Life

The Way Out

Yu-Ting

By releasing condemnation and resentment, we free ourselves. This does not mean we do not set boundaries, or have to be in a relationship with those who harm and manipulate us. It does not excuse or condone any abuse, but it is only by letting ourselves off the hook, could we free energy up into writing our authentic life script.

If we could accept our own anger, of our parents’ limitations, and of the trauma embedded in our collective humanity across history — we are liberating not just ourselves, but we are also doing something of transpersonal meaning. Like a ripple that will evolve into a wave, you could be contributing to a universal healing force in the world.

Our history is a part of us, but it does not represent or define us.

At any given moment, we could give ourselves the permission to be a free, autonomous being, not weighed down by our past or baggage we have carried for our family of origin.

It is never too late to give yourselves the freedom that you deserve.

from Invisible Wounds of the Sensitive, Empathic and Emotionally Intense Child

Chic Assignments

July Chic Assignment No. 1

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Chic Assignment no. 1: Watch Andre Rieu Grand Valse Viennoise

The last concert I went to watch was the Cambrian Symphony season finale concert. It was a bit of a last minute decision for me to go and I didn’t dress up or anything. I think next time I’d like to dress up and have a good meal to have the complete concert experience.

I could even have an in house concert viewing! The Berlin Philharmonic has a digital concert hall and I can put the concert up on the wall to watch. I wouldn’t mind watching Khatia Buniatishvili’s iTunes Festival concert again too.

Life · Sheet Music

Drawing Parallels

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After teaching two lessons yesterday, I went up to the city to get a lesson with David. What did I bring in? I brought in Feuillard and started looking at it from the very beginning. I learned that you can learn and teach the fundamental principles from just the first lesson. Things like…
– Committing to the tempo and rhythm.
– Playing with an anacrusis. When you start from silence and when you change notes.
– Keeping all fingers on the bow.
– Keeping your bow glued to the string.
– Legato really means cresendo on the down bow and decresendo on the up bow.
– Making sure your fingers can tap all the way down to make a louder pizzicato sound.

I have a lot of etude books with varying degrees of difficulty and I’m discovering that the things I need to work on the most are the basic principles regardless if the content is difficult or easy. If I were to master these principles in the easy pieces, playing the difficult pieces will be a lot easier. This draws parallel to the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People book that I’m reading. When it comes down to it, we become better people by following the principles discussed in the book. Instead of saying “guiding principles”–Covey calls them habits. Why? Because people who live by principles live according to their habits.

Now I’m off to following the principles that we discussed about in the Feuillard. I plan on practicing until it becomes habit–which in turn will make me a better teacher and cellist.

Sheet Music

The Young Violoncellist’s Method by L.R. Feuillard (Entry 1)

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I’m going to be spending the next day or so going over this method book by Louis Feuillard. I’m losing my endurance for playing my instrument and I’ve decided to just go through my music library and sight-read everything that I have.

This was the first etude book that I ever bought and I don’t really use it often with my students since I’m using the Suzuki book mostly. I think it might be good to have students get this book before getting the Schroeder Etudes book. I usually have my students start Schroeder when they get to Suzuki Book 2–so it might be good for them to start the Feuillard when they are working on Book 1 or maybe even Pre-Twinkle.

Cover/Page 1

Who was Louis Feuillard?

Louis Feuillard was the cello professor at the Paris Conservatory. He was the teacher of Paul Tortelier. Other than that, I can’t seem to find much information about him. He was a good teacher, but perhaps not a the best performer as mentioned in this All Things Strings article:

Louis Feuillard (1872–1941) formed a quartet that toured in England, but later he hardly performed—perhaps with good reason. Alfredo Casella recalled premiering Ravel’s trio with Feuillard in 1914: “I played the trio with two mediocre performers. Although we had about 20 rehearsals, they managed to achieve several blunders.” However, Feuillard was a dedicated professor at the Conservatoire; his student Paul Tortelier observed that he had an extrordinary pedagogical sense.

The book was edited by S. Patte. No idea who that is unfortunately. I don’t know why they decided to publish this book without their full names.

Life · Vacation

The last week of summer

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This week is essentially my last week of summer vacation. Next week I’ll be taking one week for the Orff Masterclass in San Francisco followed by another 2 weeks of Orff for Level 3. I’m super excited for that!

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is milage. I’ve been thinking about the term in every aspect of my life.. playing the cello, teaching, running, etc. Such as cello for instance. During my first 4 years, I put a lot of hours into cello while being ineffective. These last 4 years have been only effectiveness–but I didn’t put a lot of hours at all. It is like the first four years I’ve traveled to multiple destinations but didn’t get the point. The next four years I was taking time to smell the roses but I don’t get to a destination at all.

Now that I’ve reached my 9th year of my musician/teacher career track.. I think a healthy combination of milage and effectiveness is in my future. Perhaps then I’ll reach my destination in life!

So how will I spend my last week of summer? I’m planning go do what I’ve been doing the last few weeks… eating, sleeping, practicing all my instruments, running. I should clean up today though since I don’t think I’ll prioritize that once the school year starts.