It's that time of year again... Graduation. 

As I write this, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance is on repeat in my mind, and it takes me back to the very end of my high school days.

There's a young, sweaty me, sitting on a folding chair on the football field, wearing a robe that feels as though it might melt onto my skin. The tassel on my mortarboard keeps hitting me in the eye, but at least it mops up a little perspiration as it swings across my face...


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Who knew back then that I would be a cellist and teacher a mere *mumble mumble* years in the future?

Uh, I meant to say, back to the present ...

During lessons this week, I discovered that both of my students who are high school seniors this year are valedictorians.  

And so was I all those years ago.

How crazy is that?  It's all a big coincidence, right?

I'm not so sure!

This got me thinking about the connection between music and the mind. 

You have all probably heard about the Mozart Effect --the idea that simply listening to Mozart's music can help kids perform better on tests.  Mozart's music has also been shown to decrease the amount of epileptic activity in the brain of patients who have seizures (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9660010/). 

Even listening to non-classical music can have significant performance enhancing benefits (http://www.livescience.com/2953-amazing-power-music-revealed.html)!


So if listening to music is helpful, what about playing music on an instrument?  
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Those of us who are more mature can reap major benefits from playing a musical instrument as well.  Not only can it improve your health--staving off anxiety, depression, and general cognitive decline (http://www.livescience.com/40597-playing-musical-instrument-good-health.html)--but it can also help prevent dementia
(http://dementiaresearchfoundation.org.au/blog/playing-musical-instrument-later-life-protective-factor-against-dementia).

Learning an instrument could be just about the best thing an adult can do to improve his or her brain health
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2996135/#S4title).  

​And it might also be a little bit fun! 
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If you're interested in seeing a few more articles on this topic, check out these:

• http://portlandchamberorchestra.org/what-happens-when-the-brain-plays-a-musical-instrument/

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• http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/09/10/343681493/this-is-your-brain-this-is-your-brain-on-music

And this one, specifically about the defiant nature of cellists (who, us?):

•  http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2016/05/why_cellists_like_sergei_roldugin_are_the_most_rebellious_musicians_in_the.html

Do you have personal experience to support or debunk these ideas? Let me know what you think about all this in the comments section below.  

And in the meantime, congrats to all the graduates!  For the rest of us, we'll just enjoy all that Elgar wafting through the spring air!

Adult cello.  

It does sound a bit risqué, but I am trying to refer to learning to play the cello after you have become a fully mature human being (I'm still waiting to achieve this status, hence all my "adult cello" jokes).

It's one of the most rewarding and intriguing (some of my students might prefer to substitute the word "frustrating" here) endeavors I have ever been involved in.  And it is not for the faint of heart. 

Learning the cello as an adult takes some serious guts!

I began playing when I was 10 years old after seeing the James Bond movie, The Living Daylights.  (Most of my students already know this story, but click HERE if you don't).  Though I technically began cello as a child, I did have to relearn much of my technique when I got to college, so I am no stranger to the humiliating task of having to retrain inefficient or sloppy habits.

But still, learning the cello FROM SCRATCH as an adult is a whole different ball game.

I think about this adult vs. child issue nearly every day, since about half my studio is made up of people of all ages who began practicing the cello as a grown-up.  

One of my adult students recently sent me a link to an article that she said had helped her immensely:

In the Express Lane: Learning the Cello as an Adult, by Ethan Winer. 

I immediately read it, loved it, and wanted to share it with you as soon as possible, so here's an excerpted passage from the introduction:

Read the rest of his article to find out what he prescribes to help the adult student progress quickly: http://ethanwiner.com/adultbeg.html

For your convenience, I have condensed all the exercises he has sprinkled throughout his explanation into an organized three-page warm-up. Feel free to print these out and add them to your practice routine.  I highly recommend doing so!

Thanks Janet, for sending me this article.

And thanks to Ethan Winer!

For many of us, sight-reading can be such a daunting task.  No matter how easy the piece is, it seems like we are having to wade through the farcical insanity notated above.  

I know that this skill can be beefed up, especially by simply reading unfamiliar music everyday.  After all, that's how I got better at it!  But sometimes I find it hard to explain the EXACT methods that work for me.  Perhaps they were built unconsciously, driven only by my desire to avoid a musical train-wreck!

Thanks to Nancy Mack, one of my most thoughtful and studious adult cello students, for alerting me to this incredibly helpful article: http://jazzadvice.com/5-steps-to-mastering-sight-reading/  It demystifies the sight-reading process by outlining the tried-and-true techniques in a shockingly clear way.  I urge you to read it-- especially those of you with All-State auditions on the horizon!  

