Today’s Cello Thought for the Day comes from my very dear teacher, Natalia Pavlutskaya. One of the very first things she said to me when I started studying with her aged 18 was this: “Good technique is the easiest way.”
What a liberating thought!
We spend so much of our practice-room lives wondering “Am I doing this right? Is my arm supposed to be higher, or lower? Are my knuckles supposed to be curved, or flat? Should my endpin be higher/lower? Am I using the right rosin/strings/bridge/tailpiece?”
What would happen if instead, we asked ourselves just one question: “Is this the easiest way I could accomplish this task?”
If so, hooray! Mastery achieved!
If not, what could we do to expend the least amount of physical effort in accomplishing it?
Miranda Wilson 