16/05: Erm... Right
So I’m working on my vibrato. It’s one of those things: there are so many differing schools of thought, so many ideas about how you learn this, how you do this. It’s such an aesthetic, expressive thing to begin with; explaining it, naturally enough, isn’t gonna be straightforward.
More frequently, it approaches the hilariously oblique. My current winners for technical advice in the ‘I’m not sure how that helps, exactly’ category, and the ‘gratuitous sexual references’ category, respectively, are:
And then, of course, we have:
No, I’m afraid not. The trouble is, I keep imagining my cello saying: ‘Dude? You know that’s my neck, right?’
More frequently, it approaches the hilariously oblique. My current winners for technical advice in the ‘I’m not sure how that helps, exactly’ category, and the ‘gratuitous sexual references’ category, respectively, are:
Sometimes, when I think of a cello vibrato, I envision two parallel walls about 3 feet apart. I see a weightless ball thrown against one wall. It immediately bounces back to the second wall, which in turn sends it back to the first wall. I have a feeling this could go on for years…
—Phyllis Young, via Tim Janof, on The Internet Cello Society’s page
…erm… okaaaay… I can see the ball… Ver’ nice. Now what?And then, of course, we have:
I have heard of one teacher who even uses male sexual imagery to get the motion down. I will leave this to your imagination. Ahem.
—Tim Janof, from, again, The Internet Cello Society’s page
…hmm. How picturesque. Thing is, the vibrato I get using this advice, well, I dunno. Kinda choppy. And the imagery isn’t working for me, either.No, I’m afraid not. The trouble is, I keep imagining my cello saying: ‘Dude? You know that’s my neck, right?’
11/05: Perlman
My lovely wife and myself saw Itzhak Perlman play last night at the NAC.
Oh. Right. And he was playing with some guy called Pinchas Zukerman. I hear Pinchas gets mad if you don’t mention that. Sorry, dude.
Seriously, it was impressive. Thanks to my very alert wife’s way with ticket agents, we had seats in the third row from the front, near centre, so if I’d stretched too vigourously, I could probably have knocked the bow outta the guy’s hand.
And it’s a bit scary, sitting that close to a living legend. You really don’t want to stretch. Bad way to get in the papers, that: ‘Local wanker knocks bow out of Itzhak Perlman’s hand during performance’. Ain’t like you’d ever live that headline down.
Anyway. Impressions? Ummm…
Yeah. Right. He’s Perlman. He played really incredibly diffiicult music, made it look like gravy. What am I supposed to say, exactly? That I’ve heard more passionate performances? Like you’d care. Like you’d believe me.
Seriously, they were both, as you’d expect, great. Also seriously, some of the stuff on the programme was a bit of a snooze (as in: all very fast and technical and impressive but no, actually, not terribly passionate or engaging) by my lights*, but I really, really liked the bit of Handel they threw in for an encore. At the end of that piece, several members of the audience gave out some of those spontaneous little whoops you sometimes hear at rock concerts, as the last cadence faded out, and it made perfect sense, at the time.
And as to that seriously fast and technical and impressive stuff: you know that seriously stuck-up word ‘sublime’ that sometimes gets bandied about? I think it pretty much fit, here. Moments listening to violin and viola doing this little dance, and you’re thinking: damn, that’s durn pretty, impossibly intricate, and pretty much unbelievable, overall.
Coolest thing about Perlman: serious stage presence, strangely perfect, dry comic timing. The kind of cool you can probably only develop by spending oh, your entire life under the lights. He hobbles onto stage on those canes, sits down, introduces the pieces, and the house is just cracking up. And I’ve almost no idea why it’s funny, and I’m laughing anyway.
Good stuff, that. We should probaby try to get out to performances like this more than once every few years.
*You are free to conclude from this I’m some kind of tone-deaf troglodyte, if you wish. I dunno. My reactions are always all over the map on chamber music-ish stuff. Like I said: there were several ‘wow’ moments, anyway.
Oh. Right. And he was playing with some guy called Pinchas Zukerman. I hear Pinchas gets mad if you don’t mention that. Sorry, dude.
Seriously, it was impressive. Thanks to my very alert wife’s way with ticket agents, we had seats in the third row from the front, near centre, so if I’d stretched too vigourously, I could probably have knocked the bow outta the guy’s hand.
And it’s a bit scary, sitting that close to a living legend. You really don’t want to stretch. Bad way to get in the papers, that: ‘Local wanker knocks bow out of Itzhak Perlman’s hand during performance’. Ain’t like you’d ever live that headline down.
Anyway. Impressions? Ummm…
Yeah. Right. He’s Perlman. He played really incredibly diffiicult music, made it look like gravy. What am I supposed to say, exactly? That I’ve heard more passionate performances? Like you’d care. Like you’d believe me.
Seriously, they were both, as you’d expect, great. Also seriously, some of the stuff on the programme was a bit of a snooze (as in: all very fast and technical and impressive but no, actually, not terribly passionate or engaging) by my lights*, but I really, really liked the bit of Handel they threw in for an encore. At the end of that piece, several members of the audience gave out some of those spontaneous little whoops you sometimes hear at rock concerts, as the last cadence faded out, and it made perfect sense, at the time.
And as to that seriously fast and technical and impressive stuff: you know that seriously stuck-up word ‘sublime’ that sometimes gets bandied about? I think it pretty much fit, here. Moments listening to violin and viola doing this little dance, and you’re thinking: damn, that’s durn pretty, impossibly intricate, and pretty much unbelievable, overall.
Coolest thing about Perlman: serious stage presence, strangely perfect, dry comic timing. The kind of cool you can probably only develop by spending oh, your entire life under the lights. He hobbles onto stage on those canes, sits down, introduces the pieces, and the house is just cracking up. And I’ve almost no idea why it’s funny, and I’m laughing anyway.
Good stuff, that. We should probaby try to get out to performances like this more than once every few years.
*You are free to conclude from this I’m some kind of tone-deaf troglodyte, if you wish. I dunno. My reactions are always all over the map on chamber music-ish stuff. Like I said: there were several ‘wow’ moments, anyway.