Want to test some of these techniques on your own?  Visit https://sightreadingfactory.com/ for unlimited on-line sight-reading examples.  

Prefer sight-reading from a book?  Try one of the many collections of short examples for cello, like this one by Doreen Smith.

Feel free to share your sight-reading stories or helpful techniques in the comments section below. I love learning about what works for different cellists!

Happy sight-reading!  

This past week, I had the opportunity to talk to a group of seventy kindergartners about string instruments as a part of the Columbus Symphony's Orchestra Up Close program (http://www.csokids.org/).  Many of these kids had never seen or even heard of a cello, but they sat there watching and listening closely (and sometimes NOT so closely when they spontaneously began cheering wildly at the sounds the instruments were making). 

The enthusiasm in the room was incredibly refreshing for me (how many times do you find you have to tell a room full of adults to please stop cheering?). 

But that was nothing compared to the general attitude I encountered when the teachers lined them up for the opportunity to actually play on a real cello. 

Shouts of encouragement for the current player erupted from the kids still in line .  

"Wonderful!" and "You sound like a true professional!" were a few of my favorites.  But this one took the cake: "Encore!" accompanied by the helpful explanation, "That means 'play it again!'"


I am sure some other comments escaped my attention since I was occupied with watching and guiding each player, one at a time.  There was no violent pizzicato or tossing of the instrument to worry about this time, but, as the eager students drew ever closer to the current cellist, the wild bowing would sometimes get dangerously close to becoming a painful stab in a child's thigh.  Probably ten times, we had to yell at them to step back, but there was no stopping this excited mob. They kept crowding in. 

The best part of the whole visit was when several of the children sat down to play the cello, scratched a few jauntily angled bow strokes across the open G string, and exclaimed, "I am so good at this!"  

Okay, so I know what you're thinking: there is no way those kids were any good.  At all.

Well, they definitely nailed one critical component. They had the right attitude. And I am not talking about "being positive."  That is not necessarily a great tool for learning how to become a musician.  

What I am saying is that they had no preconceived notions of perfection stopping them from taking on a challenge. And because they lacked the awareness of their inexperience (or perhaps, as a kindergartner, most everything is a new experience and they have gotten used to the feeling of simply jumping into unfamiliar territory), their positive introduction might be enough to inspire them to take the next step.  

We could all use a lesson in being like children again and learning how to be okay with starting from zero.  

"Starting from Zero" is the title of Beth Bultman's article in the most recent Scor! newsletter about an effective sight-reading strategy  (find out more about Scor! at http://stringcamp.com/).  For your convenience, I have reprinted it here:

STARTING FROM ZERO

Sight-Reading Strategy When we sight-read, many of us make the mistake of starting with a standard of perfection, then “take points off” when we don’t get everything right. Although this is a common grading tool in school, starting at 100% then taking off points when the wrong answer is found on the test, it is not a productive approach when sight-reading.

Try this instead. Start from 0. Really. Because you’re sight-reading, remember? You’ve never seen this music before. So, you really are starting from 0.

Now, focus on the pulse. (Not the notes.) Can you feel the pulse? Follow the pulse? Keep your place in the music? (Good – you’re not at 0 anymore.) Now for rhythms – fit them into the larger pulse. (If you have trouble and are practicing on your own, try just counting, just clapping, just bowing in the air, or bowing on an open string.) Good – a few more points. (Pat self on back.)

Now for the notes - get as many as you can. Each note you play accurately is an additional accomplishment – you are building up from 0 by adding all these notes!

Remember, as you add things like bowings, articulation, and dynamics, you are adding the finishing touches to your sight-reading. These are certainly not the most important, but are great if you can get them in. A few more ways to inch your way up.

Sight-reading isn’t nearly as foreboding when you start from 0 and build up, rather than the more common top-down approach. Consider, by this point, how far you have come from the 0 you started at, and celebrate!  
-Beth Bultman


This approach can be useful in many more situations besides sightreading, I am sure.

I was researching the Alexander Technique a few weeks ago and found an article comparing it to learning how to play the violin.  The question the author was addressing was, "How long does it take to learn the Alexander Technique?"  (Read the whole article here: http://alexandertechnique.com/articles2/howmanylessons/.) 

She said that one can never stop learning--just as it is with the violin (or cello).   The learning process is life-long.

She also admitted that the answer, "forever" was extremely unsatisfying, so she offered another approach:

"As soon as we know that if we pluck or draw a bow across the string of the violin, and that we can change the note by changing the length of the string, we can play the violin. Everything else is refinement."

So, those kindergartners really did have the right idea, wild bow angles and all. They were amazing!

Just because they started from zero.