I have been practising lots this summer, climbing the personal Everest that is the Kodaly Sonata for performances in October and November and I have been writing about it everyday. (no, not here, on a private, open/free to join, network where creatives share unfinished work)
Yesterday I wanted to share something I had realised in my practice. In the end of the Second Movement of the Kodaly Sonata, there are long harmonics, played by lightly touching the string with one finger of the left hand. The right hand is occupied by pulling the bow across the string, and the score calls for more notes to be played, pizzicato. To do this, you need to use some other fingers on the left hand. I figured out that to stabilise the harmonic while I used other fingers from the same hand to play pizz, it helped to slip my harmonic finger between the strings and rest it on the fingerboard. Good.
Well, I wanted to share this and to document it. All through my practice I have been playing with camera angles and showing the nitty-gritty up-close of fingers and bowing, and I wanted to show the finger placement in an effective way.
I ended up balancing the phone (camera) on top of my cello while I played. The cello rests on my chest (sternum) and I put a practice mute against my chest to act as a base for the phone, so it could lie on the top of the cello and have the camera bit hanging off the end, looking down the fingerboard. I recorded this once, at 7:30 am. It is genuine practice, and so not at all perfect, but what I saw was way too cool not to share.
THE PICTURE WOBBLES WITH THE LOWEST STRING.
How completely epic is that!?!?! I can’t quite get over it. 🙂