Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
The new strings performed quite well for my accompaniment of My Dear Miss Chancellor. I definitely don't regret leaving them on for the performance. One of the actors remarked that the cello that night sounded particularly rich and full toned. The other cellist who plays on nights I'm not there has a much quieter-sounding cello, so any comments about richness are received with a large grain of salt, since everyone just had the other cello in their ears.
I was very interested to note that when I was playing with a practice mute (and about half the show is done with a practice mute on, to keep from overwhelming the actors), the silver G string and tungsten C string have very different overtones, with the G being much more mellow, and the C being much more harsh. Without the mute, I can't really hear the difference. I assume the difference is still there, but overwhelmed by the primary tone of the strings so that over- and undertones are relatively much quieter.
Part of my attempt at bettering myself through practice was to try filming myself playing through one of the songs, to see if there were any obvious physical things I might be able to improve. This was a profound mistake. I watched the recording with the sound on, and was horrified at pretty much every aspect of what I heard: intonation off and wandering, squawking bow strokes, grating tone, and the sound was at least a quarter tone sharp of what I hear when playing.
This video abomination had one good effect, though, which was that I practiced more than an hour each of the following days, trying to tighten up the problems I heard in the recording. I discovered that my bow strokes were much nicer sounding with all the bow hair hitting the string (for years, I've been in the habit of holding the bow rolled toward me, so that only about half the hair hits the string). Getting myself to do that every time is still a challenge, but at least I'm aware of it. I think I started rolling the bow toward myself in an attempt to play more quietly, but that choice was made decades ago, when I was still playing on a regular basis.
I'm still getting used to my new cello, so my ability to solidly hit the 5th interval in 4th position is not yet there. On the other hand, I'm getting much more willing to drop into 2nd and 3rd positions to simplify string crossings, although my intonation is still on the shaky side, as it is anywhere outside 1st position.
I'm looking forward to all these new strings playing in, with the hope that their sounds will mellow out a bit. At the moment, I'm more pleased with the silver G than the tungsten C, but that may change as they wear in. I also need to remember to get a piece of parchment glued onto the bridge under the A string, since the notch is noticeably larger than the string diameter of the new Larsen.
So, overall pleased, but waiting to see what develops with some more use.
Posted at 11:33 permanent link category: /misc
Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater