music practice

[r00n]

Hello

Want to be a good musician, then practice is the only way.

About 3 years ago i bought myself a cello. A fairly decent one but not a stradivarius. I was absolutely sick of the harsh digital sound and needed something that i could actually play.If i was going to hear another arpegio from the albino synth i would have had to give up playing altogether. I was that sick of it.



My daughters and I have been playing as a trio for various events. As they have learnt for more than 5 years, and i have good music knowledge i thought that i could continue there lessons as we moved away from their teacher. SO i stay a couple of steps in front of them as we learn together. They have better idea of pitch that i do. Its quite strange how natural their sense of pitch and rhythm is.



My Daughter. Beautiful like her Mother.

So i always get the simple vegetable parts like the bass in vivaldis spring, when we perform. We sound pretty bad and there a lots of pitchy issues and problems, which are usually caused by me.


Lately i have put in place a practice regime and the the ipod is of great assistance. I stopped just playing random material and put some thought into what i needed to improve and practice. I put some common arpeggios on the piano sound on a little app called chordbot, and practice my arps and scales on the cello for about one hour per day. THe result is nothing short of amazing. Well its amusing how the arpegios have come back. Its not the albino synth but arpegios are really helpful.

I am at the stage where i am about 10% - 3% away from correct pitch. More often than not i am nearer the note than otherwise. This is really exciting for me because i finally have a voice that i could sing with. I can use the cello to sing what i want. I am playing some emotional melodies and really starting to feel the notes and where they should be. THe arps and scales are really helping and having the piano from some ipad app in the background gives my ears reference to the pitch and my finger memory builds. It vibrates thru my chest cavity.

The cello in my opinion is the hardest instrument to play ever. Of course you know that it is frettless and therfor is capable of every and all pitches. And when you have an infinite pitches to chose from, finding the correct one is really hard. Only the ear tells you whether you are on or off. And its starting to come... my perfect pitch on the cello is almost here. I am really ecstatic about it. i fam feeling it. Granted i am only in C and D and G and F and other vegetable key signatures, not six flats or anything. I set this goal for myself and its coming to fruition. Of course, only time is the key to success you have to spend time with your instrument to get better at it.

Arpegios and scales... all melody is comrpised of these basic rudiments.
practice regularly.

[alphatonez]

Hello r00n,

this is a wonderful post, i really enjoyed reading it and found it very interessting.

Thank you for letting us get a peak into your musicians life

Kind regards,
alphatonez

ps: Hope your daughter joins soundpeak too, once she is old enough.

[Audi01]

+1

That picture is enough to render one speechless r00n Thanks for sharing.

Scales I love to practice...but arpegios? Like make an arpegio out of a scale? Or just a plain jane arpegio? Pls explain? lol

[r00n]

Play the notes of each chord in succession, usually across 2 octaves both hand on the piano, or singing. Pick up notes 1 3 and 5 and 8 and play them up and down until you are bored to death. Now go relative minor, then dominant major and then its realtive minor ... Keep repeating the pattern. All melody is a mixture of arps and scales...and aprs played manually are far more interesting than midi generated ones.
Good luck with them.... They are essential on a fretles intrument for finger memory

[Audi01]

ahh right like handels exercises...