To work on balance, don't try to use the bow and the left hand fingers at the same time. Once you start to put the bow on the strings, practice only harmonics and open strings. You can rest your left hand on the cello.
Deciding on where the cello should be placed against the body and how long the endpin should be, has been one of the hardest things for me to figure out both for myself and for my students. This is because there are so many variables such as knee to hip length, hip to shoulder length, arm length etc. Have a look at the cellists in this performance of the Popper Requiem. Amit Peled (the one in the center) is a head taller than the woman playing next to him. Because of their relative sizes, her cello appears to be larger than his!
Feeling balanced with your cello
The word posture can imply something that is static and making music involves movement so the aim is to find a balanced posture that is not rigid. This is the number one skill to learn for an absolute beginner. It underlies all other techniques because it will affect your sound. Being able to balance while sitting, will allow your body to initiate and respond to movement. Since you have to sit to play the cello, go to Learning to Sit With a Cello
Children grow and continually need to realign themselves. Adults also change, and even from day to day you may want something different. If you make big changes though, big changes in how you place the cello against your body, it can take a long time to adjust. In order to get used to a new endpin length or a bent endpin or placing the cello higher or lower on your chest, try it out for a period of time and try to learn what advantages it gives you.
Sometimes with children, they will say they are comfortable with the cello in all kinds of positions. Some important questions to ask when trying to determine the placement of the cello against you or your student's body:
(sit with hands relaxed on legs and feeling tall)
- Does the cello feel like it is pushing you back into the chair? (This is not good so usually make the endpin shorter or cello lower on chest)
- When trying out a new placement or endpin length, Pam Devenport always asks her students a good question, "does it feel uncomfortable or just different?"
- Is your head free to move from right to left?. For many people, the C and sometimes G pegs will be in the way and prevent movement of the head so it does not feel free. I have a "posture peg" instead of a normal peg for my C string and it is essential to enable me to free up my torso/neck/head. You can buy one but someone must fit it to the peg hole(s) on your cello.
Here are some: Things to make or buy to help posture
Cellist Gregory Beavor says that "playing an instrument like cello is intrinsically unbalancing for the body, and so you will need to do something to re-balance the body. He recommends Yoga and Tai Chi because "the active use of the breath in both practices are the most directly applicable to the work we do as musicians." He also believes that, "to make real improvement, you need to be in shape" and advises cellists to do aerobic exercise, something that we don't usually consider as part of learning the cello but very important "to be able to pump oxygen to your brain easily even when you are resting".
"The physical freedom upon which a healthy technique depends is not easily acquired." - Herbert Whone,
Herbert Whone, a British violin teacher, wrote a wonderful book in 1972 to help teachers, students and amateurs understand more about violin playing through what he learned from teaching his students. Many of his ideas are applicable to cellists.
"Feeling Awareness" is something he wrote about which is very important in learning the cello.
The Feldenkrais approach is a wonderful way to develop "feeling awareness" It is amazing how the gentle Awareness Through Movement (Feldenkrais ATM) exercises can get you into a wonderful place of sensing and moving freely and how that can transfer to everything we do, including playing the cello.
To work on coordination
Put rests in between notes so left hand can get ready before the bow plays. If there is a string change between notes, the bow must get to the new string before the bows plays the new note. In Suzuki vol. 1, I do this with Twinkle, Perpetual Motion and Etude.
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