We musicians like to talk about how we are a lot like athletes, in the way we use (and abuse) our bodies. I've heard it said many times, that playing the cello is the same as this sport or that sport, we just use smaller muscle groups. I agree. I am definitely feeling it. If I take breaks from practicing, I don't come back as fast as I used to. I played a run of West Side Story last week and my back is still giving me trouble. My core muscles need a serious overhaul (they never quite recovered from the child bearing business) and I'm working on that. But what about the actual daily routines that I have, besides learning new music? 

For a while now I have been in search of a maintenance routine that would allow me to keep my hands and body conditioned when I am not actively learning a new piece or preparing for a performance (on those occasions I generally have no problems motivating myself to practice). The parameters of that routine are simple: it needs to encourage sensitivity and accuracy while maintaining muscle conditioning, in the shortest possible time (three kids, full time job, no time...)

I have talked with many friends about their routine, some play a Bach Suite every day, some focus on Popper (I heard that a handy way to do this is to rotate each batch of 10 for a week, the way they were written). My teacher Erling Blondal Bengtsson was quite well-known for his routine of playing through a different Bach Suite every day, and on the 7th day all the Piatti Caprices. He said that they really touched on all aspects of cello that one needs. I definitely agree (I just can't do it). I was on the Popper Project for a while (I still have a couple to learn, but it's almost all done!) and playing 3 Popper Etudes a day certainly kept my hands conditioned, maybe a little too well - at times I was hurting so bad I had to take a day or two off from fear of injury. Plus it took a lot of time! More than I have most days, anyway. For the last year I've done my warm-ups (which I do religiously every time I practice), then playing around the circle of fifths, Poppers and Piattis, using the "I wonder what I feel like doing today" organizational method.

Today, I was talking about the issue with my massage therapist. He suggested that instead of flying by the seed of my pants, why not design a program for myself, approaching it like a fitness cross-training routine for cello. This makes so much sense it's a little ridiculous. Of course it should be a rotation of different cello-fitness routines, 2 days of muscle conditioning following by 3-5 days of cardio! Not sure what that exactly means yet, except that Popper is going to be heavily involved, as is Bach. It's easy to think about the left hand, but what about the bow, how does that factor in? Should there be explosiveness training involved, or are different forms of calisthenics enough if rotated with some isometric movement? And what does cardio mean for cello anyway? I think I just found my summer project...         

To really know this new instrument, I feel a need to play all the repertoire I have ever played. That's not really possible, and certainly not probable. Plus, I've now run out of lesure time and have to be ready in three weeks for prime time. So, what is a cello player to do when there is a need for mapping out the fingerboard once and for all? There's really only one answer - Popper. Going back to High School. 

There's a great (young) cellist, Joshua Roman, who just completed an amazing Popper Project, posting a video on youtube of all 40 Popper Etudes, one every week. I'm very impressed. I must admit I wondered why...but I think I get it now. The process is important, and intent changes the process.  

As students taking lessons, we play technical studies (etudes), to our teachers, who hold us accountable for notes, rhythms, styles, correct technique, flow etc. We learn to perform musical pieces and so we learn accountability in performance also. But the etudes usually stay within the confines of the student-teacher relationship, at the most we share them within the studio. Unless you are Janos Starker or Erling Blondal Bengtsson, in which case you record them for the world to hear. After school, who cares if we never play another etude ever again? Well...playing etudes is kind of like taking your vitamins. In the summertime when the sunshine is plentiful, you can get away with not taking them so much, but when the winter-funk strikes you better take them regularly or else...you risk loosing things. Without a teacher, though, nobody holds me accountable but myself - and I find that after ten years of no school, I'm slacking. I blame it on life and job, but it doesn't make me play better. We've already started a practice diary shared as a google doc with some school friends, with the hope of more discipline coming out of peer-pressure and semi-public humiliation for not practicing. This week I'm adding my own Popper self-challenge in two parts. 

Part one, a two week challenge in which I play through the book. This translates to roughly three etudes every day. I've studied most of them (I think?), and so there are a couple of reasons for starting with a "play through". I want to identify the ones that I need to really learn (or re-learn as the case will be). But first and foremost, I want to map out the fingerboard on the HC.

Part two, learn the ones that I don't know. These are all the ones that are 5 pages long, have 6 flats and are played on the thumb, mostly. This is the hard part: I don't know what platform to use to humiliate/motivate myself to learn them well enough to "perform". One option is to record them for myself - ugh. Or ask friends and children to listen - double ugh. Ideas? Let me know... definitely no youtube though. That has been done.    

Anyway, I already learned from contemplating this challenge that the process will be different because it's a formal challenge with specific, stated goals and some kind of performance (ie public or private humiliation) at the end of it. Now I get why, Joshua Roman.