Practice report.


I have determined the reason for my playing inconsistencies - I neglected to adjust myself to the mood and tempo of the music before I started. Call it ridiculous, but I find it somewhat like 'getting in character' for actors before they go up on stage.


One example is how I couldn't play suk 3rd after running through my variations and suk 4th.


Suk sounds better when I actually take the trouble to shift closer to the bridge in some parts. To quote Mr Chan(the violin one this time, I think it was) your strings are like a palette of paints, and the position of the bow determines how much water you added - play on the fingerboard and the sound is diluted, play near the bridge(excluding ponticello sound i suppose) and you get concentration and intensity.


I used to whack strings hoping to get more sound out of them. Now I know it's better to use more bow and more arm weight - which I do - but I still whack strings now and then.


Power has a very minimal relation with force. It's not so much hammering on the strings but knowing how to use weight to your advantage.


As my teacher told me, he listened to Yo-Yo Ma(one of my favourite cellists too) play. His colleague produced a loud note; Ma's demonstration dwarfed it totally. The secret, in retrospective analysis, was that Ma had trained for years and developed more muscle weight, and also, more importantly, that he let the note ring. The same extra effort by the hand stifles the vibrations; Ma knew how to minimise the damping.


Variations are going well, and with these small facts it constitutes what I call a very productive practice session. I learned something today - or at least brought to my own attention something I should have but didn't.


A pity my composition's going badly. My head just goes blank when I start moving away from diatonic scales. Back to the drawing board - or should I say the piano?