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Adventures at the 2018 ASTA Conference

3/12/2018

A storm was headed our way...

with a projected 6-12 inches of snow! We packed the rented Ford Expedition with books and displays (thanks to amazing glassmaker John Koutsouros!) and headed out early Wednesday morning. My mom (Judy Harvey) was going to fly but we knew the flights would be canceled so she came along for the ride.

The ride was rough for a few hours but around the time we hit Virginia, things started looking sunny.

We stopped for lunch/dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant.

El Restaurante Ixtapa deserved every good Yelp review it got;
the fish tacos were to die for.

When we pulled into the Hyatt Regency Atlanta,

we were absolutely exhausted and ready to sleep. However, there were only two single beds for three people. The Hyatt Regency Atlanta said they couldn't bring in a cot because of the fire codes and suggested that one person sleep on the floor. (Bear in mind that none of this was told to us at booking.) You never know what you'll get when you travel!

Anyway, Myanna headed out the next day to get an air mattress. And an air pump. That didn't work because it needed a car cigarette lighter for power. Hmm.

Judy came to the rescue with an unorthodox solution!

Never would have thought of this but it actually worked!

Conference setup day!

It's a mammoth task to unload a "tank" full of book boxes and displays, drag it all up to an exhibit hall, and set it up. This year was better because we had a proper cart.

Glamorous booth set up...

Finally set up.

Almost ready to open.

Beautiful hotel elevator ride

photo by Judy Harvey

The conference was amazing!

We met many wonderful teachers and the booth was humming with activity. I loved the chance to interact with musicians from all over the country and talk string technique. From cello shifting to violin scales, we had fabulous conversations and (happily for our aching arms and backs) came home with empty book boxes.

If you are thinking of attending at ASTA conference, definitely try it out; there were so many great sessions and just the coolest people ever. Hope to see you next year in Albuquerque!

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Free Cello Technique Lesson: Lee Etude No. 2, Op. 31

3/5/2018

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Etudes bridge the gap between exercises and pieces.

Etudes can be more melodic than pure technical exercises and this helps you get closer to what you’d actually play in a piece.

Etudes can also be called "Studies" and they are important for helping you practice technical exercises in the context of something a little more like music. Some Etudes are even performed in concerts!

Today, let's focus on Etude No. 2 "Exercise on the Legato" from 40 Melodic and Progressive Etudes, Op. 31, by the cellist Sebastian Lee. Legato refers to notes that are smooth and connected. Lee helps teach legato by using slurs of eight notes at a time.

Etude No. 2: Exercise on the Legato

Here's a sneak peek of Lee's Etude No. 2, Op. 31. The exercises that follow will help you learn and master this etude. The entire etude is after the exercises (See Step Seven.)

Step One: Learn the Positions that Lee Uses

You can get to know the notes Lee used in this etude by playing the short exercises below. For more work, or to learn 2nd, 3rd, and 4th positions from the beginning, see the “Recommended Position Methods” below. Cello shifting isn't hard! It's just a matter of learning where to put your hand and remembering how to get there.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Positions Used

Cello Shifting Exercise for Lee Etude No. 2

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Positions Across Strings

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Learning More Positions

Step Two: Work on the shifts one at a time

By playing the shifts in a variety of ways, including changing slur patterns and rhythms, and using shorter sections of the measure, you can learn the shift more thoroughly.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Shifting Technique

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
More Cello Shifting

Step Three: Work on the bowing

Cello shifting is only part of learning this etude. Next, start to work on the slurs by playing Measures 1-16 with only 4 notes to a bow. Then, use staccato (stopping the bow sharply on the string for each note) to help you divide the bow up into 8 even sections. This helps you fit all 8 notes in a bow that Lee has you learning. Staccato is a great way to learn to play long slurs.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Bowing Technique

Step Four: More Shifting Practice

These shifts have you going back and forth from fourth position to harmonic A on the A string. While this is awkward, make sure you use 3rd finger, as it is generally agreed that this is the easiest finger to use when going back and forth from harmonic A. Watch out for the rhythm in the last measure of each exercise below; make sure you play the quarter note so that it is twice as long as the eighth notes!

