The Art of Listening

Introduction

The Art of Listening: Conversations with Cellists, published in 2020, contains interviews of thirteen cellists by Anthony Arnone. Arnone is an Associate Professor of Cello at the University of Iowa School of Music.

I learned about this book from The Cello Sherpa Podcast of March 10, 2023, when Joel Dallow interviewed Anthony Arnone. Since my local bookstore was unable to order the book for me, I ordered the book directly from the publisher.

In each interview, Arnone asks a standard series of questions to elicit each cellist’s responses about playing and teaching cello.

I read this book from the point of view of an adult beginner who will never have the time to devote to becoming an excellent player on the cello because he doesn’t have enough lifetime left. Because of this, my notes in this post may not contain topics of interest for a young person who intends to be a professional cellist.

This book contains a lot of information and experience that is useful to a university or conservatory student or to a musician who has students. There are many entertaining stories and reminiscences. But I feel like many of these teachers are behind the times for how they approach teaching.

I have some some nitpicks about the book. The title does not give a hint about what the book is about. The text is set using a tiny font size. The index is missing many topics. There are many minor transcription, formatting, and editing errors. The cover art was produced by an artist who had no idea what a cello really looks like. Fortunately, these problems do not detract seriously from the book.

As a cello novice and an older adult student, I enjoyed reading this book, and I learned a great deal about how cello should be taught and how students should practice.

The Cellists

The cellists interviewed by Anthony Arnone are all in the later years of their careers, and they speak from the accumulation of long experience at teaching. I am younger at age 71 than all but three of these cellists. Remarkably, as far as I can tell, all are still alive. (I could not find the year of birth for all of the cellists, in which case I made an estimate based on what was said in the interviews.)

• Richard Aaron (1959–)
• Colin Carr (1957–)
• Steven Doane (1950–)
• Timothy Eddy (c. 1946–)
• Stephen Geber (c. 1943–)
• Bonnie Hampton (c. 1935–)
• Gary Hoffman (1956–)
• Hans Jørgen Jensen (1950–)
• Paul Katz (1941–)
• Ronald Leonard (c. 1934–)
• Laurence Lesser (c. 1939–)
• Raphael Wallfisch (1953–)
• Helga Winold (c. 1940–)

Teaching Approaches

What I observed repeatedly in the interviews is that when these famous teachers started, they had no idea how to teach. When these instructors learned their craft, teaching (pedagogy) was not taught in the music schools. Or if it was (for music education students), some teachers (János Starker, for one) looked down on the students because they were not trying to become “real” musicians. Through experience, many of these instructors learned how or what not to teach, but their early students suffered from bad teaching approaches.

Here is an example from Anthony Arnone’s interview with Stephen Geber:

A.A. Do you give [students] bowings and fingerings? Are you pretty consistent or do you let them discover their own?

S.G. I used to be so regimented in that regard. You take these bowings, you take these fingerings, and that’s that. I got away from that. I would demonstrate for them. This is what works for me. You try it. If it doesn’t work, then you find a way and show me.

Many instructors demonstrate much less than when they started teaching because they learn that it’s not effective.

Technical Foundation

The basics of playing cello include good rhythm, playing in tune, a beautiful vibrato, and good tone and projection. To learn these, a student must develop the ability to practice.

Most of the instructors complain that their students haven’t mastered the basics:

• scales
• arpeggios
• thirds
• sixths
• octaves

This is also a topic of discussion on the Stand Partners for Life podcast; orchestra players are so busy learning new orchestral pieces that they don’t have time to practice the fundamentals until they notice a decline in their ability to play certain kinds of music.

Practicing

Teachers know they need to teach their students how to practice efficiently and productively. But teachers acknowledge that they are not themselves consistent in practicing. Students often avoid the drudgery of practicing. And students often practice inefficiently, where long hours of practice result in little progress. Perhaps for all of these reasons, some teachers are reluctant to ask their students how much they practice.

Different teachers have different expectations for how much their students should practice, and many expect university/conservatory students to put in four or even five hours a day.

