Practicing the Cello

My cello teacher tells me over and again that it is most important to notice what we are doing when we play a scale, a movement, an exercise.

She asks me to put into precise words what I was trying to do throughout the playing and what I noticed in my playing. Did I hold down my first and second fingers as I played the top C? Did I prepare and start to lift my hand as I played F and G on the A string as I moved higher in the scale? Were my dotted timings correct, my equal notes steady or was I subconsciously imitating the rubato of Casals whom I heard play the piece many times? Being specific in noticing is very hard for me but it is the way of getting better at the cello. The only way.

In the TV show, Psych, we see flashbacks each week to the protagonist's childhood. His father asks him to close his eyes and recall the very minor details around them. In this way, the son gradually learns to notice. Noticing takes work.

And when we take care to notice in our discipline, be it yoga or cello, knitting or sweeping the floor, we begin to fall into the practice of noticing more in our daily lives.

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