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Shifting

Step Five: The Challenging Part!

These exercises help you learn the most complicated part of the etude. Start in fourth position on the D string, play the easy pattern (1414), and then practice shifting back and forth one half step before continuing with the pattern in each new position.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Positions

In measures 25-32, Lee has you start in fourth position, play a pattern across strings, move back one half step, and play a similar pattern. You can shift back or extend back for the half-step changes, however it might help to extend first so you can learn how far back to move (it's harder to go too far if your hand is stretching!).

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Across Strings & Extending

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
More Cello Extensions

The cello exercise below still simplifies Lee's etude but helps you get closer to what he wrote. By the end of practicing the "Putting it Back Together" exercise below, you should be ready to tackle measures 25-32 in the Lee Etude.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Fluency

Step Six: Final Shifts and String Crossing Practice

These exercises help you work on the cello positions and string crossing patterns at the end of the etude. Using open strings to learn string crossing can take away the distraction of the left hand and let you focus on balancing your bow across the strings. Feel for a relaxed right hand and arm as you cross strings and work toward getting the smoothest sound possible when you play.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Shifting & String Crossing

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Smoother Bowing

Step Seven: Play the entire etude.

As you play, focus on shifting correctly, playing even notes inside each slur, and keeping your bow hand relaxed for the smoothest sound possible.

Tip: If you still find yourself running out of bow, try moving the bow on the string down toward the bridge, about 1/2-1 inch. The string has more tension closer to the bridge and your bow will naturally go a little slower as it plays closer to the bridge.

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Etude Op. 40, No. 2

Lee Etude No. 2, Op. 31, with exercises by Cassia Harvey

Step Eight: Take the technique you've learned and use it to help you play pieces and repertoire!

Exercises and etudes can help you master the entire cello. I love how efficient exercises and etudes are; they have a huge impact on the rest of my practice. If you have any questions, send me an email at info@charveypublications.com.

Have fun playing!

-Cassia Harvey

Check out other Early-Intermediate Cello Books that can help you improve!

Recommended Position Methods for this Etude

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How to get a 9-year-old girl to fall in love with cello exercises.

3/3/2018

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When I was a little girl, my younger sister Myanna took violin lessons from Estelle Kerner. Mrs. Kerner exuded all of the old-world glamour of the music world that I was craving. She had a hair net and wore clothes that looked right out of Tsarist Russia. Lots of makeup and copious quantities of white face powder completed her look.

Her soft calm voice had steel running through it and I was both scared and enthralled. Myanna was five years old and as she stood in countless hour-long lessons for the next thirteen years, Mrs. Kerner helped her fall in love with music and the violin. It was only many years after that that I realized how much Mrs. Kerner had changed my life as well.

You see, Mrs. Kerner taught with Schradieck and Sevcik (multiple volumes), with Wohlfahrt and Mazas and Kreutzer, with Flesch and Galamian and with a slow but extremely methodical march through Rieding and Kuchler and Vivaldi and Bach Violin Concertos, all the way up through Bruch and Brahms and Paganini.

Schradieck's School Of Violin Technics

I looked at Myanna's pages of Schradieck and Sevcik finger exercises with envy and tried in vain to play them on the cello. I realized almost immediately that the notes wouldn't work on cello, even an octave lower. I needed to know the ideas behind the notes and transfer those ideas to the cello. And I knew that I didn't have the knowledge to figure out those ideas yet.

My fingers didn't work well; they felt slow and plodding compared to Myanna's. My teacher gave me just two measures of a Feuillard page and five measures of Sevcik Op. 8 shifting each week. When I asked her for more pages of Feuillard and more lines of Sevcik, she said "Oh sweetie, you don't need those!"

Two Measures of Feuillard's Daily Exercises

Five Measures of Sevcik's Op. 8

My mother was horrified.

