My daughter's cello teacher is very pregnant. She cancelled last week's lesson and I have just had a phone call saying she won't be here this week either. Given that there are only three weeks until the end of the year I can't see her coming back (and quite frankly I don't blame her given that she lives 120km away). However it also means that my daughter will have no lesson now until the end of September. We are going away for six weeks over the summer but even so that leaves a long period.

Previous summers (as I posted elsewhere) I have got a couple of books second-hand and let my daughter play what she wanted out of them. She has, however, changed (matured?) recently and has said herself that she wanted to do something structured this summer to improve her technique and was going to ask her cello teacher for advice, which is obviously now impossible.

I have no idea what standard she is in terms of grades. She has been working mainly from the book "Position Pieces" this year and can play in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th positions, she has done backward extensions but hasn't learnt 1/2 position as such. This being France she has played very few scales.

What my daughter feels she needs to work on are:
*intonation in general
*making shifts more secure
*control of the bow arm
*improving the position of her left-hand fingers which tend to be too flat (due mainly to not bending her thumb)

Any ideas of exercises she could do and/or of a book I could buy would be most appreciated.

Popper "Fifteen etudes for cello" are at a nice medium between study and piece, and sound like they might be about the right standard - worth a look.

There's also Piatti "Method for cello" that I used, which again has a series of study-like short pieces. I prefered the Popper, though!

Flat fingers are also associated with weak fingers and a weak hand.

A gripping exercise with a squeezy stress ball, or similar, is a very good way to improve finger and hand strength. Spend 5 minutes several times a day doing this to achieve a fairly rapid improvement.

Once the hand is of a more rounded in shape when playing, the next thing to work on is spacing between the knuckle joints (on the back of the hand). This will also improve finger position and intonation.

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but actually..........scales are probably the best exercises to help with intonation, shifts, bowing etc. Admittedly though scales alone probably aren't going to keep her motivated over the Summer. How about buying a scale book though and perhaps a book of etudes by Arnold Trowell (The Technology of Violoncello Playing . Arnold Trowell. Schott & Co Book 1,2 & 3) which increase in difficulty throughout? I would think Book 1 would be enough for her to cope with at this stage. She can always finish off her practice with either something she knows how to play....although trying to play it to performance standard , -or another new more melodic piece kindly provided for by Mum !

Good Luck to her. She sounds as though she's maturing musically.

Thanks will have a look out for this.


An excellent idea which she can take on holiday with her (she has been having a bit of a grump about not being able to take the cello with her and complaining that at this rate she is never going to be able to make any progress).



Bizarrely she likes scales and gets all excited when she has a new one to learn (which is not very often she hasn't had a new one all year).

The reason I mentioned not playing scales was because I thought they might be a way of working on technique but wasn't sure how to go about it. Do you suggest she practises the same scale with different bowings? And different rhythms as well (or is that too complicated)?

As she won't have her teacher to keep a check on her, I'd suggest buying a scale book so that she can keep checking for herself that she has the right notes under her fingers, but encourage her also to learn them without looking at the book all the time. That will encourage her to use her ears to check the intonation. (I take it she knows how to check a stopped G against an open G , stopped D against an open D and so on ?).

The ABRSM asks for scales to be played with both separate bowings and slurred bowings (2 notes to a down bow,2 on an up bow etc). As she is playing in 4 th position she might be able to work on CGD Majors in 2 octaves quite comfortably and might also want to try D minor.

Accuracy of intonation and a comfortable speed are the things to aim for, but if she wants to play around with rhythm and it doesn't upset the basics too much (her finger positions, bow control etc) , then the Arnold Trowell book I mentioned earlier contains exercises based on scale patterns /arpeggios and varying rhythms

All the best
Iona

Just read the bit about 'having a grump'. She'll need a few cello cds and a good age -relevant novel involving a musician (preferably a cellist) then. That's the way I cope (even now) with being cello-less when away

Any ideas for an age-relevant novel? She's 11 and due to start secondary school in September.

Sorry.....All the novels I know are for those of us who've been 11 a few times over.

If you start a new thread with this one I suspect you'll get loads of replies from parents and offspring alike......General/Parents forum?

I know of a few early teen novels, but I can't vouch for them:

Broken Chords - Barbara Snow Gilbert
Changing Tunes Donna Jo Napoli
The Sandy Bottom Orchestra Garrison Keillor.

-Iona

Even though she's young, what about a biography of Jacqueline du Pre or something? I don't actually know of one myself, but I'm sure there'll be some interesting and inspiring biographies of cellists out there.

There are a few Du Pre biographies out there, but a couple of them contain some rather 'inappropriate' material.

There are some great biogs though on Casals, Du Pre, Rostropovich and Piatigorsky. Having said that, they'd have been way over my head at 11.

I found the one written by Elizabeth Wilson offers the most reliable account of du Pre's life. Some of the biographies are written with obvious prejudice towards some aspect of her life, but Elizabeth Wilson wrote it from an aquaintances point of view, a factual account from Jacquie's earliest musical beginnings right up to her death and how her husband and friends dealt with it.

Does not contain any inappropriate material, but I'd wonder if an 11 year old still might find it a bit heavy going, unless they are particularly academic or advanced in their vocabulary skills.

"Jellybean" by ?Tessa Duder. I can't just spot it in the shelf but can check later
When son was doing Position Pieces, he might have had at the same time, can't quite rememebr, Piatti book 2 - scales and exercises with lots of fingering written in for shifts, and a lovely German book "Violoncello Spielend lezen" by Koch, that has scales and exercises, positions, book 2 went up to 1/2, exteneded and 4th position, double stopping and tenor clef, book 3 went from 2nd, 3rd to 7th and thumb. and treble clef. Both have quite modern music in them as well as Bach canons etc ( and lots of pictures)