Vanessa's Cello Notebook

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The Practice Notebook
from Vanessa's Yo-Yo Ma Page

My teacher, Mrs. Wiesner, says a practice session you don't write down is a practice session you'll repeat. So I write everything down, in a spiral notebook that lives in my cello case. This is the typed-up version of the parts that might help somebody else. It's organized the way my brain is: the piece first, then the plan, then the log.

Part one: the Prelude
Bach, Suite No. 1 in G major for unaccompanied cello, BWV 1007

It looks easy on the page. It's almost all one steady stream of sixteenth notes, mostly broken chords, and a second-year student can get through the notes. That's the trap. Getting through the notes is the easy part. Making it sound like it's one long breath instead of a typewriter is the work of a lifetime, apparently. Here's what I'm working on, in order of how much it scares me.

1. The bowing. Nobody actually knows how Bach bowed it. His own manuscript of the suites is lost, and one of the main copies we have was made by his wife, Anna Magdalena, whose slur markings are, let's say, open to interpretation. Every edition disagrees. I'm using the International edition, which was edited by Leonard Rose, who was Yo-Yo Ma's teacher, which feels right. Mrs. Wiesner and I have changed about a third of the slurs anyway.

2. The string crossings. The opening pattern rocks back and forth across three strings. If my right arm is stiff, every crossing makes a little bump and the whole thing sounds lumpy. Fix: lead from the elbow, keep the wrist loose, and practice the crossings on open strings first, very slow, until it sounds like water.

3. The shape. The notes keep moving, but the harmony underneath moves much slower, and that's what you're supposed to be bringing out: where the bass note changes, where it's going, where it arrives. I've been marking the bass notes in pencil and playing just those, one per beat, to hear the real tune hiding underneath.

4. The pause in the middle. Halfway through, the music stops on a long note and takes a breath. I always rush out of it because I'm nervous about what comes next. Mrs. Wiesner says to count a full beat of silence after it in my head. It feels like a year. It sounds like the right amount.

5. The climb at the end. The part I love most and the part that falls apart most. The open D string keeps sounding under a line that creeps up and up, note by note, and it has to build the whole way without getting louder too early. If I start at forte I have nowhere to go. Start small. Save it. Then the last chord, and let it ring.

6. Tempo. I listen to his 1983 recording and his newer one from Inspired by Bach and they don't sound the same at all, and both are right. Mrs. Wiesner's rule: pick a tempo I can play with a pulse I could dance to, then don't change it because I'm nervous. Metronome at home, no metronome at the audition.

Part two: the audition plan
for the class entering next fall

I'm applying to five places: the New England Conservatory, Oberlin, Eastman, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and one long shot I'm not going to name in case I jinx it. Applications are due around December 1. Most want a pre-screening tape first, and then, if they like the tape, a live audition in February or March. Here's what nearly all of them ask for, and what I'm playing:

They ask for	I'm playing
Two contrasting movements of a Bach suite	The Prelude and the Sarabande from Suite No. 1. One that flows, one that sings.
A movement of a standard concerto	Saint-Saëns, Concerto No. 1 in A minor. It's all one movement, so I'm doing the opening section, up to the little minuet in the middle.
An étude	A Popper étude from the High School of Cello Playing, the one with all the thumb position. My left thumb has a permanent dent.
Scales and arpeggios	Three octaves, every key, and four in a few. Every morning before school, twenty minutes, no excuses.
Sight-reading	Lindsey and I trade music we haven't seen and read it cold at each other once a week. It's terrifying and it's working.

The tape. We're recording in November in the church where my youth orchestra rehearses, because it has the best sound I know. My dad is borrowing a good tape deck and a microphone from a friend. I get three tries at each piece and then I have to live with it.

Part three: the log
the last few entries, copied out of the spiral notebook

Saturday, September 4. Two hours. Prelude at half tempo with the metronome, just the string crossings. Sounded like water for about four bars at a time. Progress.

Wednesday, September 8. First lesson of the fall. Mrs. Wiesner listened to the whole prelude without stopping me, which she never does, and then said the climb at the end was "a shout, not a crescendo." She's right. Back to starting small.

Sunday, September 12. Played the prelude for my grandmother, the one who gave me the cassette when I was eight. I didn't tell her what it was. She knew by the second bar and had to go get a tissue. Best audition I'll ever have.

Tuesday, September 14. Scales, Popper, Saint-Saëns, prelude. The climb at the end worked twice out of five. Two out of five is better than zero out of five, which was last month. Ten weeks until the tape.

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last updated September 14, 1999