She saw Myanna getting better steadily and at the same time, she saw me struggling technically. So she did what any good mother might: she took me to the sheet music store and (even though money was really tight), she told me to pick out what I needed. I still have the Werner method and some of the other books I bought and devoured back then.

With Mrs. Kerner's teaching an ever-present influence, I began to give myself the best technical foundation that I could paste together from the method and exercise books I bought. All through my teens, with other teachers and harder music, I kept searching for and buying exercises until I hit a wall. There just wasn't a Schradieck for the cello. Klengel, with his Daily Exercises, came the closest. But his book started in half position and got complicated too soon and my students were struggling. I needed more shifting exercises than I could find. I desperately needed more work up and down the A string as I was playing Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations...

So I started writing my own exercises.

It was a heady feeling, realizing that I would never run out of exercises again. The first book I published was Serial Shifting; Exercises for the Cello: a different take on the Sevcik Op. 8 concept of moving through the positions:

And the second book I published was my very own book of Finger Exercises for the Cello so I could have faster fingers, at last.

So this blog is written for

everyone out there trying to play their instrument better. For teachers looking for their own version of Schradieck. For everyone who has had a technical weakness and hasn't known where to start to overcome it. For everyone who has had a sister (or a stand partner) with faster fingers.

And this blog is dedicated to three women:

Estelle Kerner, who showed me what teaching could accomplish and how to craft a solid foundation for a student.
Judith Harvey, who herself fell in love with violin exercises and who taught her 9-year-old daughter to go looking for books that might help solve her problems.
and my teacher at the time, who showed me the limits of teaching without enough exercises. And who, by withholding more studies, made me desperate to find and then write them. All three of these women helped a 9-year-old girl fall deeply in love with exercises as a means of learning and teaching a stringed instrument.

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Adventures at the 2018 ASTA Conference

A storm was headed our way...

We stopped for lunch/dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant.

When we pulled into the Hyatt Regency Atlanta,

Conference setup day!

Glamorous booth set up...

Finally set up.

Almost ready to open.

Beautiful hotel elevator ride

The conference was amazing!

Are You a String Teacher?​Sign Up for our Teacher List!

Free Cello Technique Lesson: Lee Etude No. 2, Op. 31

Etudes bridge the gap between exercises and pieces.

Etude No. 2: Exercise on the Legato

Step One: Learn the Positions that Lee Uses

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesCello Positions Used

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesPositions Across Strings

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesLearning More Positions

Step Two: Work on the shifts one at a time

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesCello Shifting Technique

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesMore Cello Shifting

Step Three: Work on the bowing

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesCello Bowing Technique

Step Four: More Shifting Practice

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesCello Shifting

Step Five: The Challenging Part!

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesCello Positions

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesAcross Strings & Extending

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesMore Cello Extensions

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesFluency

Step Six: Final Shifts and String Crossing Practice

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesShifting & String Crossing

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesSmoother Bowing

Step Seven: Play the entire etude.

Free Lee Cello Etude StudiesEtude Op. 40, No. 2

Step Eight: Take the technique you've learned and use it to help you play pieces and repertoire!

Want to print these exercises out and play them?Sign up to get a free PDF of these exercises in Ebook form and learn about sales, discounts, and free book offers!

Recommended Position Methods for this Etude

How to get a 9-year-old girl to fall in love with cello exercises.

Schradieck's School Of Violin Technics

Two Measures of Feuillard's Daily Exercises

Five Measures of Sevcik's Op. 8

My mother was horrified.

So I started writing my own exercises.

So this blog is written for

And this blog is dedicated to three women:

Authors

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Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Positions Used

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Positions Across Strings

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Learning More Positions

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Shifting Technique

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
More Cello Shifting

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Bowing Technique

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Shifting

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Cello Positions

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Across Strings & Extending

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
More Cello Extensions

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Fluency

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Shifting & String Crossing

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Smoother Bowing

Free Lee Cello Etude Studies
Etude Op. 40, No. 2

Want to print these exercises out and play them?

Sign up to get a free PDF of these exercises in Ebook form and learn about sales, discounts, and free book offers!

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