent, change is the primary condition for life to exist. Even the atoms that you were composed of as a child are no longer in your body. Certainly the synaptic connections are long lasting but nowhere near permanent
Agree to disagree to then partially agree ;-)
In my life, I have know, played with and met many "child prodigies", whom were seemingly brilliant at a young age but since maturing have lost their lustre. Even more so, I myself been able to teach one such child prodigy how to deep practice, for her strategy from years past failed to be effective after turning 50yo. This is where science deconstructs the romance of "genius", for now she can learn economically and efficiently into her twilight years.
Great talk.
THANK YOU
There have been some who have criticised your own playing. For me the few imperfections in your playing and they are few indeed make you even better as a teacher in my opinion because it's not like students who watch your videos are intimidated by a near perfection you achieve. It's like you are still a student yourself in some ways and that's makes beginners like me relate to you and more of a rapor can happen. I smiled when I read that pablo casals in his old age remarked that he believed he was making some improvements which was why he would continually practise each day, even in his final years. He was very inspirational too.
Hello. I hope that I will be able to get a lesson with you sometime. I have been watching your videos.I love them
Love
Luke Sparacio
Arrange matters with you parents, Luke, so until then, any requests??
Thanks a lot for this great Information. 🤗
My pleasure 😊
I decided to subscribe ! This video convinced me. As in everything in life ...this is a core value!
I wish I could get myself restarted practicing my cello. I started 9 years ago following lessons ones a week , practicing every day.3 years ago I made a decision in my private life which had a negative impact on my cello practicing amongst other things. I have been struggling to be happy the last 3 years which makes me conclude that a made a wrong decision. Anyway ...still watching my cello waiting for me everyday...
May I share your comment on future video? Your story reflects my own.
Try not to overthink it.
I did this for years, and it took way too much courage to play my cello again after a long period of complete life change. I became disabled and thought that my cello journey was over. I couldn’t bear to get rid of my cello, and he just sat in various corners of my broken life, watching me. I knew that I would never sit and practice for an hour again, even half an hour. It broke my heart, on top of everything else that had changed for me. After a long, long time feeling low and despairing of the loss of music, action and my social life, one day I had a “f**k it” moment. I got my bow from a dusty corner nearby and, slowly and cautiously, my cello from his corner. Carefully I tuned him, tightened the bow, found my rosin on a shelf and applied it. Even just the long strokes of the rosin on the horsehair were soothing. Like a mantra. Yes. Yes. I will play again.
My cello was so dusty. I gently dusted him down with my sleeve and apologised out loud, a crazy person in a room silent too long.
The shape of him was so familiar, like hugging an old, old friend. The first note was a wave of emotion through me, the deep C vibrating through me, the room, my brain, my heart. Then the G, the D, the A...a little tinny, an adjustment of the bowing angle, so much better, a richer sound.
Your cello will forgive you. Mine forgave me for years of silence and tears and bitterness, and then helped me to heal. First just a couple of minutes, callouses lost, shoulders weak, spine screaming in my head. Then five minutes, then ten, and some days even fifteen. I cannot play for long each time. But little and often can apply to anything in life, and so it is with music. Someone once had said to me in those dark days, “but it”d be better than nothing?” and the words had sounded bitter and empty. A sticking plaster on a bloody scar. I could not bear the little time - could not imagine it. And yet, ‘better than nothing’ is exactly that. ‘Nothing’ is too much to bear. Something is always better than nothing. It turned out that listening to music just wasn’t enough for me. I needed to make it again, to feel it physically again.
Just hold your cello again against your chest in position ready to play and see if it feels good or not. Have your bow ready next to you but don’t hold it. Does holding your cello make you want to pick up your bow and make it speak? If it does, pick up the bow, breathe and play a note. Even better, play stops...C and G, G and D, D and A... Let your cello speak to you in those perfect fifths. Listen to it. Do you still have a connection between you? Can you hear it’s voice in your head again, making music?
Sorry for the story of my journey, but yours spoke to me. Sometimes these changes come about because of a decision or just by chance, sometimes of our own making, sometimes beyond our control. None of that matters. What matters is between you and your cello. Does holding it and speaking with it make you feel something between you again? This is no ordinary instrument. Cellos have a soul and use it in their sound, given a chance.
I do not play that well, cannot have lessons (cello teachers do not come to houses, let alone for half an hour) and have lost almost a decade of life to a dark place of pain, but my five or ten or fifteen minutes help so much. I play simple things, snatches of more difficult things, phrases that I enjoy the feel of. It is enough.
I hope you play again.
Had to take a moment of reflection after reading your story, Helen. Thank you for sharing
Jonathan thank you for reading it and thinking of me and my cello :)
Yes of course ...
awesome!
Thanks!
Jonathan, thanks again for your posting. Who is the asian woman that was giving that lecture? This video was truly insightive and helpful.
Glad you enjoyed it! Here name is Angela Lee Duckworth www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance?language=en
Hello Jonathan, Thank you for your lessons and your teachings. It helps me very much. I am 54 y/o and have been playing for 1 year. I am having trouble with pain in my thumb joints, is there something I can do to help me with this pain?
J’aime bien vos suggestions de lecture. Merci.
Avec plaisir, Sara!
Jonathan Humphries I would be curious to hear more about the "warming up" of the cello. What does that means?
*aplies for literally everything in life*
THANKS....
Am I the only one wondering why there are French subtitles on that Tedx talk? :P
Great advice as always :)
Subbed!
Thanks!
Good habits and positive memory through deep practice. permanence only through this deep practice
Brilliant. I can't find your rate for lessons anywhere !?
ua-cam.com/video/hYJY3NCnHEY/v-deo.html
Ook! [Makes sense. I was very talented as a kid, and it made me impatient and lazy. I had everything too easy, now i am paying the price.]
You are still a talented adult, but you need to have more persistence and discipline. The TED talk calls it "grit". In Mexico, they say "ganas" and here in France on dit "serrer les dents". Talent can just get you so far, then it's all work!
Thats the only way... :-)
Jonathan - do you keep notes of your practice so that you can review what you are working on?
Like a practice journal, yes and no. I write notes on scores but honestly, have never truly maintained a practice journal. Hmmm, a very good future video!
Sooooo deeeeepp....
Hope you learned something!
@@CelloCoach Yes. That learning only for learning's sake is dry and fruitless without having a musical intention and ultimately joy. I think that is missing in your videos.
Watch this video at 1.25x speed
Basically reiterating the science behind practice that's described in this TED talk: ua-cam.com/video/f2O6mQkFiiw/v-deo.html
Good positive reinforcement along with patience does wonders while learning the cello!
I call it "positive emotional imprints" ;-) Great link, thanks!
Anyone else distracted by that tiny bow!? Curious where you got such a novelty
Creo que primero aprenderé hablar inglés 🤔
"Joue de sourires" doesn't mean anything btw
Oui, j'ai me sui trompé. Je l'ai corrigé : jeu des sourires. Mes étudiants, ils me comprennent.
Spanish subs please :c
one day, when I can hire translators, yes
I like the general conception of this video, and the passage of 16th-notes was ok, but not a single time you played the last chord with the appropriate length which is a 1/4 note. Otherwise, thanks for the video! =)
Guilty as charged, need to deep practice more