Long-term Relationships

There is learning a new piece.

And there is that deep learning that unfolds when nourishing a long-term relationship to a piece.

When learning a new piece of music, there is this initial overwhelm consisting of pitches and rhythms, dynamics and phrasings, bow technique, intonation, being able to simply play from beginning to end without stopping.

But after that…

-magic can happen.

When you can play your piece without deciphering the sheet music. When you can play your piece from memory, perhaps? When you can play your piece from beginning to end, and rather than thinking about how that symbol on the page relates to your instrument, you have all the space in your awareness for those things that we are honing throughout our lives: a more finely adjusted intonation, timbre, expression, the interpretation of the moment, emotion, subtleties in rhythm and phrasing. A one-time version of your piece that was never heard before and will never be heard again.

The next time, you will discover another unique interpretation based on how your thoughts and emotions meet your cello on that occasion.

This is the case for the simplest of pieces. Think of the piece you are learning right now, or a piece you’ve already learnt. What will unfold if you decide to keep on playing this piece every time you practice your cello, for the next 10 days? Alternatively, and this resembles what I’m doing, revisit your piece once a week, or every two weeks, for the coming year. And see what happens.

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Some years ago, I started to fully appreciate the technical aspect of playing the 6 Bach Suites for solo cello, and I added them one by one to my mental library of long-term relationships. They are always as challenging to play as they are rewarding. (‘Always’ is a strong word that I use carefully.)

I realized at some point that each Suite has a color palette, in my experience of playing them for several years. I share my colors in the image below. Have you had a similar experience?