​Shaky bow?

Sweaty palms?

Lack of appetite?

Couldn't speak because your mouth was so dry?

These are all very common for me (and many others)!

​Leave a comment below and tell me the worst symptom of performance anxiety you have experienced. 

How did it affect your performance?

What do you think you might try to help make it easier next time?

I talk a lot about my cello life before I met Martha. I was a complete mess in many ways, but especially regarding my cello technique. 

For example, when I would play in an extended position to accommodate a G# on the D-string, every other finger in my hand position would be out of tune.  That didn't work well ever, really, but especially when I had to play fast passages. 

Once Martha started working with me, she introduced a new kind of extension, one that kept my non-extended fingers in a place where they could play actual notes!

It was a long retraining process, but I finally incorporated her "open" position into my technique and my intonation improved 1000%!

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Instead of stretching WHATEVER finger, it works a lot better to stretch only your first finger. That's a strong finger and stretching it makes much more sense than extending your poor little pinky out on its own. It has got enough problems just being strong enough to press the cello strings while curved!

The advantage of this hand shape (instead of stretching out your pinky) is that all your other fingers are on actual notes as well!

Don't worry, you can reach a high 4th finger with this shape too. Read on!

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I call this extended or stretched hand shape OPEN POSITION. Martha said it makes it sound less difficult and taxing. And it IS!  It's a smarter and more ergonomic way to play.

In this OPEN position, your fingers maintain the same spacing that they have in your normal (closed) position. So you can count on them to be in the same place they normally are when you reach back for a low 1st finger. 

Reaching back with your first finger without moving is what I call Backward Open.

​In addition to using this to extend the reach (pun intended!) of first position, you can use this in every neck position on the cello!

The only trick is that as you move higher in pitch, the finger spacings get closer together, so in third and fourth position, my first finger is no longer pointed straight back. Instead it looks like the 1 and 2 are "cowboy legs" - bowed apart like they've been on a horse all day. 

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1. Make a peace sign with a big space between 1 and 2​
2. ​Straigten 3 and 4
3. Curve all fingers but 1, which should stay straight (and at a jaunty angle!)
4. Place this on the string, letting 2, 3, and 4 pull the string (instead of pressing); lay the pad of 1st finger (not the tip of the finger!) lightly on the string.

Lots of students have trouble reaching back far enough at first. That's ok!  If you let your first finger stay very light on the string, it will sound flatter than if you press a lot. So figure out how little weight you can use on your first finger and still make a decent tone, memorize that feeling, and incorporate that into how you execute your open position. Remember that pressing harder will make things worse!

You'll probably need to do lots of exercises to get really good at this. It's weird to not press hard.

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