Midway, more or less

Just a quick update on my "practice every day in August" pledge. I have practiced all but two days, and those were days I was home only to sleep. I am feeling good about this, especially after going most of July without practicing at all. A couple of the days bare minimum practicing, as little as 10 minutes, but most days were at least an hour, sometimes 2, and occasionally 3 hours.

I am trying to focus on intonation and sound quality, not on repertoire, but sometimes the repertoire takes over for a while. I played with the fiddlers yesterday, so worked on some fiddle tunes this week, and I played both flute and cello at a church this morning, so worked on those pieces as well.

When I told my teacher earlier this summer of my plan to work on intonation and sound quality, using scales and etudes, she suggested a new book. I sighed because I have several scale and etude books already and had planned to use one or two of them. Finally, after a couple of weeks, I bought the book, A. C. Piatti's Method for Cello. Starting with book 1. Yes, I wanted to do simple pieces, but was dejected about starting on book one, all over again. She allowed that we could start midway through.

So, I started on page 1 anyway. I like the book, after all, and find I am learning things, even from page 1, and the point is not what page I am on, but whether my sound is improving, and I think it is. This is a completely different approach from Suzuki, of course, and it introduces some things, like G# and half position and key signatures up to 3 sharps and flats, much earlier. It introduces 1st to 4th positions, and ends with 5th, 6th, and 7th position, in tenor clef.