As an aside, I mention here that recent evidence in neuroscience strongly suggests that practicing can be more efficient with shorter, focused hours. See the book by Molly Gebrian, Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing. I am reading this book now, and I plan to provide a review here on my blog.

Some tips for practicing are:

• Use the first hour for scales and arpeggios.
• Practice all of the major and minor scales in three octaves.
• Everyone recommends slow practice. Start from where you can play it really well.
• Real learning comes from your own discovery.
• Use a metronome. Practicing at half tempo can work well for learning a piece.
• Playing scales slowly is more for the bow than for the left hand.
• Practice performing, where you can’t stop when you make a mistake.

Études

It’s my experience that instructors use the études they learned from, but this is probably not true for all instructors. These were the studies mentioned by the various instructors, listed alphabetically by composer:

• Cossmann: Studies For Development of Agility of Fingers For Cello
• Duport: 21 Studies for Cello
• Feuillard: Daily Exercises
• Franchomme: 12 Studies, Op. 35 - Cello
• Galamian: Scale System, Volume 1, Volume 2
• Grützmacher: Études (With Thumb Position), Op. 38
• Klengel: Technical Studies for Violoncello
• Merk: 20 Studies, Op. 11
• Piatti: 12 Caprices Op. 25 For Cello
• Popper: High School of Cello Playing Op. 73
• Popper: Studies Preparatory to the High School of Cello Playing Op. 76
• Sevčík: 40 Variations Op 3 For Cello

These studies are available from IMSLP and string instrument stores.

An approach to Popper for a serious student is to work on three studies each week, starting a new one each week and taking away the oldest one, so the student works on each study for three weeks.

Intonation

Instructors seek to make intonation the student’s problem, because until the student realizes their intonation is not good, they make no effort to improve it.

• Use drones, tuners, and apps.
  • Using the ear works better than using a tuner.
  • Drone the dominant when playing scales.
• Listen for and use overtones.
• Listen for activation of open strings by sympathetic vibrations.
• Work on scales and arpeggios.
• Balance major thirds and leading tones against open strings.
• Tighten up the fifths when tuning the cello.

Vibrato

The cellists all state that vibrato is extremely difficult to teach. Some instructors don’t like their own vibrato. Some instructors complain that modern cello playing contains too much vibrato (showing the influence of the historically informed practice movement for Baroque cello).

Every instructor has a different approach for producing good vibrato. For example, playing scales in thirds, sixths, and octaves can help with learning vibrato.

The CelloBello website has many videos devoted to learning vibrato, and there are countless YouTube videos about this topic.

Movement

• Many instructors say that bowing begins with the back muscles.
  • The hand hardly moves; it balances the bow, but bowing begins with the back.
  • Shifting begins with the back muscles.
• Use the torso.
• Use contrary movement; lean to the left at the tip, lean to the right at the frog. (But János Starker was famous for moving very little when he played.)
• Try Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, or yoga to become aware of how your body moves.

Tension

• A cellist should be relaxed, not tense.
• Nearly all cellists, especially students, are tense.
• Keep breathing when you play. Inhale on the down bow. Exhale on the up bow. Exhale slower so the up bow is slower than the down bow.

Nerves

All instructors say everyone is nervous when performing, and stage fright is a real and sometimes debilitating condition. One way to deal with this is to practice performing by giving performances to fellow musicians and nonmusical friends. Some instructors say to work on relaxing while playing to reduce bodily tension.

Finding Your Own Voice

• It’s very hard to teach a student to find their own voice.
• Many students end up sounding like their instructor.
• In order to sound different, you have to do something different with your body.
• Listening to recordings can be helpful, but some instructors don’t want their students to do this.
• Attend live concerts rather than watching YouTube.

Memorization

Instructors have different opinions on whether students should memorize music. Some say memorization is good because you can focus on your playing rather than on reading the music. But instructors acknowledge that memorization is difficult or even impossible for some students.

Playing Bach

Anner Bylsma is admired by most of the instructors for the historically informed performance movement, which is influential in how to play the cello in our century. Players are encouraged to promote and enjoy the resonances of the cello when playing Bach. Playing with a Baroque bow makes many of the passages sound better.